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Tributaries: Holly Flauto + Permission to Settle
In her collection Permission to Settle (Anvil Press), Holly Flauto contends with the idea of settlerhood, particularly in how modern processes of immigration extend colonial practices in Canada. Holly shares a poem from the book, as well as Selina Boan’s “the plot so far” for today’s Tributaries feature.
Read “Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT”
from Permission to Settle
Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to acknowledge that
I am writing today and
I slept in a house last night
on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the
xwməθkwəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətat
Nations
I spend my work days
on the traditional territory of the qiqéyt First Nation
the only First Nation in Canada without a land base
I would like to acknowledge that
I am asking to be Canadian
to settle here and
I would like to acknowledge that
I am asking the wrong people
I am asking permission to settle
from other settlers
asking to join something I know is wrong
complicit for not calling them out
I would like to acknowledge that
I want this so much
I would like to acknowledge that
I need to ask permission from the settlers
to settle on the land
I know is not ethically theirs
I would like to acknowledge that
I know this is wrong
my choice is to be complicit
or to leave this place
my little family feels safe here
the child now teen found peers
emotionally expressive and smart as sparklers
I would like to acknowledge that
I walk onto this stolen land while
I assert in a million white checkboxes
to the settlers
that I should live here
while I betray them
by asking
whether this land is theirs
to grant permission
I would like to acknowledge that
when my feet first touched land
now called Vancouver
I was greeted by xwməθkwəy̓əm welcome figures
I would like to acknowledge that
I ignored them
I had another chance that night
another place to show understanding by the exit
two more figures
carved in the Tla-o-qui-aht tradition
stood to welcome guests to the land
I would like to acknowledge that
I looked past them to find a taxi
I would like to acknowledge again that
I am a settler who now knows what it means
to ask to settle
that act of colonialism
by committing this act of colonialism
this act of spending so much energy
to ask the wrong people
and be so terrified to ask the right
my acknowledgement
stands empty
pointing it out feels callous
I would like to acknowledge that
I am afraid to speak
to have difficult conversations
instead of looking for a white box answer
I would like to ask
people whose ancestors belong here
I would like to acknowledge that
I am working up to that now
I need to act
instead of these phrases and fragments
or this means nothing
I would like to acknowledge that
I know I have no right to ask
compassion from those who do not understand why
guidance from those who do
forgiveness from everyone
I would like to acknowledge that
the answer may be no
An interview with poet Holly Flauto
All Lit Up: Can you tell us a bit about your book and how it came to be? How did you come to write “Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT,” and how is it representative of your collection?
Holly Flauto: “Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT” is the first poem in Permission to Settle, and like any true introduction came late in the process, after I’d figured out what I was writing about.
My journey to become Canadian has also been the learning of what it means to be settling here without true permission, only permission from other settlers, and the poems reflect that journey to understand how problematic the process is with this realization. I became more aware of what it meant to be a settler in Canada as part of my academic role, where I was able to be part of lots of learning about decolonization – including workshops with BC Campus and an online Indigenous Canada course from U of Alberta. I learned about Truth and Reconciliation, and the slow progress toward those goals. And I started becoming more aware about how the immigration process is a process of settlement led and controlled by the colonizers.
The manuscript as a whole seeks to capture common aspects of immigration – the anxiety, and the bureaucracy of application, identity, foreignness, and inadequacy – while exploring the sense of privilege that comes in this particular immigration situation from the US to Canada. I did that by writing poems that fill in the blanks on the immigration forms. There are two poems in the book that aren’t from an actual immigration form: this one, “Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT,” and one called “IMMIGRATION FORM 2018B APPLICATION TO LIVE ON THIS LAND AS AN UNINVITED GUEST”. Both try to come to terms with the disconnect I feel asking to settle here now.
ALU: Has your idea of poetry changed since you began writing?
Holly Flauto: My idea of poetry, like my ideas of almost everything else, is always changing. I had a moment early on when one of my poems was accepted as part of an edited collection about women and immigration. In the editing process, the anthology editor contacted me and let me know because mine was the only poem selected, they would like to consider changing it to prose: “We feel that this poem would work much better as a piece of prose. Would you be able to reformat it as such? This would mostly require turning the poem into paragraphs ordered in a logical way. If you are willing but unable to do this, our copyeditor can do it for you (you will get a chance to approve all the edits).”
