Don't Blame it On Us

Don’t Blame It On Us 

A Community Response to Farrah Miranda’s Poetry 

By Alejandra Adarve & Greg Cook 

Members of the Sanctuary community were invited to read and react to the poems in A New Kind of Community, by Farrah Miranda. They sat in a small office full of blankets, boxes and Covid supplies while a meal drop-in was going on outside. The poems evoked memories, reflections and a mini collection of new poems. 

Don't Blame It On Us is a collective response from a community where people are stripped of autonomy. Many are either kept in square boxes where it is nearly impossible to maintain relationships or forced to live outside where they are constantly moved on by city police and security. These acts of carcerality and displacement are violent and they happen automatically. 

Automated violence, a form of population control, is about containment, about expelling the possibility of friendship and human connection. There are a thousand cuts, or a thousand acts, that make community, permanence and stability impossible. Farrah’s incisive poetry elicited a response that demands that the reader rethink who is to blame. 

Norman Graham, a painter and self-proclaimed Renaissance Man, read Dinner In A Bubble. The third poem in Miranda's collection, it references a moment in the pandemic when homeless encampments were demolished and replaced with luxurious dining bubbles. Graham was strongly affected by the poem, “it hit me like a ton.” 

"A tiny poem... six lines. It was really nice until the last line. The last line has me feeling upset. It ruined my whole mood, but maybe that's a good thing.” 

According to him, the poem is particularly true of those who have a middle class to upper middle-class lifestyle and the title itself describes society. “The last line makes you think about the homeless. They give no thought for the homeless. They don't give the homeless a moment's thought" 

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Cree singer and poet Adrianna Sutherland chose Tent Season. She appreciated how the poem invites readers to look beyond the tent, and see the person who lives inside of it. “I felt safe there - in the tent. Having a couple of trees back there. Just to have that nature there was really nice. It covered the sun most of the day. The tent covered me. I had a place to lay my head. It was a community. Many days out in the rain. It would be muddy back there, but it still felt safe.”

Asked if she misses living in the tent, Adrianna says, “No. It was a once in a life-time experience. Nineteen weeks, but I’ve been homeless longer than that. Five years now. Since I came to Toronto. I’m still homeless. It’s like they forgot about me.” Adrianna had been hesitant about participating, and enjoyed the exercise so much that she asked to read a second poem. Learn from the Lion caught her attention. Adrianna empathizes with the lion as a character who is “obviously hurting,” and wonders who the lion may be. “Maybe it’s a person, or their spirit animal… maybe they are confused or screaming out for help, or hurt. Maybe they are in a house fire, and learn a valuable lesson from having their house burnt down. Maybe their house is their life.” 

Asked what she would do after she cracks, she answers “I’d roar.” 

Opportunities to make art are few and far between for people who are unhoused. The art program at Sanctuary is a space where creativity sparks critical reflection, self discovery, and full expression of self. We see this process as a pathway to self-determination, life-enhancing practices, and human connection. Sharing My Own Feelings Scares Me is Adrianna Sutherland’s reflection on writing about her personal life: 

My personal feelings and my thoughts–I don't write 

I used to be crazy about writing 

But it makes me feel more protected if I don't write 

Less vulnerable 

People can read about me 

And then have their thoughts about it 

But not know me it all 

People just don't deserve to know me like that 

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Mexican vegan chef Ana Macias works in our meal program. Macias read On The Day You Depart the day of her sister’s passing anniversary. The poem resonated deeply and Ana shared memories of her sister in Today is My Sister's Anniversary: 

She was like my mother 

She was a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend 

She was a very good person 

She was like my mother 

I come from a family that gives

My mother was a giving woman 

She taught me to take care for the elderly, the immigrants 

The forgotten 

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Reading and reacting to poetry evoked feelings of uncertainty and sometimes created the need for a “right answer.” Seeing how intimidating this exercise could be, inspired community artist Alejandra Adarve to write Meaning 

Looking for words in the dictionary 

Explaining concepts that don't matter 

Trusting we don't know the answer 

Fearing what's expected 

Not knowing 

How many people lied to us 

How many people called us failures 

Before we believed their lies–and forgot 

What it means to be us 

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Greg Cook, an outreach worker at Sanctuary, read The Inquisition. It made him "think about homeless people trying to bring their pets into a shelter." Most shelters don't allow pets. It's a reason many people don't go. 

“I knew this before the pandemic, but this is something that became clear during the pandemic. What struck me was the similarities across cities worldwide.” It's a complex infrastructure that is in place to remove people from a place or land that is seen to have more profitable use. If we own land, or rent an apartment, we are all wrapped up in the infrastructure. 

Homeless Industrial Complex is Greg’s reflection on that issue: 

The sadness, the terror 

Lost and broken relationships 

Somebody’s loved pet 

Probably a dog 

Having to choose–or risk 

Losing what they love 

Because they wanted a bed 

A room of their own

Not having the autonomy to choose 

What one wants–or deserves 

The rules, the bylaws 

The people in place that are paid 

To uphold 

This infrastructure of displacement 

Each of us at Sanctuary has a different life experience–one that is definitely a different life experience than Miranda–but our responses show an emotional connection to her poetry. We have connected her poetry to our own lives and work. 

Alejandra Adarve & Greg Cook are workers at Sanctuary, an organization running a health clinic, an arts program, street outreach and community meals to support some of the most vulnerable people in Toronto. We often gather to grieve, but also look for opportunities to celebrate life together.