Capilano Universe: Poetry as Research Method
Two poets and scholars will share their use of poetry as a research method for engaging with powerful and problematic Canadian texts and stories – including immigration paperwork and foundational national myths about the “great white north.”
What does it mean to be a Canadian settler? What are the stories, texts and practices that teach us who we are, where we are and how to be here? How are they implicated in and formed by colonial cultural frameworks? How might poetry serve as a practice of resistance against them – on these unceded Indigenous lands, in this time of climate crisis?
Through conversation, two poets and scholars will share their use of poetry as a research method for engaging with powerful and problematic Canadian texts and stories – including immigration paperwork and foundational national myths about the “great white north.”
Flauto's memoir-based poems in Permission to Settle fill in the blanks of the application to immigrate to Canada, while investigating the implicit biases in the colonial system of boxes and check marks that still seek to categorize "the other" and to harness it in the face of reconciliation.
Stewart’s first book, Better Nature, rewrites the diary Walt Whitman wrote while he travelled through Canada at the end of the nineteenth century. Rather than celebrating Canada’s “pioneering” attitude towards “wilderness,” Better Nature tries to think through settler appropriation of Indigenous lands and culture, and the strategies and techniques Canada (still) uses to produce a “better nature” (that is, one that better serves the nation).
About the speakers
Fenn Stewart (PhD) – poetry publications include Better Nature (longlisted for the 2018 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award) and women & roosters (2025). A former editor of The Capilano Review, Stewart holds a PhD in social and political thought and teaches literature and writing at Capilano University. Her research on “Canadian” culture and politics has appeared in journals including ARIEL and Law, Culture and the Humanities. Her current research, a collaboration with Jastej Luddu, focuses on the history of Paldi, BC. Fenn lives with her kids on unceded Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəỷəm (Musqueam), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories.
Holly Flauto (she/they) is a poet, storyteller, learner and instructor living and writing on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Selilwitulh Nations. Flauto's debut poetry-memoir collection, Permission to Settle (Anvil Press), exploring immigration to Canada as a modern-day settler, was named one of the top poetry books of 2024 by CBC Books. Their fiction and creative memoir have previously been published in The Ex-Puritan, Joyland and The Rusty Toque. They also perform as Stella Palermo on the local story and poetry slam stages.
Location: NVDPL Parkgate Branch & virtual
This lecture is part of the 2025 free Capilano Universe Speaker Series, led by expert Capilano University instructors.