The East Side of it All

By Sandra Rodriguez Nieto

Dandurand’s work tackles complicated personal and social issues by drawing on his observations of the natural world. His voice is lyrical yet intimate, obscured yet sitting with you at the kitchen table having a cigarette. The East Side of It All is the journey of a broken man gifted with stories and poems who finally accepts his gift and shares with the world his hidden misery and joy:

there was this woman that I fell in love

with but she will never know who I am and I hide

in the back of the room as she goes about her thing

and I go about mine, and once I tried to look

into her eyes but when she looked back, I knew

she was a spirit and I was still a human and she passed

right through me and I felt the coldness of her

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nightwood Editions
• Release date: Oct 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9780889713819

Sandra Rodriguez Nieto

Joseph Dandurand is a member of the Kwantlen First Nation, located on the Fraser River about twenty minutes east of Vancouver, BC. He resides there with his three children. Dandurand is the director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre and the author of several books of poetry including The East Side of It All (Nightwood Editions, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2021, Dandurand received the BC Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.

Book preview

The East Side of It All. Joseph Dandurand.

Nightwood Editions logo 2020

Copyright © Joseph A. Dandurand, 2020

all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [e-mail].

Nightwood Editions logo

Nightwood Editions

P.O. Box 1779

Gibsons, BC v0n 1v0

Canada

www.nightwoodeditions.com

cover design: Charlotte Gray

typography: Carleton Wilson

Cover Image: Elinor Atkins

Government of Canada wordmark Canada Council for the Arts logo Supported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council

Nightwood Editions acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.

Printed and bound in Canada.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The east side of it all / by Joseph Dandurand.

Names: Dandurand, Joseph A., author.

Description: Poems

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020021232X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200212338 | ISBN 9780889713802 (softcover) | ISBN 9780889713819 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS8557.A523 E28 2020 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

this book of poems is dedicated to all of the missing

Contents

This Is My Path 9

The First Day 12

Muddy Waters 14

The Silent Scream 16

Violins 18

Wayfinding 20

Into the Centre 22

The Shame of Man 24

Street Scene 27

Street Healer 1 30

I Don’t Know When I Am Going 32

Get Away 34

Take It Slow 36

Street Healer 2 38

Prizefighters 40

Songs of the Mountains 42

The Great Snake 45

The Little People 48

Love Story 50

Feeling Hollow 52

The Sturgeon’s Lover 54

Something to Give 56

As the Bones Fall 58

From the Top of the Mountain 60

When the City Is Sleeping 62

There Is Always Laughter 64

The Gift of Forgiveness 66

Days into Days 68

I Like the One 70

When You See into My Eyes 72

Kwantlen 74

I Won’t Be Afraid 76

With a Good Mind and Heart 78

Onward to the Great River 80

To Not Belong 82

The Last Indian Bar 84

Words Never Mentioned 86

Going Back Home 88

Flight 90

Song of the Hawks 91

About the Author 95

This Is My Path

We close our eyes when

a junkie slips by us on

a freshly wetted sidewalk

as the city tries and tries

to wash away the odour

of those who sleep beside

the walls as if they await

entry back into this castle

where all the food is kept.

I have been up and down

the streets of this city

and I never close my eyes

as I wait and accept it all

as the drunk Indian brother

pisses himself, the weak just

keep doing their thing.

I walk on, into the centre

of hell and here I am

greeted with a smile

and she asks me for

a cigarette. I give her

one and she almost walks

away with my lighter.

All I can see in her eyes

are the days of abuse,

the childhood she never

had back home. She looks

at me and smiles knowing

I will never hurt her as we

both blow smoke out

into the centre of hell.

As the sun sets and the moon

rises up into a clear dark

night, the streets move

slower as the day people

lay down for a few hours

of restless sleep and the night

people start their rounds

to search for whatever

it is they need and the

junkies are quick to score

as the dealers lay in wait

for them to change money

for drugs and then the drunks

of the night are already two

bottles in and they puke

it up and continue on as

the