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Ink on Paper
Brad Cran's highly anticipated second book of poetry, Ink on Paper , is a compelling collection of political poems that seek to elucidate our relationships with our surroundings as well as those who surround us. Cran, former Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver, masterfully constructs images held in contradictory tension, as in his civic poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Grey Whale and Ending with a Line from Rilke":
And there you were
below the mountains
in the heart of the city
gazing at the grey whale.
You must change your life.
Cran's poems are a fresh, provocative examination of urban culture, the natural world and issues of social justice, told with keen awareness and a gritty poetic precision.
And there you were
below the mountains
in the heart of the city
gazing at the grey whale.
You must change your life.
Cran's poems are a fresh, provocative examination of urban culture, the natural world and issues of social justice, told with keen awareness and a gritty poetic precision.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published March 6, 2013
1 person is currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
Brad Cran
7 books2 followersBrad Cran is a writer, accountant and social entrepreneur. Cran served as Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver from April of 2009 until October of 2011.
He published his first book, The Good Life, in 2001 and his most recent book, Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (with Gillian Jerome,) won the City of Vancouver Book Award, was shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, was long-listed for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, and has raised over $50,000 for marginalized people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Cran’s essay, Notes on a World Class City, defended Vancouver’s progressive history and went viral in the lead up to the 2010 Winter Olympic games.
His second book of poetry, Ink on Paper, was released in 2013 and he is currently finishing his second book of non-fiction The Truth About Ronald Reagan: How Movies Changed the World.
He published his first book, The Good Life, in 2001 and his most recent book, Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (with Gillian Jerome,) won the City of Vancouver Book Award, was shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, was long-listed for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, and has raised over $50,000 for marginalized people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Cran’s essay, Notes on a World Class City, defended Vancouver’s progressive history and went viral in the lead up to the 2010 Winter Olympic games.
His second book of poetry, Ink on Paper, was released in 2013 and he is currently finishing his second book of non-fiction The Truth About Ronald Reagan: How Movies Changed the World.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 15, 2025
Could there be something worse for writers than alcohol? In Brad Cran’s ‘Ink On Paper’, the poet makes the following observation: Now that your ego is a podium/that you have carved out of pixels./Now that everyone understands/your outrage over the federal budget,/even though you have not read/the federal budget. It is Facebook of course—destroyer of time, seducer of attention, platform for the profligate—that is the butt of this poet’s humourous, critical observation. The piece concludes: Now that your mind won’t turn off/Now that your mind is a subordinate/conjunction desperately searching/for its clause.
Nearly as much a book of lyrical personal essays as it is a poetry collection, this second collection of verse by the former Vancouver Poet Laureate contains stirring, sometimes startling observations of our world. Perhaps the most emblematic of Brad Cran’s current oeuvre in both form and subject is the omnibus: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Grey Whale, Ending With a Line from Rilke. Here are enjoyably quirky and touching observations about West Coast life:
Can you believe/there is a whale in/English Bay. How lucky/we are to walk through Stanley Park. My heart/beats at the speed of birds. I’ve stopped believing/in loneliness…
The famous line from Rilke's Archaic Torso of Apollo: 'You must change your life.' resonates unexpectedly at the end of this poem, as it does in the original, an observation of an ancient fragmented sculpture. In Cran’s rendered world, the sculpture-esque grey whale inspires figurative, symbolic and even anthropomorphic analyses of urban existence and not only puts it to poetic description, but leads the reader to recognize their own world anew. In its penetrative evaluations, odd truisms and whimsical rejoinders it is a piece that subtly inspires self-examination.
The title poem is a cautionary polemic about the wages of narcissism. Cran here takes on—by way of an intricately detailed and foreboding biographical narrative—the folly of artistic pretension. Tracing the exalted but no less tawdry life of the Chinese modernist poet Gu Cheng, the piece chronicles the rise and fall of a consummate egoist whose depravation and blatant sexism is largely overlooked in light of his considerable talent. Cran here weighs the legitimacy of literary celebrity against a simple preference for common decency: ‘Gu Cheng envisioned himself a patriarch/of his own childless harem he called “The Kingdom of Girls”… women are/only beautiful when they do nothing.’ The poem ponders the cost of human self-absorption in the name of art, and effectively illustrates an extreme, ultimately tragic, example.
