“urban facts”

For Ken Lum

Paired issues forever haunt us.

2020, 2012.                       1840,               1812.               1670,                           1497.

Mobility, work. The city, the suburb. The built, the natural.     Forged.

Identity, recognition. Class, location. These are dichotomies that split us
in two, a global economy leaching us clean. Our reality

in search of stabilities
are, perplexing. Are liberating.

Are not made for us.

They are
indeterminacies.

Harmonious, multicultural. Bilingual. Comfortable
projections where languages and cultures

collide. Where whitewashing projects relay the hypocrisy, colonial decency of

Canada.

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an emerging poet, writer and editor of Taiwanese and Cambodian-Chinese descent. Winner of the 2019 Vallum Award for Poetry, her writing has appeared in Ricepaper, Hart House Review, Bywords.ca, and more. Her debut chapbook Unlucky Fours is now available with Anstruther Press (2020). In addition to her writing, Ellen is the founder of Little Birds Poetry, and the cofounder of Riverbed Reading Series – launching May 2020 in Ottawa. Find her on Twitter @ehjchang.