Vancouver poet and activist for social justice in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood Bud Osborn died on May 6. In his Canadian Literature review of Osborn’s books Hundred Block Road and Keys to Kingdoms, Adam Beardworth notes that Osborn’s work offers piercing observations of society’s marginalized people and the social factors that sustain their dispossession.
Uniting activism and poetry, Osborn memorably wrote:
to raise shit is to actively resist
and we resist with our presence
with our words
with our love
with our courage