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    Flyway
    Flyway
    Flyway
    Ebook111 pages32 minutes

    Flyway

    By Sarah Ens

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This Meditation on the impact of human and ecological trauma explores the cost of survival for three generations of women living between empires. Writing from within the disappearing tallgrass prairie, Sarah Ens follows connections between the Russian Mennonite diaspora and the disrupted migratory patterns of grassland birds. Drawing on family history, eco-poetics, and the rich tradition of the Canadian long poem, Flyway migrates along pathways of geography and the heart to grapple with complexities of home.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTurnstone Press
    Release dateMay 5, 2022
    ISBN9780888017574
    Flyway
    Author

    Sarah Ens

    Sarah Ens grew up in Treaty 1 territory (Landmark, Manitoba) and is currently a writer and editor based in Treaty 6 territory (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan). Her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, Arc Poetry Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, and SAD Mag. Sarah is a current MFA in Writing candidate at the University of Saskatchewan.

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      Book preview

      Flyway - Sarah Ens

      Flyway

      also by Sarah Ens

      The World Is Mostly Sky

      Flyway

      Sarah Ens

      logo: Turnstone Press

      Flyway

      copyright © Sarah Ens 2022

      Turnstone Press

      Artspace Building

      206-100 Arthur Street

      Winnipeg, MB

      R3B 1H3 Canada

      www.TurnstonePress.com

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request to photocopy any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright, Toronto.

      Turnstone Press gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of Manitoba through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Book Publisher Marketing Assistance Program.

      Cover design: Jonathan Dyck

      Cover image: ribbed plant-leap print by Meghan Harder

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Title: Flyway / Sarah Ens.

      Names: Ens, Sarah, 1992- author.

      Description: Poems.

      Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220168393 | Canadiana (ebook)

      20220168423 | ISBN 9780888017567 (softcover) | ISBN 9780888017574

      (EPUB) | ISBN 9780888017581 (PDF)

      Classification: LCC PS8609.N72 F59 2022 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

      logo: Manitoba Arts Council; Conseil des arts du Manitoba

      logo: Canada Council for the Arts; Conseil des arts du Canadalogo: Funded by the Government of Canada; Finance par le gouvernement du Canada

      logo: Province of Manitoba

      for my grandmothers

      Flyway

      a long poem

      Prelude

      There is this place, this patch of tallgrass, a grassland of bluestem, wheatgrass, prairie cordgrass tall to my shoulders. Hardy bunchgrass, swaying. I’d never thought much about grass until I came to this place, but here the thought of grass is inescapable, everywhere innumerous thrones, / dominions of grass bending. Six thousand square kilometres of tallgrass once ran along the Red River Valley (imagine). Less than one percent remains. What remains: this small place, this preserve, here. It survives along a flyway—a flight path between breeding & wintering grounds spanning continents & oceans, stringing together places like this. So, the birds, too, I notice here: warblers, swallows, meadowlarks, migratory birds who rely on this place. My gaze tumbles from sky to shrub, poorly tracking flutters & specks & song.

      Not knowing, I hunch under clouds, blustery light falling into the grass. I am here to think about grass & birds. To ask & look & listen. I am here a descendent of Mennonite settlers in the land of the Anishinaabeg, Assiniboine, Dakota, & Cree, the homeland of the Métis. Mennonites a people displaced (displacing), so goes the story carried from Switzerland, South Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Prussia, Ukraine. Some stories follow you your whole life & spill out in front of you, flight paths well worn. Here we stayed, the Mennonites, converting tallgrass to farmland & claiming it as home.

      Many voices burble under rising threat, overwhelming peril. They hum in the grass. & here I am, listening. & here I am with this story.

      Tallgrass Psalmody

      Part One

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