Northern Poem Contest

Please EVERYONE make your vote for Best Northern Poem on the sidebar!!! Winner Gets a WICKED AWESOME Nunavut hat! Voting will be open for a week, so HURRY!!!


Kennie (from Tales from the Arctic)

There must be someway out of here,
Other than First Air,
My flight was canceled again,
I can’t get another seat.
Aeroplan, they take my points,
Air Canada, redirected my luggage
None of them along the line realize how pissed I am.

No reason to get excited, I can’t get no Vitamin D,
The sun is gone below the mountains, it’s hard to see
I don’t know when it’s day or night, and this is not the end,
In five short months, the sun won’t go away.

All along the Arctic tundra, the ravens keep circling,
While all the Qadlunaat, wandering blurry eyed came and went.

Outside in the distance a Polar Bear did growl,
Two Hondas were approaching, guns began to sound.

**********
Colby (6 years old, son of Tina & Rob from Just Below 63)

LIVING IN THE COLD NORTH

BY COLBY SCHWARTZ

We live in the cold,
We won’t be here until we are old.

We like to play in the snow,
We yell “sliding we will go”.

We live next to a gas bar,
For snacks, we don’t have to walk far.

It gets dark early in the night,
Soon it will be all light.

I take a bus to school,
I think that it is really cool.

I go to school at EMES,
If you don’t know what it stands for, you have to guess!

Ravens sit on our satellite dish,
Maybe this poem will win me a prize, I wish!

By Colby Schwartz, age 6

With a little help from Mommy


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Kara (from Matt, Kara & Baby Hunter)

Where is the sunshine
That elusive sunshine
It makes me happpyyyy when days are long
You’ll never know sun
How much I miss you
So please come back to me soooooonn

The other night dear
Or was it at nooooon?
When I dreamt of grass so green
When I woke up
At noon in darkness
I take my vitamin and cryyyy

Where is the sunshine
That elusive sunshine
I am going nuts with winter so longgg
Its only 2 weeks
Till I get to Faro
Sun please meet me there soooonn


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Clare (from The House & Other Arctic Musings)

ADAMS SOUND

You don’t even notice it at first
This silence so profound.
You’re so taken with the red wall of rock
Rising out of the frozen sea.

When you turned off the machine
To search for the Falcon, a
Small white blurr against
This expanse of rock.

It is then you realize that
There is no sound.
There is always sound!
Where is it now?

There is always sound,
The hum of lights the laugh
Of your child at play
But nothing breaks this vacumn

As you squint into the distance,
And ache for a break in the silence
It comes on black wings
Whistling above your head

And then you know,
This, this is what the world sounded like
When it was young.


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Kate Nova (from Port Town Ghosts)

When I feel as common as a kitchen
I stand as tall as god's grand house
Left the dishes on the counter
I left you with little else

And now the dogs, they just keep barking
at a sun that never sets
and my phone's long stop ringing
but I'm not tired yet


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Jennifer (from Nunablog)

I Live Here


“Where do you live?” she was asked.
“In the brown igluvigak by the inuksugak.” was the reply.
“No, I mean where do you really live?”

---

When we moved to the north, we made a choice
To come to a place where we would have a voice
Filling in where we thought there was need
Leaving behind the traffic and the greed

So excited we were to sell all our stuff
Without it we know we still have enough
Life is simpler up here and more relaxed too
If you take the time there’s always something to do

Our family and friends we left far behind
But here in this town we found a new kind
New family, new friends, a new culture to boot
We’ve learned so much but our horns we won’t toot

We try to learn the language though it is hard
From daytime lessons as teachers we’re barred
We know we mess up, but friends give us credit
They know if they help us eventually we’ll get it

As we learn about this culture and this territory
(It makes both a sad and an uplifting story)
We notice “southerners” need more comprehend
And we vow to make a difference to that end

We tell them it’s “Noonavoot”, not “Nonavit”
We want them to see and to be proud of it
For this place is Canada, our country, our heart
This place, these people were here from the start

The beauty of the land and of the people
We still find to be more than ample
Looking out at the horizon as I don my lip balm
Fills my heart with a sense of abandon and calm

Although we left things familiar and comfy alike
And though there are challenges up, down, left and right
We know we live here, right in this spot
We will stay until no more spark we have got

To think of leaving makes my heart so sad
I’m just not sure - sometimes it’s so bad
We love things up here, simple and strange
When things get too hard, we will make a change

But this is the life for now we have chosen
Here in this beautiful land that is frozen
And while we live here, no matter how long
Not visitors, no, - Nunavumiutt strong!


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Indigo

Ode to the mineral guys and my eyes

Diamond dust
a beautiful sight
glittering, refracting
Baffin Island light

Crystals floating
in the air
like tiny gemstones
they are everywhere

----

Don't eat yellow snow

the arctic winter is cold, white and dark.
morning is a vague term in the arctic winter
the rythms of sleep and a full bladder are the best indication of morning
the arctic winter is cold, white and dark

----

Mr Clean

When I first came to the north in the eighties,
with my southern eyes
and sensible shoes,
I did not understand
why everyone went to the store
each day
it was open.
Anita's father asked her mother
do you want some of that bald headed guy
every day for forty years.
Now
I go to the store every day
and
I do know why