Ariel Gordon Siteseeing

Between February 2021 and March 2022, Ariel Gordon and Brenda Schmidt wrote a collaborative poetry manuscript, formatted like a call and response. Ariel intended to write about urban Manitoba, the city and its trees, and Brenda was to write about rural Saskatchewan and birds. Over the course of the year, the matter of place took over and the intentions branched and flew apart. They both wrote birds and trees but also moose and mushrooms, pronghorns and wild turkeys, and people making their way through it all. They wrote climate as it was manifested in drought-stressed trees and stunted crops covered in grasshoppers, in wildfires and wildfire smoke hanging over the prairies. They wrote home as they found it.
February 2021 to March 2022 was a period of great reflection for two of Canada's most celebrated poets. Ariel Gordon and Brenda Schmidt wrote collaborative poetry, formatted like a call and response. Ariel intended to write about urban Manitoba, the city and its trees, and Brenda was to write about rural Saskatchewan and birds. Over the course of the year, the matter of place took over and the intentions branched and flew apart. The poets wrote about the natural world and people making their way through it all. They wrote home as they found it, observing climate as it manifested in drought-stressed trees and stunted crops covered in grasshoppers, in wildfires and wildfire smoke hanging over the prairies. Survival, struggle, keen naturalist perception, and endless wit, bring forward the idea of hope, rejuvenation, and the generative power of community.