Given the powerful, concisely argued essay-like themes found in ‘Ink On Paper’, one occasionally tends to forget that the language spoken here is poetry. But then a line like this pops up: ‘…whose memories/weren’t preserved in the molasses of a bronze effigy’ , or: ‘…your thoughts grow rot/and no matter how many flowers may bloom/on top, there is no joy to see them in your hair.’ Clever lineation and a sure hand for metaphor and imagery help Cran spin the magic trick of getting us to read with a quick-lost awareness that while presenting poetics he is also creating controlled, structured and carefully reasoned polemics.
With disparate observational notes a la Rilke and a detailed funkiness reminiscent of Richard Brautigan, Brad Cran is a master at getting us to see the transformative. These writings are the chronicles of a mind steeped in social awareness, probing the possibilities of true connection with the world, improvement of the human lot, and redemption of the soul through love and family:
From a hundred yards back of a roadside shrine,
I can spot the flicker of another world, the glimmer
of something easy as a second chance. As I get closer
the portal fully opens; a child is again standing
by the road, everything depends on this. I am the Flash.
My thoughts are lightning, my heart beats
by its thunder. The child fidgets and I am running.
Ink On Paper is a reassurance that there is a formidable thinker in our midst who has the courage and literary tools to help others comprehend. At times sardonic (The past is best forgotten. Remember, black and white/photography was too kind.), critical (Sweater vests can be made in Canada but/more likely you wear one from Bangladesh.), and cuttingly humourous (The important thing is to give Canadians/what they want, Yo-Yo Ma and “a little help/from my friends,” being a fun-loving Nickelback/policy machine and for good measure throw in/some kittens.), the poet finely rakes contemporary life over the sight lines of his edgy purview.
Nearly as much a book of lyrical personal essays as it is a poetry collection, this second collection of verse by the former Vancouver Poet Laureate contains stirring, sometimes startling observations of our world. Perhaps the most emblematic of Brad Cran’s current oeuvre in both form and subject is the omnibus: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Grey Whale, Ending With a Line from Rilke. Here are enjoyably quirky and touching observations about West Coast life:
Can you believe/there is a whale in/English Bay. How lucky/we are to walk through Stanley Park. My heart/beats at the speed of birds. I’ve stopped believing/in loneliness…
The famous line from Rilke's Archaic Torso of Apollo: 'You must change your life.' resonates unexpectedly at the end of this poem, as it does in the original, an observation of an ancient fragmented sculpture. In Cran’s rendered world, the sculpture-esque grey whale inspires figurative, symbolic and even anthropomorphic analyses of urban existence and not only puts it to poetic description, but leads the reader to recognize their own world anew. In its penetrative evaluations, odd truisms and whimsical rejoinders it is a piece that subtly inspires self-examination.
The title poem is a cautionary polemic about the wages of narcissism. Cran here takes on—by way of an intricately detailed and foreboding biographical narrative—the folly of artistic pretension. Tracing the exalted but no less tawdry life of the Chinese modernist poet Gu Cheng, the piece chronicles the rise and fall of a consummate egoist whose depravation and blatant sexism is largely overlooked in light of his considerable talent. Cran here weighs the legitimacy of literary celebrity against a simple preference for common decency: ‘Gu Cheng envisioned himself a patriarch/of his own childless harem he called “The Kingdom of Girls”… women are/only beautiful when they do nothing.’ The poem ponders the cost of human self-absorption in the name of art, and effectively illustrates an extreme, ultimately tragic, example.
Given the powerful, concisely argued essay-like themes found in ‘Ink On Paper’, one occasionally tends to forget that the language spoken here is poetry. But then a line like this pops up: ‘…whose memories/weren’t preserved in the molasses of a bronze effigy’ , or: ‘…your thoughts grow rot/and no matter how many flowers may bloom/on top, there is no joy to see them in your hair.’ Clever lineation and a sure hand for metaphor and imagery help Cran spin the magic trick of getting us to read with a quick-lost awareness that while presenting poetics he is also creating controlled, structured and carefully reasoned polemics.
