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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Oil-patch poets extract a rich literary history
In her first academic monograph The Rough Poets: Reading Oil Worker Poetry, Winnipeg scholar, activist and poet Melanie Dennis Unrau makes the case that poetry written by oil workers about the energy economy deserves a central place in the canon of Canadian poetry. The texts she analyses and those like them are 'foundational to Canadian petropoetry,' a genre Unrau defines as 'being about class, care and harm, about feelings, about extractivism and how it operates, about Canadian culture and the vital role that extraction workers play in it, and about dynamic processes of moving toward and away from fossil fuels and climate change.' The writers she highlights employ a range of aesthetic and technical choices. From the graphical ways Peter Christensen and Lesley Battler score the page to the rap-influenced verbal dexterity of Nate Parkin to the relatively traditional lyric poems of Dymphny Dronyk and Matthew Henderson and beyond, it's the poet's identity and the way the poems are 'tuned to extraction' that define the tradition of petropoetry. The Rough Poets In her analyses, Unrau considers themes of settler-colonialism, class consciousness, gender politics and climate change, as well as the ways in which the poets approach these. In her consideration of Lesley Battler's collection Endangered Hydrocarbons, for example, Unrau demonstrates that the text is 'animacy theory that uses serious linguistic play with supposedly inanimate objects to reveal and exacerbate the deep linkages between coloniality, racism, and the petroeconomy.' Unrau locates the start of petropoetics with Sidney Clarke Ells' collection Northern Trails, originally published in 1938. From there, she traces a literary lineage of white oil workers through the 20th and into the 21st century. The structural choices in this book are integral to the argument Unrau makes, among which are her presentation of the material chronologically, which emphasizes the way the lineage develops, and her choice to provide a poem in its entirety from the work she's analysed in each chapter, which gives the reader a small grounding in the specifics of material they might not be familiar with. In her analysis of Ross Bellot's First Day, from his 2020 collection Moving to Climate Change Hours, she attends to the particular ways in which Bellot frames manhood: 'the refinery worker must learn to perform as a 'good boy' — a heteropatriarchal worker, father, husband, and citizen who goes through the paces ('wear workboots, learn work rules/ get the paycheque, go home to Shelley' and so on) to support his family.' The emphasis on the performance of gender norms is in tension with the dehumanizing setting which reduces 'Two men blinded by hydrofluric acid/ yesterday' to 'lost time.' Among The Rough Poets's many strengths is Unrau's ability to make high-level theoretical analysis clear, if somewhat demanding, for a non-specialist audience. Common in the poems and books Unrau analyzes is a sense of the speaker's ambivalence vis-à-vis the oil industry and their position within it. Unrau uses various theoretical models to illuminate this: among these are Marxist theory, which brings the idea of disidentification (briefly, that subjects can be both complicit with the dominant ideology and resist it); affect theory, which brings psychology to bear on the subject; and animacy theory, which treats language itself as a 'subject of inquiry rather than a mere vehicle for representation.' Unrau concludes this timely study with a personal political vision for what truly understanding petropoetics can yield, beyond the obvious scholarly value. Closely read, these texts, and this tradition, can show us how to navigate ''ugly,' ambivalent, confused, and mixed feelings as potential ground for solidarity toward energy justice.' Poetry columnist melanie brannagan frederiksen is a Winnipeg writer and critic.
CBC
13-03-2025
- CBC
Manitoba man sues RCMP over spinal cord injury he alleges was caused by arrest
A western Manitoba man is suing the RCMP for a spinal cord injury he alleges was caused by officers during a well-being check at his home, and he accuses police of planning the attack. The Neepawa man suffered a back injury, paralysis, intense pain requiring surgeries and a two-month hospital stay after allegedly excessive force was used by police during an April 24, 2023, arrest, the lawsuit claims. The statement of claim, filed March 5 with the Court of King's Bench in Brandon, Man., says police arrived at the man's home to apprehend him under the Mental Health Act after his mother told police he sent her a text message threatening suicide. Const. Eric Unrau, Const. David Lisoway and Sgt. David Taggart acted in "wanton disregard for the plaintiff's safety," the lawsuit alleges, and were motivated by malicious purposes other than the law. The lawsuit is against the three officers, the RCMP and the Attorney General of Canada. The man claims his "life and happiness have been destroyed" as a result of the arrest, while suffering "embarrassment and heartbreak" in addition to serious physical injuries. He's seeking general damages, loss of income, legal fees and other restitution, but no dollar amount is given in the lawsuit. Plaintiff denies he was resisting arrest The man had undergone back surgery 10 months before the arrest but was recovering well and moving without pain by the time he was awoken out of sleep by several officers pounding on a window and the front and back doors of his home. When he opened the door, the officers acted as if he had committed an offence against his mother and she had complained to police, the lawsuit says, with Lisoway informing the plaintiff he had seen the text to his mother. The man said he did not threaten his mother, and Lisoway responded by shaking his head and looking down "with a disgusted look on his face," according to the statement of claim. Unrau then yelled at the man to stop resisting arrest and tackled him to the floor, pressed his knee into his back and placed a baton under his neck and lifted it, the court document says. "The plaintiff denies he was resisting arrest in any fashion," the claim says. "The plaintiff was not ever charged with resisting arrest or any other crime." The lawsuit says Unrau continued to lift the baton under his neck until he lost his breath and became unconscious. The injury to the man's back caused "immediate paralysis" that didn't allow him to stand and was made worse by police attempting to lift him instead of waiting for an ambulance, the lawsuit alleges. "The plaintiff was obviously injured and the officers all knew… the plaintiff needed to be properly and safely moved to the hospital, only by paramedics and ambulance," the statement of claim says. The statement of claim says the officers did not allow doctors to help the injured man after he was taken to hospital, and only allowed him to get psychiatric care. "The officers failed to inform any doctor at the hospital that the plaintiff was suffering from serious injuries and back pain," the statement of claim says. A week after the incident, the man went back to hospital for the pain and was eventually sent to see a doctor in Winnipeg, "who did a nerve conduction test and determined that the RCMP officers damaged the plaintiff's spinal cord," it says. Disregard for plaintiff's safety The statement of claim says police knew about the plaintiff's back condition, because the man's mother had informed them while explaining his mental state during her report. The man also called out to police about his back surgery during the assault, the lawsuit says. The statement of claim says the man now lives in fear of police and worries he won't be able to work in his profession as an auto mechanic again as a result of his injuries. His injuries include bowel and urinary incontinence, nerve damage and a lack of feeling in his right foot, as well as constant back pain. Doctors say he may also need his back fused and he's waiting for additional surgeries, the lawsuit says. The statement of claim accuses the officers and the RCMP of negligence, defamation, harassment, malicious persecution and disregard for the plaintiff's safety and rights. It alleges Lisoway and Unrau failed to properly advise the man of their intent or provide their intent in writing. The lawsuit also says the man has suffered damage to his reputation and a loss of goodwill, and accuses the officers of telling people he threatened his mother, as justification for the assault. "The plaintiff heard the officers talking in the hallway... and either David Lisoway or David Taggart said, you shouldn't of threatened your mother," the statement of claim sats. "The plaintiff believes by their behaviour and their comments that the officers planned to hurt the plaintiff before they entered the plantiff's home." No statement of defence has been filed.
