Abstract

The poems of this manuscript circle the issues surrounding the "Missing Women" of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Although women had been going missing from the neighbourhood since the late 1970's, efforts were not co-ordinated into a full-scale investigation until the issue was given visibility by Lori Culbert, Lindsay Kines and Kim Bolan's 2001 "Missing Women" series in the Vancouver Sun . This media coverage, combined with efforts in political and cultural sectors, resulted in increased investigation efforts which have so far led to the arrest of Robert Pickton, on whose property the remains of twenty seven of the sixty eight listed women were found. Pickton awaits trial in one of the highest-profile criminal cases to take place in BC's history; yet this is not the focus of the manuscript. As the title suggests, the primary concern of this project is the investigation of the troubled relationship between this specific marginalized neighbourhood and its population and the wealthy, healthy city that surrounds it. These poems interrogate the comfortable distance from which the public consumes the sensationalist news story by turning their focus toward the normative audience, the invisible public.