The Baggage Handlers, The Suitcase Poem

The Baggage Handlers is a shorthand for: Marie-Andrée Auclair, Gregory Betts, Jeff Blackman, Ellen Chang-Richardson, AJ Dolman, Amanda Earl, Doris Fiszer, Gwendolyn Guth, Jenna Jarvis, Chris "Stop" Johnson, Tanis MacDonald, Roz Toner, MW (Matthew Walsh).

This is an eight-page poem without a title, published by rob mclennan's above/ground press in 2025 and compiled by Amanda Earl.

What is this document and what is the nature and meaning of it?

George Steiner mentioned something similar Octavio Paz collaborated on 50 years ago with each collaborator producing something in their own language and appending it on to the original before passing it on. Steiner mentioned it in After Babel but I can't be arsed quite frankly. If you've read it, you already know exactly what I mean.

The Suitcase Poem reminds me of that.

There is something to be said about the uptick of writing groups, but a handful of these folks have been at it for quite a while and clearly it works for them so game on. Letter Killers Club.

How does the poem open?

a suitcase [...]

I'm gonna skip ahead from here, because the poem doesn't pick up until the second page over, whereas the first feels very much like finding footing:

stellar interstices, everything
packed in, or un-, elbow of hinge
distraction

the cot/caught merger like traffic, the measured incursion

This is where a software development metaphor would come in so handy, because this is the type of verse that is so close to the metal it becomes abstract on a surface level but delightfully functional on a close-to-the-metal level when it comes to analyzing the prosody, meaning, metaphor, scansion and poetics.

What did you expect from a collaborative effort of over a dozen well-versed poets?

This is poetry for the poetry-maker. I don't even know if a hobbyist printer would appreciate this as much as a publisher such as rob mclennan. We may never have another one of him in the future.

This is something only Canadian small press poetry could produce. The baggage handlers.

The collaboration effort becomes apparent in cento-like instances such as:

earlier today, when dad finally won
their little game of telephone tag/hide/seek
he told her that he'd heard it might rain
maybe early next week
maybe the one after

Honestly, I'm aware I'm cherry-picking excerpts, but what does this collab poem not say?

The same page ends, after an alternately-aligned bit of text that signals a counter-narrative running throughout the same length of the poem left-aligned:

dad, a retired travelling salesman
run as ragged at the edges
as the empty garment bag
at the back of the closet
still yearns for the breeze
and the emptiness of the road
and waits for the day he can make off
with the snugly packed suitcase
he still keeps tucked under the bed

Obviously, I am glad Canadian poets are working on these collaborative efforts. It speaks to a certain level of cohesiveness, closeness and camaraderie. But doesn't reading this make you want to participate and feel bad for missing out on being invited? Amanda Earl refers to this phenomenon as JOMO: the joy of missing out.

When we talk about suitcases, we want them tough
and serenely riding the conveyor belt
toward us in the airport of our choice

Amanda Earl writes the afterword:

I invited poets I know, first in Ottawa and then further afield, to take part in a collaborative poem about a suitcase to see what its contents might be and where we might go.

Honestly, this is ephemera worth holding on to. A poem that directly challenges the concept of object, of poiesis, of what it means to be a Canadian poet? Immaculate.