Kelly Chartier
LightNews LightNews
banner
kellychartier.bsky.social
Kelly Chartier
@kellychartier.bsky.social
86 followers 48 following 960 posts
I write when I can, procure wisdom, and make an effort to do good in the world despite my utter fear of it.

buymeacoffee.com/kellychartier
Posts Replies Media Videos
kellychartier.bsky.social
You want a mess? Make art!
Image of Francis Bacon’s studio. A narrow space with a roof window illuminating an utter mess of paint, brushes, mirrors, paper, easels, and random things strewn about.
December 8, 2025 at 3:34 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
I'd say abusing the Notwithstanding Clause is a clear act of unethical behaviour by a politician.

Albertans are using the UCP's recall legislation accurately.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
"The architect of Alberta's politician recall legislation says it was never meant to be used as a political weapon, but as an 'ultimate tool of accountability' if a politician engages in illegal or unethical behaviour."
December 6, 2025 at 3:27 PM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Title: What's Faith Got To Do With It? Black Bodies / Christian Souls

Author: Kelly Brown Douglas

Finally! After 2 years of hitting refresh on my library profile, I finished this theological book on November 17th.
Book Title: What's Faith Got To Do With It? Black Bodies / Christian Souls Author: Kelly Brown Douglas Book image is a black and white close up of a black person holding up their hands in a praying pose.
December 1, 2025 at 3:45 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Isn't it ironic, Daniel?

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
"The premier told reporters last week she's concerned the grassroots spirit of the law is being abused, perhaps through online fundraising and even foreign interference."
November 24, 2025 at 11:59 PM
kellychartier.bsky.social
The best poem is not necessarily the best poem of the book, but the one that enters a sense of wonder over mysterious places breathing in light. It is what sets the tone for the rest of the book. Associating a lingering feeling with the longing theme that resurfaces with each new destination.
"The Dead John entered the tomb of Clytemnestra clapping his hands, the reverberations exciting his hands into clapping; he stamped his feet and the stamping stampeded, the thousand horses flew and I was caught there in the centre where walls gathered and breath spun up the narrowing cone to the tip- I became light. I stood at first with my eyes open facing the wedge of light at the entry. The surface of a pool of rainwater there was fetched by wind. A small mountain bird crossed. Yellow plastic near the pool shook faintly. A bead of moisture fell from the lintel. I closed my eyes. The dead breathed into me, entered places the wind could not, nor women, children, men. They breathed into the space between my skin and my skeleton. My spine lengthened and lengthened again. My hips widened." 1/2 "My ligaments eased and my bones realigned. Into the held mass of my body the dead breathed particles of my body and of the earth floor, the air, the pool of water, the bird, the wind. They breathed John's clapping and stamping, still hammering off the stones. They breathed new footsteps, a girl's yellow braid and vibrations of red in the tomb fresh in my eyes when I opened them at last. As I moved forward I saw grass on the verge, and small stones, and John's lithe back moving onward and I wanted to reach him finally." 2/2
October 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
kellychartier.bsky.social
🖋️ 🇨🇦 Canadian Poetry Book