I tried it. And I didn’t succeed. And so I said no. And that poem wasn’t published. I didn’t know why this poem needed to be poetry until that was challenged.
But, I learned about the safety of the gaps in poetry and how you bring the reader with you somewhere without saying it. And I learned how to talk about the strategy of the line and the line break and the words landing how they did on the page.
I do regret now not just leaving it in the hands of the copyeditor, because I’m so curious as to what would have happened to my poem in that process. But, maybe I’m better off not knowing?
ALU: Choose a non-written piece of art (e.g. a song / album, painting, sculpture, or film) that you feel is a “sister city” or companion to your collection.
Holly Flauto: The piece of art I want to choose is not one that is a sister or companion – but one I feel challenges and inspires me to write.
It’s a piece by Kent Monkman – The Daddies. The work is based on a painting often called “The Fathers of the Confederation” but Monkman has included another person in the portrait, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, with her back toward the viewer, facing the “fathers” now “daddies” of the confederacy.
I appreciate how after seeing this work, the original then becomes a painting with something missing – instead of the new work being one with something added. And you can’t see the Harris painting now without noticing what, or who, is missing.
Holly recommends…
“the plot so far” from Selina Boan’s
Undoing Hours (Nightwood Editions)
ALU: Why did you choose Selina Boan’s poem “the plot so far” from her collection Undoing Hours? What do you love most about this particular poem?
Holly Flauto: I chose Selina’s poem because it’s beautiful. It is also the first poem in her collection, and I feel like it brings forward some similar themes, hers from an Canadian and Indigenous perspective. When I read the lines “from the ground up / growing / I never learned the hul’q’umi’num’ name for the place i lived till i was gone” I think about what it means to not know these names and these places and the history and stories until we do.
As part of my academic work, I am often introducing an event or providing opening remarks. I often share the work of an Indigenous poet as part of those remarks to include Jess Housty, Lee Maracle, Francine Cunningham and this poem by Selina Boan. And now since the book has come out, I’ve had a few emails sent my way that people are using “Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT” as part of a land acknowledgement to open an event or a meeting. I am thrilled that the poem is resonating, but I am also concerned that my words are taking up space that isn’t mine to take. My work is speaking in settler language and while a starting point and meant to contextualize my poems about settler process bureaucracy, it is limited by my experience and, for me, only the start of a call for more work to be done.
the plot so far
ask / what is the history / of a word / a lake of commas /
a pause in the muscle of night / a dry river and the snow it
holds / i am afraid of getting this life / wrong / a thick-
rimmed fence / coins settled in a drawer for food / eat half
a lemon and you’ll feel fine / i promise
in the dictionary / the nêhiyawêwin word
mahtakoskacikew / translates to / s/he settles or lays
on top of everything / i’ll tell you a story / i stained my
hands as a kid in the backyard where i grew / peeling open
walnut shells / trying to find the part i could eat
at sixteen / i scaled the green water tower / settled at the
top for a better view / dreamt mother wasn’t young /
driving a VW van cushioned with gas / hands on the wheel /
wearing fire / she was / and i wanted to believe
from the ground up / growing / i never learned the
hul’q’umi’num’ name for the place i lived till i was gone /
there are earned stories / names you don’t share / i once
slipped into the bay / cracked my feet on dock barnacles
and bled / i wanted so many ways / to settle / our hearts
/ a window / a plot / a piece of land we wanted to call our
own but was / not ours to name
Reprinted with permission from Nightwood Editions.
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Holly Flauto lives and writes on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Selilwitulh Nations. Her book of poetry, Permission to Settle (Anvil Press), is on the list of CBC Books Best Canadian Poetry of 2024. In the book, the blanks from the application for Permanent Residency are filled in with a series of memoir-based poems that investigate 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. Holly grew up moving between the US and South America; she immigrated to Canada in 2008. Holly teaches writing in the English department at Capilano University.
* * *
Thanks to Daniel for answering our questions, and to Anvil Press for the text of “Establishing ACKNOWLEDGEMENT” from Permission to Settle, which is available to order now (and get 15% off with the code TRIBUTARIES until April 30!). Thanks also to Nightwood Editions for the text of “the plot so far” from Selina Boan’s Undoing Hours.
Follow our NPM series all month long to discover new poetry or connect with old favourites, and visit our poetry shop here.
