A Calgary teen is facing the consequences of speaking publicly about penises and unwanted advances after she chose to read one eastern Ontario author’s poem at a local competition.

Josephine Trigg, a Grade 12 student in the Calgary Catholic School District, has participated in her school’s “Poetry in Voice” competition since her sophomore year.

The 17-year-old says she often reads poems that touch on subjects like sexual assault or harassment, but finds they often fall on deaf ears. 

So for this year’s competition, she had a feeling she’d get peoples attention by reading the poem Dick Pics by Kingston, Ont., poet Sarah Tsiang.

“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 was certainly heard, but maybe not in the way Trigg had originally hoped. She says her school’s vice-principal, who attended the recital, told her English teacher the poem likely wouldn’t be acceptable for regionals.

The piece had prior approval by the English teacher in charge of the competition and appeared on the event’s program. 

The Calgary Catholic School District did not grant an interview to CBC, but in a statement said they have a responsibility to ensure that language used in its schools reflects the values of its faith-based learning community.

“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,” the school board wrote in their statement.

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

Rooted in real experiences

For all the attention Tsiang’s poem drew, its contents address a real issue faced by many girls and women across the country: unwanted sexual advances by men.

Tsiang told All In A Day she was inspired to write the poem after her daughter’s friend, who was in Grade 10 at the time, had been sent two pictures of men’s genitalia from two strangers. 

The poem inspired by the event doesn’t waste any time getting to the point.

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

Tsiang says that while the poem does talk about genitalia in a humorous way, it tries to take away some of the power that men think these images hold, likening the photos 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 which you don’t know what is getting sent to your child,” Tsiang said.