Calgary Student Censored for Reading Poem on Sexual Harassment

A Calgary teenager is facing backlash after she spoke out about unwanted advances while reading a poem by an eastern Ontario author at a local event.

Josephine Trigg, a Grade 12 student in the Calgary Catholic School District, has been part of her school’s Poetry in Voice competition since her sophomore year. Poetry in Voice is a Canadian charity started in 2010 that encourages poetry in schools.

The 17-year-old often picks poems that deal with topics like sexual assault or harassment but feels that they often get overlooked.

This year, she thought reading the poem Dick Pics by Kingston poet Sarah Tsiang would catch people’s attention.

“You can’t hear this poem and not be listening to the message, not be listening to the words,” Trigg recently told CBC Radio’s All In A Day.

The poem did attract attention, though perhaps not in the way Trigg intended. She mentioned that her school’s vice-principal, who was present during her recital, informed her English teacher that the poem probably wouldn’t meet regional standards.

Sarah Tsiang is the Kingston, Ont., author behind the poem ‘Dick Pics,’ which a Calgary student was banned from reciting at a school competition. (Submitted by Sarah Tsiang)

The piece had previously received approval from the English teacher overseeing the event and was listed on the program for it.

The Calgary Catholic School District didn’t provide an interview to CBC but released a statement claiming their duty is to ensure that language used within schools aligns with their faith-based values.

“While the poem addresses serious and important issues, our responsibility is to ensure that content shared in school environments upholds the dignity of the human person and is suitable for students of all ages,” stated the school board.

“The decision was based on the language used in the piece, not on the importance of the topic itself.”

Rooted in real experiences

Tsiang’s poem highlights a genuine issue faced by many girls and women throughout Canada: unwanted sexual advances from men.

Tsiang shared with All In A Day that she wrote this poem after her daughter’s friend, then a Grade 10 student, received two explicit images from strangers online.

The resulting poem gets straight to its point without hesitation.

“Two dicks, sitting in my daughter’s inbox, like men without hats, waiting for any door to open,” reads its opening stanza.

Tsiang explained that while it discusses genitalia humorously, it’s aimed at diminishing some of the power these images seem to hold over women-comparing them to “baloney on a plate.”

“It’s really about the mother’s relationship with her daughter and how alienating it is to live in a world where you don’t know what is being sent to your child,” Tsiang said.

LISTEN | Why was a student banned by her school from reciting a Kingston author’s poem? :

16:14Why was a student banned by her school from reciting a Kingston author’s poem?

Calgary grade 12 student Josephine Trigg wanted to perform a poem by Kingston author Sarah Tsiang. But her school has banned her from reciting the poem, saying its language doesn’t align with Catholic values. We speak with both Trigg and Tsiang.

Tsiang expressed excitement when she learned Trigg would perform her work but felt shocked upon hearing about attempts to censor it-especially since it deals with troubling situations many women encounter daily.

“If you censor the words, you’re censoring the message,” Trigg said. “You can’t detach one from another.”

Trigg mentioned she submitted another poem for consideration at Tuesday’s regional round of Poetry in Voice competition.

However, she’s hopeful that public pressure might convince officials at her school to allow her back into performance mode with Tsiang’s original piece.

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