Poetry from Victoria Park Collegiate Institute
With an introduction from Angela Rawlings

The poetry published in this special edition of Re:verse features eclectic offering from grade nine through twelve students at Victoria Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto. In November 2007, students participated in my weeklong Poetry Toolbox Workshop, designed to kick-start creativity, encourage editing, and introduce participants to alternative methods of composition.

You’ll find the hallmarks of youth poetry in this collection – with popular topics of love and death – as well as a healthy dose of contemporary language and experimentation with syntax, replete with unusual subject matter. Students produced a wide array of poetry, including stream-of-consciousness, sound-focused texts, response poems, list poems, cut-up techniques, and erasure texts. Some
elected to bring previously written poems to class so they could receive special editorial feedback.

Whatever your literary leanings, Victoria Park’s poetry promises to surprise and intrigue.

In “Corruption of Meaning,” the writers extend the poetic thesis of their title into a soup of language. Thick political commentary is encased in the dark surrealist assertions of “Carcass on Dead Whiskey Mountain.” Grace Lim’s “Bhoom. Bhoom. Bhoom.” takes its inspiration from an imagined soundscape, while Holly Michele Denis’ “His Reflection” displays in technicolour the expansive vocabulary she garnered during our wordy scavenger hunt. The dedication to self-expression apparent in work by Aliye Hajee and Ameerah Farran leaves us with a happy ending.

Angela Rawlings, a Toronto-based author, is the creator and facilitator of The Poetry Toolbox Workshop. This session received support from the Ontario Arts Council. For more information on the Toolbox, or to learn how you can host workshops at your school or organization, visit http://poets.ca/linktext/direct/rawlings.htm