Tag: Notes on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project

Me and You and Rebecca and Drew by Jennifer Filipowicz

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The scow after the violent storm that moved it further towards the falls
Photo by Andrew Porteus

I remember it was sometime in May
When we all went up to the falls that day
Just me and you and Rebecca and Drew
From Dufferin Islands we walked so far
It was the cheapest place to leave our car
And we strolled along and we passed a barge
On Niagara River, wide and large
The rusted scow had been there forever
And Rebecca who was very clever
Knew the story of the daring rescue
Of the men on the scow when it was new
It broke loose from a tug boat, Becca said
They were saved by man named William Red
The men climbed a cable one at a time
While Red and the coast guard secured the line
And as the river raged on beside us
We walked along with no one to guide us
Went to the casino and played some slots
We won some, I think, but didn’t win lots
To the top of Horseshoe Falls we did go
Where the Maid of the Mist cruised down below
We stood by the falls on that day in May
And got thoroughly misted by the spray
Then stopped at a shop to buy too much fudge
And up Clifton Hill the four of us trudged
We passed a statue on a high tightrope
Then you took my picture with a wax Pope
We saw Frankenstein and Dracula too
Just me and you and Rebecca and Drew
Suddenly Becca collapsed upon the floor
And said “Drew, I can’t take it anymore!”
“I’m exhausted,” she said. “Not feeling well.”
“I’m telling something too early to tell”
“I’m pregnant!” our friend Rebecca did say.
“And so I’m tired from walking all day.”
Back to our cars you and Drew walked and walked
While I sat with Becca and talked and talked
Under a stairway, Rebecca and me.
We spoke about how motherhood would be
(I didn’t know then I was pregnant too)
Then we got in a car with you and Drew
Drove somewhere and ate dinner together
And I’ll remember that day forever
A terrible storm broke apart that scow
And our babies are almost twenty now

Source: The author, 2026.  

Jennifer Filipowicz moved to the Niagara area last year with her husband, two teenage children and their dogs. When she’s not working as a background performer on a film set, or manning the front desk at a retirement home, Jennifer can be found hiking the Bruce Trail, swimming at Sunset beach, or reading a book by her backyard pond.

Read about the daring scow rescue 

This poem won third place in the Niagara Falls Poetry Project 25th Anniversary Poetry Competition. It will be published with all the other entrants in a print anthology to be published by Phylum Press. To reserve a copy of the anthology please email aporteus@niagarapoetry.ca. A companion volume exploring the poetry over 6 centuries will also soon be available, and may be reserved ahead of time.

Niagara Falls Poetry Map

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The Niagara Falls Poetry Project Poetry Map showing the pin for the Underground Railroad

One of the features of the Niagara Falls Poetry Project is the Poetry Map. A link to this map can be found on the menu bar at the top of every page.

The Poetry Map features poems that are linked to a particular place, most in the Niagara Falls vicinity but others both up and down river to the Buffalo / Fort Erie area and to the Niagara-on-the-Lake / Youngstown area, with a few incursions inland to Welland and St. Catharines areas, but they must have some sort of connection to Niagara Falls to get on the map.

The map currently has 84 pins, each marking a specific location, Each of these pins has one poem written out in full attached to it, along with a link to the poem on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website. If there is more than one poem written about the location then links to these poems are included after the poem that has been written out in full. For example, The poem The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to Niagara by E.D.H. is pinned in Lewiston, NY at the site of the Freedom Crossing Monument on the eastern bank of the Niagara River.  When the pin on the map at Lewiston with the pin title “Underground Railroad” is clicked, the full poem appears along with a link to the poem.

<center>The Niagara Falls Poetry Project poetry map showing the links to more poems in the pin for the Niagara Whirlpool</center>
The Niagara Falls Poetry Project Poetry Map showing the links to more poems in the pin for the Niagara Whirlpool

If you click on the pin labelled “Niagara Whirlpool,” in the middle of the whirlpool when you enlarge the view, you will see the poem  “The Niagara Gorge (as seen from the Whirlpool Cable Car)” by Father James B. Dollard written out in full, as well as a link to the poem. In addition, there are links to 6 other poems relating to the whirlpool that are on the site, with just their author, title, and a link  to the poem. These include Susan Hill Todd’s The Whirlpool of Niagara River Viewed on a Sabbath Morning, James Gay’s Lines of the Death of Captain Webb and four others.

