Joanne Arnott
Author photo of Joanne Arnott posing in front of a light ultramarine blue background. Arnott is wearing copper earrings, a bead necklace, and a shirt with blue and black prints.
Biography
Joanne Arnott is a writer, editor, arts activist, originally from Manitoba, at home on the west coast. She received the Gerald Lampert Award (LCP 1992) and the Vancouver Mayor’s Art Award for Literary Arts (2017). She published six poetry books, a collection of short nonfiction and a children’s illustrated. Recent publications include her third poetry chapbook, Pensive & beyond (Nomados Press 2019) and the co-edited volume, Honouring the Strength of Indian Women: Plays, Stories and Poetry by Vera Manuel (U of Manitoba Press 2019). She is Poetry Mentor for The Writers Studio, SFU, and Poetry Editor for EVENT Magazine. https://joannearnott3.blogspot.com/
Poetics Statement
“Poetry for me is the literary form closest to living, to breathing. Poems may arise directly from dreams, revery, witnessing: all we need do is articulate the moment, and others may enter in, share the experience.
The greatest weakness in a poem is editorializing, saying too much; the work of editing is often peeling back the poem to reveal the raw experience or insight, trusting the reader to receive and to form their own conclusions.
Developing the voice, an embodied delivery of your work, is key. In all forms of literature, vitality is the quality that readers and audiences respond to. This life essence is what the reader responds to, what the writer shares: it is the writer’s responsibility to get out of your own way, to be a clear channel.
I experienced childbearing often enough that it became my blueprint for all forms of creation. There is the long preamble or gestational period, the high energy birthing or coming into being, and the all-important post-natal care and tending.
As Lui Jo affirmed, “Given birth but not nourishment, we die.” The first wild spurt of creative expression is raw writing, from which public works of poetry may be drawn, polished.”
Sample of Poet's Work
She Is Riding
down through the suburban grey
streets dreamed by developers and
implemented for traffic floes
comes riding the turquoise-green Grandmother
riding her mighty Sow
onto the battlefield
down along the highway of decay she rides
between the crack house and on to piggy palace
where the spirits of the women are lifted
out of the horror, out of the muck, like
troubled teeth and bone fragments
their spirits gather and rise, and rise
all of our dead sisters lifted by those winged women
well-versed in the protocols of the battlefields
recognizing the existence of the battlefields, here
as along the highway of tears
shoulders back
open arms
open chested
the turquoise-green Grandmother breathes
along with each one of us still traveling
our inner-city streets
our turns on the quiet highways
our love affairs gone wrong
our villages overrun
shoulders back
open arms
open chested
letting flow the sounds of the inside
the sounds of our voices calling out songs of sorrow
the sounds of our drums rising through time and through sky
the sounds of our warm bodies traveling swift
through the families
and through the forests
shoulders back
open arms
open chested
we accompany our sisters and brothers to the threshold
we hold them until they are fled, and then
we hold them more
we accompany our mothers and our fathers
we accompany our children, our friends, and o
the many strangers, the stargazers
we hold our dying persons long, dwell
inside memory
we lay each one to rest
slowly
shoulders back
open arms
open chested
tears coursing from the inside
across the outside and wetting
our multihued skins
the touch of a warm palm in passing
through hair on a child’s head gently
the touch of lover to beloved
anywhere, at any time
the touch of grandmother’s warm palm
on the cheek of her adult offspring
or along the still hair on the Sow’s back
she is riding
when you
when you were adam
and i was eve
when i sought consolation
with the serpent
when i sought to nourish you
not with the milk of my breast
but with fresh fruit
when i had plucked
all of the flowers
from the garden
made you a bed
garlanded your pale thighs
your pink nipples peeking through
love-strewn petals
when you were a young prince
when i was rapunzel
when i had grown through girlhood
in the doorless tower built
by my parents’ neighbour
my mother
biting her tongue
for guilt
my father’s heart
crusted over
from all that breaking
when you heard my lovely song
and found the way to
trick your
way in
and made love to me
and suffered the con
sequences
and when in the fullness of time
only my tears
healed you
when i was the great goddess
and you were my king
and each spring
i sang to you, my back
pressed to the sapling
and you came
and i praised you
and i loved you
and you loved me
when you annoyed me
or you betrayed me
or you abandoned me
each time
i put you to death
and you died fully
and then i called you
and then you came to me
again
when i was a small mouse
and you were a farmer
you stopped the plow
and crouched beside me
took me up
in work-roughened fingers
and palm
you carried my small and
quivering self
high to your pink
angelic lips
and kissed me
when i was a leaf
of grass, a plant
at your window
when you were the burning
summer sun and the deep
taste of rain
when we turned the house
inside
out
and were captured
we wondered at
the hidden landscapes
we contained
when you were the wildfire
when i was the forest
you ran through me
crackling with joy
my leaves my twigs my needles
and low brambles
flamed up in hot desire
then died
devoured, limbs blackened
i stood empty
as you became the winter sun
so weak and low
slowly, slowly warming, my
hesitant greening
coyote prowling through the last
thin patches of snow