Title: Swimming Among the Ruins
Author: Susan Gillis

Adventuring into the unknown in search of love. A strong feeling of longing navigates the wanderer around the world. Sending postcards of findings that keep circling around one focal point. Each poem seems like a clue.
In blue and greenish-brown hues, what looks to be a water goddess statue - wearing a partially clad dress of moss and a large crown resembling a jagged sea shell - rests peacefully, eyes closed, at the bottom of a sandy waterbed, with ripples of light above dancing around her. She has her arms outstretched, cupping around the tallest point of her crown, looking as though she's praying. At the bottom of the cover: "Susan Gillis Swimming Among the Ruins"
October 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Thankfully, Lindsay Mayhew spat in my face and called me Susan (that's not my name). Showing me a really strong, crumbling factor of Anger. I feel the uncomfortable emotion harming me as she selects her words.
"Feeling is an Organ is a Symphony Lindsay Mayhew I wonder why Anger is self-destructive / ex( in )terior / i chart Anger's dimensions and find them to be multiple / mutations / spiteful verses and voices spark fires in my Ears / my Face burns / Eyes twitch / scraps of my Hair slither on the bathroom tiles / i break / my Knuckles on the dash of my car / i snap / pencils over my Kneecaps / i eat / away at the only thing I have control over / i am acid and liberation / and some nights it feels like my Skin is the only thing stopping me from being free / disillusioned / if only i could / scoop out my Organs / hang them on the clothesline / sapped and sun-dried / i daydream Anger / to be a calculated strike / a jailbreak / a forest fire that fosters new growth or something neat and dazzling like that these fantasies rescue Anger from avenues of smallness / zones of irrelevance / but i am conditioned to be reason / able / solid / pacified i have so much Anger and no where to put it except this / object \ of a Body a lot of nights I am defined: pathetic i just cry and cry cry because Anger has nowhere else to go but skyward / bursting that's why i re / define Anger as righteous / shooting out toward the heavens / breaking it's gravitational pull / parting the curtains of the galaxy you forget that biblical angels aren't made of silk and honey / they are terrifying / that's what this Anger ought to be / a brutal winged thing / Mouth less, feathered, petrifying / a thousand Eyes / blinking /" 1/2 "appearing in dreams / streets / drains / following, taunting, waiting / that's what this Anger is / a feral rage / an ancient combustion / because / become / because isn't madness historically woman ? / isn't hysteria in my Blood ? / don't we haunt haunt haunt the world / still ? / when I write it out / there is something so sublime / beautiful / about the way we bend / break / i think because it feels like a whale song / a call reverberating in a sea of temporal / pulling lineage up from the cacophony of the earth's core / feeling / is an Organ / is a symphony our disconnection, a web finding our vibrational bearings in each other's agony / after all / isn't Anger just Desire denied? isn't shame just / another name for possibility? / this current within me rushes at the touch of Skin / i am not afraid to beg for love / potential liberty so i brush Fingertips and rupture all at once / press Chests and perforate / clasp Palms and break shards of myself into the sea come back on shore with smoother edges / collected / and rendered into stain glass tombstone with inscriptions of vengeance / and Healing" 2/2
September 20, 2025 at 10:36 PM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Title: A Thousand Tiny Awakenings
An Anthology
Editors: Connor Lafortune & Lindsay Mayhew

This book is a collection of poems and poetic short prose from marginalized voices.

#canadianpoetry #poetry #canada
Book cover that is a cool grey colour with a scribbled drawing of a brown-headed, white-and-grey breasted sparrow laying on its back, dead, with a small yellow flower standing erect on its chest. Title: A Thousand Tiny Awakenings / An Anthology Edited by Connor Lafortune & Lindsay Mayhew
September 20, 2025 at 10:36 PM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Text bubble (in the middle of the poster, right over two very upset rectangles): “Honey, the cars have turned into upset boxes. I think you need to go to bed. We’ll try again another day.” AI text (at the lower part of the poster): Oh no - sorry that turned out so wonky. <awkward emoji> Thanks for the patience (and the honesty). If you want to pick this up later, I’ll be ready - we can try a different approach next time (hand-drawn look, clearer perspective, or I can sketch arrow cues so directions read unmistakably). Sleep well - catch you when you’re ready <3”
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Image of very unhappy rectangles of different colours, one of which is upside down, three of which are slumped at an angle, but all of which have two windows and two circles below their little upset faces. There are visual symbols of stress on their cartoon faces. The poster is unusually large, cutting off either end of the title at the top that says: “MEAL DELIVERY” AI text (in white text in the middle of the poster): “Great - I made a quick poster where the four cars are clearly facing different directions. You can download it here: <link>Download the poster </link> If you want any tweaks (bigger smiles, different colors, a different layout, or a more detailed, hand-drawn style), tell me which changes and I’ll update it right away.”
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Text bubble: “I see this is something you’re struggling with. Maybe you need more time to work it out.”
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
AI text: “Thought for 18s” Then an image of a poster of cute little cars - all facing to the left - one a yellow-beige background. Title at the top says, “MEAL DELIVERY”.
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Text bubble: “Honey, I don’t think you know what ‘different directions’ means. They’re all facing the same direction.”
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Image of a poster with cute little cars - all facing to the left - one a yellow-beige background. Title on the top says, “MEAL DELIVERY”.
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Text bubble: “… That looks almost exactly the same…” AI responds: “You’re right - it does look nearly the same, just slightly shifted. If you’d like, I can adjust it so that the little cars are clearly facing in *different directions* - for example: - one facing left - one facing right - one angled towards the viewer - one angled away Would you like me to try that style for you?” Text bubble: “Yes, please.”
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Image of a poster with cute little cars - all facing to the left - on a yellow-beige background. Title on top says, “MEAL DELIVERY”.
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Text bubble: “Aww. Those are cute cars. Could they please be going in different directions?”
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Image of a poster of cute little cars - all facing to the left - on a yellow-beige background. The title on the top says “MEAL DELIVERY”.
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
An AI story:
Text bubble: “Hello :) Would you please create a poster with cute little cars on it. Title being: “Meal Delivery”.
September 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Best poem was a rather simple one about keys. All of the poems are rather short with sometimes $100 words. This one was talking to a child. It gave a feeling of closure as it happens.
"CROSS KEYS What are they? They are the keys of Peter, child. What do they open? Earth and heaven and Hell and the human heart. Will they open my heart? Yes, if you let them. Will it hurt? The first turn of the key is hard, and the pain is great, but then it runs easy, and the joy is great. Who is Peter? An apostle. A rock. A fisherman. A coward. A bishop. A saint." 1/2 "Why does he have two keys? A key to open and a key to close. What will he close? The door of joy against those whose hearts are hard. Why do you tell me these things? Because you are dying, child. Why am I dying? The key of Peter is turning in your heart." 2/2
September 10, 2025 at 1:59 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
I'll bet the Helwig household talks a lot about Adam and Eve.
"ADAM AND EVE Long days in the nudist colony pious as cabbages. Adam wore out ten alphabets inventing names for all the pets of God. They screwed unwitting and without desire. It was like a weekly bath. A travelling serpent offered lectures on the philosophy of Descartes. They tumbled and are still falling through the nondescript acres of outer space, greedy lips sucking sweetness."
September 10, 2025 at 1:50 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Got another poetry book typeset and designed by Michael Macklem.

