Last month, we gathered at Caffe Fantastico for our second Saltwater Tongues event. It was a wonderful evening of poetry, storytelling, and making connections with our communities, all centered around environmental justice as part of Ocean Week Victoria. We bore witness to a powerful reminder that community resilience is built not only through campaigns and policies, but through creativity, connection, and the courage and vulnerability it takes to share our stories with one another.
We reflected on what it means to live alongside the Salish Sea in a time of climate change and uncertainty. Through poems, stories, collage-making (thanks John from CPAWS-BC for setting that up!), and other creative expressions, we explored themes of belonging, grief, hope, transformation, and the relationships we have to the waters that connect us all.
The room was filled with friends, neighbours, organizers, students, poets, and people who just wanted to attend a cool event. I was so amazed at how many people came up to the microphone, courageously telling the crowd that this was the first time they’ve ever read anything to someone else out loud, let alone to a whole room! That kind of vulnerability was beautiful and profound to see. Sharing poetry aloud is a very intense act, but again and again the room met these moments with generosity, encouragement, and care. We co-created a space where people felt supported to take risks, be heard, and share their truths.
We also had a Community Action table for people to learn about local initiatives and connect with the amazing organizations working toward more just and resilient futures. This table sparked conversations, new connections, and provided opportunities for people to explore how they can take action in their own communities. We believe that the best way to transform unjust systems is to ensure that we can provide space for connections, discussion, and resources to move people forward towards the change they want to see.
This year, we partnered with the Gorge Waterway Action Society, the BC Climate Emergency Campaign, the University of Victoria Sustainability Project, and Creating Climate Resilience. At GSA, we strive to build alliances across communities, organizations, areas of work, and experience to advance change. In this case, it helped create a really welcoming and vibrant atmosphere that resembled the kind of futures we dream of: collaborative, supportive, and empowering. Also, we want to specifically thank Caffe Fantastico, which does an amazing job of creating community by hosting a ton of really impactful events, including this one. Finding good organizing space is tough in cities as expensive as the ones we live in, and we appreciate our lovely hosts.
Thank you to everyone who attended, shared, listened, created, and helped make the evening such a success. For a few hours, we carved out a small but meaningful slice of community, and left feeling a little more connected to each other, the Salish Sea, and the futures we are working to create together.
Featured Poet!
After each event, we like to highlight the work of a poet that read at the event. Read on to learn about Tanvi and check out her great poetry!
Tanvi Chopra is an Indian-Canadian poet, writer, and nature enthusiast based on the west coast of Canada. Her work is shaped by a multicultural upbringing, a deep love of the natural world, and a fascination with the ways people connect to places and to one another. Drawing inspiration from the Pacific Northwest’s forests, shorelines, and wildlife—as well as the landscapes, traditions, and stories of her Indian heritage—she writes at the intersection of nature, belonging, and awe.
Outside of writing, Tanvi’s work lies in building strategic partnerships and helping communities achieve growth, time, cost, and process efficiencies through digital transformation. An avid reader, traveler and an obsessive lover of trees, Tanvi can be found buried in her next read, looking up every new plant she encounters on hiking trails, learning something new, or searching for whales, birds, and other wildlife. Nature is her forever muse, and she believes that storytelling and poetry can foster empathy, deepen our relationship with the natural world, and inspire meaningful stewardship of the environments we call home.
Original Blue.
There is a great blue whale out there – the biggest creature that has dwelled on our earthly
residence. Bigger than the largest dinosaur ancestor, bigger than the great mammoth
matriarch. She is deep time. One breath she draws – a single great blue inhale in the centre
of the vast blue ocean, new weather patterns emerge. Glacially she moves, nursing
thousands of tiny fish, translucent zooplankton, barnacle colonies, pale crustaceans. She
holds the axis as she mothers life. Under a great blue tarp of frothy blue skies, adorned with
a resting crown of blue mountains, she sings her great blue song. The water holds echoes of
her joys and laments for centuries after. When she closes her eyes, the moon unveils herself
and shines its light on its scarred pulverized skin. More continent than animal. When she
opens her mouth, the ocean loses itself in her gulp. She is consciousness embodied. Her
song reverberations change the chemistry of everything it touches. It is her blue that colours
our world.