Video Poetry: Utility Pole
Utility Pole is based on a poem written and narrated by Vancouver’s poet laureate, Fiona Tinwei Lam, BA’86, MFA’02, and created in collaboration with Ontario poetry filmmaker Mary McDonald, MET’20.
A note from the poet:
"After traipsing up and down back alleys regularly for groceries, I started noticing telephone poles, which we so often overlook. I noticed that they would often be positioned near living trees. At the time, I was writing odes to ordinary things, inspired by Pablo Neruda's Odas Elementales. The poles seemed the perfect subject to honour through poetry."
Utility Pole
Fiona Tinwei Lam
Once a teeming green
cosmos. 130 million of you.
Southern Yellow Pine,
Pacific Silver Fir,
Lodgepole Pine, Jack Pine,
Western Red Cedar,
Douglas Fir.
Forest plunder
dismembered
into bald grey spines
soaked with creosote,
studding highways,
roadsides, alleys.
Column after rootless
column aligned
in a motionless
muletrain crisscrossing
the continent along
infinite grids.
Telegraph, telephone,
smart meter backhaul,
video service,
internet, cable TV,
transformers, fibre
optics, equipment
enclosures, disconnect
switches, electric
meters, streetlights.
Current, pulse,
signal now sing
in your cross-arms
as you route the human.
Only woodpeckers
remember, drill you
back into tree.
(From Odes & Laments, Caitlin Press, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by Fiona Tinwei Lam.)