Many poems are very general to the Niagara Falls area, and have no specific location mentioned so are not included on this map. As the Poetry Map was not started until a number of years after the website went live poems that were posted earlier and do have a specific loaction may not appear either. As more poems are added they will be added to the Poetry Map if they have a particular location as their main focus.

I was chuffed…

chuffed

I was very chuffed the other day when I was querying Google AI about a word which I knew was on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website but isn’t found in many other places. I’d asked the origins of the word, and it came back with some etymological stuff, and I asked it if it had checked my site. It came back and apologized as it hadn’t checked it, but then unprompted wrote “The website is a massive, niche archive curated by a former librarian to catalog poetry specifically about the Niagara region.” 

Thanks, AI – I think that’s a lovely description of it. Maybe it should be the tagline.

Where to start?

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Niagara Mornings Photographs of Niagara Falls taken by Andrew Porteus over the course of a year, with a selection of Niagara poems

I’ve just been asked by someone visiting the website where a good place is to start when looking at the Niagara poetry. I think maybe a good place would be on the anthologies page, where poems that have been published in various anthologies over the years are listed and linked. Also on the right hand side of each page is a listing of tags – clicking on any of those will give a listing of poems in those various categories.

Anthologies: Tables of Contents

For new poems added to the website, click on the “Subscribe” link on the right-hand side of the page. You can also follow the Niagara Falls Poetry Project on FaceBook and on BlueSky

Remarks and a Limerick at the 25th Anniversary Poetry Event by Louise Waldie

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Louise Waldie
portrait by Nancy Wardle, 2023

Remarks at the 25th Anniversary Poetry Event

Good evening.

It’s been about 19 years since I arrived in Andrew’s life.

Over that time I’ve watched while he quietly and without a lot of fanfare, acted on his passion for all things Niagara. A few of the many examples to which I saw him dedicate countless hours and energy:

…. His professional life which included being the Local History guru at the Niagara Falls Public Library where he vastly expanded the online collection of text and images important in the life of Niagara Falls, rescuing a number of collections from local photographers and the Niagara Falls Review.

…. Documenting in photos a year in the life of Niagara Falls, with photos taken every morning from the same spot on the Rainbow Bridge.  Even on those days he wasn’t working first thing in the morning…weekends, Mondays, Tuesdays, holidays…he’d drive from Fort Erie to Niagara Falls around 8:30 in the morning, pay the bridge’s pedestrian toll, stand on the bridge to take a photo even if it was so foggy you couldn’t see the Falls, then go through customs to get back into Canada.  He combined those photos with appropriate poems about the Falls, and 10 years ago published them in a book entitled Niagara Mornings.

….And his most passionate and long-lasting project, searching out, collecting, and recording all the poetry about Niagara Falls or by Niagara area poets on both sides of the border which we are celebrating today. Andrew’s talked about the many aspects of his journey with the Poetry Project, but my view is from behind-the-scenes…the long hours he spent poring over books, chasing copyrights, contacting poets, answering questions from interested readers and so much more.

Thanks you Andrew. for your passion and your dedication to contributing to the common good.

Congratulations on this celebration of 25 years of your enthusiasm and commitment.

Now to finish…

There was a young man from Niagara
Discovered just one rhyme – Viagra
How often, dear sir,
Has this one word occurred
And forced you to post crazy word slaw

Source: Louise Waldie, 2026

Louise Waldie is the retired head of the IT project management office of a major national insurance company, and wife of Andrew Porteus. She has been active for many years on the executive of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Social Club, and as a volunteer personal shopper for people in Northern Canada who do not have access to retail outlets. In  their multigenerational complex blended family , Louise and Andrew have 5 children and 11 grandchildren with assorted spouses, and a great-grandchild.