Coming up on May 27, 2025, I’m excited to welcome the youth poets of the 2025 Voices for Change program to the stage at The Handsome Daughter to share their poem, FIGHT FOR HOME with the Winnipeg Poetry Slam community.
Back in the fall, I stepped into my role as facilitator for the 10th time (!) to work with high school students to create a poem which would be professionally filmed, then later launched online and performed live for an audience at the Legislature as part of International Development Week. This year’s project was significant, however, as the topic of displacement carried a particular weight for the participants who each carried their own lived experience.
In a special partnership between the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation and the Resilia Community Wellness Centre (formerly Aurora Family Therapy Centre), I met Indigenous students Merek and Linnaya, as well as Ali and Tetiana, who were refugees from Syria and Ukraine, respectively. The group were a part of a youth leadership program at the wellness centre, and each certainly had something to say on belonging and security, whether within Canada, or from abroad.
Considering how Merek and Linnaya are both preparing to graduate into our society and inherit the living history of colonialism impacting all treaty relations, and how Tetiana and Ali had experience with displacement caused by violence in their home countries with literal physical and emotional scars to show for it, I definitely grew in my capacity to support others in expressing themselves. With extra guidance from MCIC’s education specialist and Resilia’s youth program facilitator, we navigated difficult subjects and emotions, and created what was clearly the realest poem to ever come of this program.
With that being the case, I’m proud of our work and must acknowledge the courage that everyone showed in stepping up to share these truths which so tragically affect the young and innocent. But also, the resilience, hope, and grace they carry towards the future.
Before you come see them in person, check out the video!
In the fall of 2024, Adam Pagtakhan of Midnight Sun Creative and I met on the street outside my apartment. As we gazed into an open cardboard box in the trunk of his car with a giddy fulfilment, we couldn’t anticipate the overwhelmingly positive response we would receive for our collaboration. Instantly dismissing the fact that our respective bank accounts had been drained to cover the cost of printing, we were too busy high-fiving and signing each others’ copies of our book to care. Real physical copies! In our hands!
That was the day that Birds of a Feather: A Graphic Poem arrived. It was a project that we initiated during the pandemic lockdown, after some time discussing a collaboration. We’ve been friends since high school; hopeless nerds, deep thinkers and feelers, who have supported each other as we’ve developed our respective crafts and then took the plunge into building careers as professional artists…with day jobs.
It started as something to do for fun, to see what would come of Adam’s visual interpretations of a poem I shared, and which he chose as having provocative imagery and a powerful message of finding empowerment through communing with others who share mental health struggles. We chose the format of a graphic narrative, a.k.a. a comic book, as something we were both familiar with, and something I’d dreamed about creating since I sketched superheroes in art class.
Adam was already a talented graphic designer, finding consistent work designing posters, logos, shirts: you name it. But his initial drafts revealed so much depth that resonated with the material, fulfilling the potential of graphic narratives to transcend mainstream comic strip forms to engage with readers on a truly meaningful level. What we were creating wasn’t quite a comic book, or a picture book with poetic text, but kind of…both, which also leaned into dreamlike cinematic imagery. Taking some literal cues from lines in the poem, he formed a visual meta-narrative of a wounded bird on a journey through dangerous terrain, encountering monsters and pitfalls as metaphors for trauma recovery. Meanwhile, in our little protagonist, he captured expressions and personality that I could instantly connect with as a reader.
When I was invited to perform at Plume Winnipeg‘s Afterwords event, I made sure to bring a few copies to sell, along with Adam himself to acknowledge his contribution from the mic. It was our unofficial launch; we’d only just started posting about it on our social media channels. And even though I hadn’t shared the poem on stage in years, the experience of having bonded with Adam through the material inspired and empowered me to give a meaningful performance. It did seem to resonate with the audience, who immediately snatched up all the copies we had, with someone telling us we should have brought more! On top of that, Adam and I were hounded for autographs, which, despite being touching and humbling, was just unheard of for a couple of self-published creators.
Since then, we’ve connected the graphic poem to readers across the country, built somewhat of an audience here at an ‘official’ launch featuring other spoken word poets and their respective chapbooks, and found support with local shops who agreed to carry it on their shelves. This included a comic book shop, which was like a surreal dream come true! Recently, I shared the poem and discussed the project with a poetry class facilitated by fellow poet, Heidi Sander, in Cambridge, Ontario.
As I shared in the afterword, the way Adam’s art responded to mine and connected us as emotional beings inspired me to see the book as more than just that. It was the reason I chose to include a list of mental health resources (based in Canada), so the book could be used as a tool to connect and heal those who struggle with their own illnesses and existential crises. So far, with the way we’ve connected with readers, we’ve proven to ourselves that we did make something special and meaningful. We’ve also proven that though people may struggle alone, we’re much stronger together. Especially when we create community through art!
To grab your own copy in Winnipeg, visit 204 Comics or House of Local where you can also get a copy shipped from their digital store at the link.
Steve Locke 