National Poetry Month : Lizzie Derksen,

springtime

Later, in bed

she suggests we don't even bother counting

the past eight months

of trying to get pregnant.

Our lives have been too crazy,

she says.

No baby wants to walk in

to that mess.

We start now. Call this

the first month.

And we do.

How easy renewal is.

How the heart always wants
to begin.
Without delay the calendar blows back
on three ugly seasons.

She blows a stream of air
up into her bangs.
If you build it, they will come
the fluttering page says.

Lizzie Derksen is a writer and filmmaker from Treaty 6 Territory. A recipient of the 2018 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Emerging Artists (Alberta), she has been described as combining “curiosity, intellectual boldness, independence of mind, emotional sensitivity, and a sure sense for the rhythms of words and sentences with an aversion to sentimentality and fashionable notions.”

Esther Spellicy in the Main Game, a collection of three short stories, was published in 2019 by With/out Pretend. Other recent work includes Aunt Rachel Says 13 Poems, a self-published chapbook, and words in Poetry is Dead, Funicular Magazine, The Vault Zine, and on CBC Television.

Lizzie’s practice encompasses poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, journalism, voiceover narration, dramatic and impressionistic short film, pornography, and documentary. She is writing her first novel.

lizziederksen.com