Title: Catchpenny Poems
Author: David Helwig

The author might be married to Maggie Helwig. Same style of book, same publisher, same last name - I think it's a good bet.
Cover of book. Cream coloured with black course etchings. Small leaf etchings at the top; followed by "David Helwig"; then what look like vertical-grated lenses on an old-timey, nose-bridge-pinching classes, "Catchpenny Poems"; ending with more small leaf etchings to match the top. "Copyright © 1983 by David Helwig All rights reserved ISBN°8875°5°66 Typesetting and design by Michael Macklem Printed in Canada Published in Canada by Oberon Press"
September 10, 2025 at 1:44 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
The best poem within is a very visceral one about leaving the Garden of Eden to create a city with a depressing present on how their children view them.
"THE MEMOIRS OF ADAM AND EVE It was a walled and oriental garden and the white waxy candle flowers lit the night. The air by pools was sweet as coriander, and her hair curled at the edges, tawny on her forehead. Succulent forest, green in the deep voracious sunsets; the roots we dug were rich and brown, and I remember his hands as he turned the soil - this above all. Above the angel there was fire fire in western skies under unveiling eyes and we do not speak and we do not speak about the day, except that we were driven through the highways of the orchard to this tar-burned waste except to say uprooted from the tangled sweet excess, we found ourselves in dust building a city." 1/2 "And my son's blood is wasted in the alleys, dark life slobbered into sand and sidewalk and sand-encrusted neon warriors, our sons, in bands watch for their brother, kept away from walls and hands. My children hate me in television prophecies. Our house is stone. There are no more streams like those I remember I never remember my dreams these days." 2/2
September 10, 2025 at 1:08 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
The book is Eden by Maggie Helwig.

All of the poems have an medieval feel to it that matches the course etching illustrations within. There's heavy focus on the tension between garden and city, with a strong sensory path of colour and taste. I feel like I'm an Impressionist experiencing lore.
Black book cover with an image of Homage to Goya: The Marsh Flower, a Sad Human Head, 1885 by Odilon Redon (though it's a bit drowned out by the black) sitting within a white border. Within a thicker white border is... Title: Eden Poems by: Maggie Helwig All of which is positioned on the top left of the black book cover, perplexingly.
September 10, 2025 at 1:08 AM
kellychartier.bsky.social
Nice! Someone left a Courtney Love bookmark for me. I'll keep that there for the next reader to stumble upon.
Inside a poetry book is a print of disembodied heads on what looks like a Greek Pantheon inspired shelf - looking like a spice-rack of heads. Below that, held by my thumb, is a small, square, black-and-white inkjet print of an over-exposed photo of Courtney Love, with her name written in blue ink on the right side, and star and heart drawings freckling each corner at the top.
September 10, 2025 at 1:08 AM