CROWD SOURCE — A POEM, Cecily Nicholson

CROWD SOURCE is a long poem born from Nicholson’s observation, fascination, and inquiry into the twice-daily crow migration that happens in metro Vancouver at dusk and at dawn, 365 days a year. “Crow clans from all sections of the coast journey to their evening roost at Still Creek in so-called Burnaby;” from here, Nicholson unfolds and illuminates the organic beauty of collective action, the unified breath of the crowd, and the similar beauties of migration and of public movement in human and more-than-human worlds. “we keep us safe and attend to trial // to soar to persist in how to disperse spells / on a wing’s breath // studying for a hex-proof life // sprinting down a crowded avenue.”

Cecily Nicholson is an award-winning author of four books of poetry and a volunteer with community impacted by carcerality. She is the 2024/2025 Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at UC Berkeley and an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at UBC, on the unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people.

CROWD SOURCE — a poem, Cecily Nicholson. 24pp. 5.5"x8.5", saddle stapled. Covers printed on French burnt orange stock, interiors printed on off white text weight paper. Printed and assembled in "Kingston, New York,” the unceded and occupied lands of the Haudenosaunee, Mohican, Munsee Lenape, and Schaghitcoke tribes. First printing, edition of 125. Designed by The Aliens.