With disparate observational notes a la Rilke and a detailed funkiness reminiscent of Richard Brautigan, Brad Cran is a master at getting us to see the transformative. These writings are the chronicles of a mind steeped in social awareness, probing the possibilities of true connection with the world, improvement of the human lot, and redemption of the soul through love and family:
From a hundred yards back of a roadside shrine,
I can spot the flicker of another world, the glimmer
of something easy as a second chance. As I get closer
the portal fully opens; a child is again standing
by the road, everything depends on this. I am the Flash.
My thoughts are lightning, my heart beats
by its thunder. The child fidgets and I am running.
Ink On Paper is a reassurance that there is a formidable thinker in our midst who has the courage and literary tools to help others comprehend. At times sardonic (The past is best forgotten. Remember, black and white/photography was too kind.), critical (Sweater vests can be made in Canada but/more likely you wear one from Bangladesh.), and cuttingly humourous (The important thing is to give Canadians/what they want, Yo-Yo Ma and “a little help/from my friends,” being a fun-loving Nickelback/policy machine and for good measure throw in/some kittens.), the poet finely rakes contemporary life over the sight lines of his edgy purview.
January 29, 2022
Because daddy never loved my shiny beads,
the honest work I did
or because I was made obsolete.
And if I hate I hate Toshiba
money counters and greed,
the capitalists but the communists, too.
The poetry is the poetry is the poetry.
You do not do, you do not do.
Clickety-clack or energy in wire,
the calculation is to become.
I have little to say but more to prove.
You do not do, you do not do.
One day I will move my small hearts
of wood into the calculated dreams of the few
where all of my life, ich, ich, ich, ich.
You do not do, you do not do.
* * *
Nancy with your nights on fire,
let me be your cold wet rag.
My ghost will walk to the empty tomb
where I will wait for you to die.
When I met you in the middle
you became my everything.
The trumpets loose, the lips then purse
we walked to "Hail to the Chief."
Without you my life was wooden
then I loved you like sky,
like breath., like ocean.
How can I say it to you one last time?
I loved you more than I love our own children.
* * *
Of all the past things, I'd advocate for birds and sleep
by the Vedder River, in the meadow a carving stone itself
whittled into a bone. To make something with your hands
or to ride on illusion and mill nothing out of the trees?
Speculation dehydrates the soul as we pour ourselves gelatinous
into the Zuckermould. Archive and backup.
Zip, compress, send and repeat. We are dreaming
in a forest without an axe. To sleep in productivity
and awake in a spreadsheet. To burn your retina
and then relax. To think you are thinking deeper, going on:
for and against the modern world.
the honest work I did
or because I was made obsolete.
And if I hate I hate Toshiba
money counters and greed,
the capitalists but the communists, too.
The poetry is the poetry is the poetry.
You do not do, you do not do.
Clickety-clack or energy in wire,
the calculation is to become.
I have little to say but more to prove.
You do not do, you do not do.
One day I will move my small hearts
of wood into the calculated dreams of the few
where all of my life, ich, ich, ich, ich.
You do not do, you do not do.
- The Abacus Dreams of Unrequited Love, italics from "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, pg. 31
* * *
Nancy with your nights on fire,
let me be your cold wet rag.
My ghost will walk to the empty tomb
where I will wait for you to die.
When I met you in the middle
you became my everything.
The trumpets loose, the lips then purse
we walked to "Hail to the Chief."
Without you my life was wooden
then I loved you like sky,
like breath., like ocean.
How can I say it to you one last time?
I loved you more than I love our own children.
- The Death of Ronald Reagan: A Final Love Song, pg. 57
* * *
Of all the past things, I'd advocate for birds and sleep
by the Vedder River, in the meadow a carving stone itself
whittled into a bone. To make something with your hands
or to ride on illusion and mill nothing out of the trees?
Speculation dehydrates the soul as we pour ourselves gelatinous
into the Zuckermould. Archive and backup.
Zip, compress, send and repeat. We are dreaming
in a forest without an axe. To sleep in productivity
and awake in a spreadsheet. To burn your retina
and then relax. To think you are thinking deeper, going on:
for and against the modern world.
- Hands and Pixels, pg. 66
July 1, 2013
I really enjoyed Cran's poems in this collection--his humour gave me a laugh at times, and his reflections gave me plenty of opportunity to reflect.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews