My parents met on LSD. It was 1968. You know exactly what happened next: they teamed up with a group of long-haired friends to find some land to start a commune.
Utopia requires a place. My parents found theirs on a Gulf Island off the West Coast of Canada. Dad built us a one-room cabin. Mum did all the cooking on an antique wood-fired stove. According to hippie doctrine I had a happy childhood, and I sometimes still half believe that’s true …
Bio:
Petra Chambers lives in the traditional territory of the Pentlatch people, on a small island in the Salish Sea. Her essays, poems, and hybrid work have appeared in PRISM international, Prairie Fire, and Contemporary Verse 2, among other publications. She is the 2024 Yosef Wosk Fellow for the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, working on a cross-genre project entitled “Utopia, Dystopia and Solastalgia in the Salish Sea” under the mentorship of Betsy Warland. Her first poem was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize.