Tell us what you think!
  • We welcome your feedback, constructive criticism, and/or error reports about the website.

  • * REQUIRED

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

My Beloved Vancouver

October 25, 2018

by Dana Claxton

In all your splendor
lender, land claims defenda!
This place this place
With so much grace
Shifting like the tides
Rolla mender
Pauline Pauline
Wrote of you
Borrowed her stories
From ancient ones
Spirit of land
Spirit of mountain
This generous place
As they come
From four corners, four directions
And then some

So many land
…..here
Wild West full of promise
Full of drugs and beauty
Downtown Eastside pain
DTES triumphants!
Imperial lions take your scones and die UMP them!

Imperial loins scarred land
But the sisters the sisters will always stand
And as youz lands oooonx theeez
AIN jauntz LANDZ
Remember gringo
What windz doth sayz
Rolls down from the top
Thruz cedarz and witz river
Inside water
Clear as day, clear as my mind
And as I say
As cougar walked by
We did done stare
In awe, in fear, in REV er ranze
So close to downtown bearz live
Bear ended up downtown on the back of a garage truck
A blessing for all to see
10 mins from downtown 300 year old cedars be
Vancouver….who are we?
Imports and exports travellin’ through
I saw a shiny Telsa then 22
Vancouver Vancouver do you want more here
How long can you breathe with all of us near
As concrete swells up to sky
Beaches overflow urban eagles cry
Can you handle us all Vancouver my dear
Layers of layers of immigrants
Left coast, oil coast, Salish Sea
Water Protectors there for thee
On the edge of the rain
Forest so green
As I glean
Manna from your bounty

I saw a man crawl up the street
I saw a woman creep on sleep
I saw a child put a needle in their arm
I saw a person pop up from a dumpster…harm

I saw a shiny Telsa ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Wild West cowboys and loggers too
Tried to shoot down NDN’s to minuscule
BIG LOGGA BIG FISHA
Took too much
GOSH this place is GEN RUS
A pack of coyotes, thieves and the grandmothers too
Spirit of mountains stays with me
Even when on the Great Plains and I cant see
Mountain mountain now in my bones
As you tower over this place called Vancouver
Plz know there is no OTHA….like you

I saw a shiny Telsa and liked it.

Dana Claxton
May 5, 2018
On the north shore mountains.


This poem “My Beloved Vancouver” originally appeared in Concepts of Vancouver: Poetics, Art, Media Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 235 (Winter 2017): 31-33.

Please note that works on the Canadian Literature website may not be the final versions as they appear in the journal, as additional editing may take place between the web and print versions. If you are quoting reviews, articles, and/or poems from the Canadian Literature website, please indicate the date of access.