Issues

No. 222 Spring 2023

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Cover · Contents · Book Reviews · Contributor Notes

Issue 222 cover art by SGidGang.Xaal / Shoshannah Greene

Contents:

Winners:
2023
Open Season Awards

Poetry
  • Kayla Czaga, "Safe Despair," "Static," and "Self-Portrait with Pizza Pop"
    Read an interview with Kayla Czaga on her poems.
  • Jenna Lyn Albert, "floriography I" and "floriography II"
  • Sue Goyette, "In which Haraway’s “multispecies flourishing” radiates over the threshold of death to mothers and sisters by way of two endangered wolves on a live cam at this late stage of, well, everything"
    Read an interview with Sue Goyette on her essay/poem hybrid.
     
  • Maggie Helwig, "St Hilda and the ammonites" and "O Western Wind"
  • Shane Rhodes, "it never shuts off except to scale the coke from its heart"
  • D. A. Lockhart, "Pishkok Perform Sunset Ceremony Feast," "Our Slow Decomposition in the Reflection of Perry's Victory Monument Near the Shore of Middle Bass Island," "Collecting Tipi Poles from the Pelee Island Transportation Company," and "Ghosts of Cranes"
  • C. Rafuse, "douglas lake, one"
  • Cale Plett, "Highway Gates"
  • Pauline Peters, "Housebreaking"
  • Kate Kennedy, ""My first full day at the ranch""
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Reviews
  • Poetry

  • Dionne Brand, Nomenclature: New and Collectd Poems
    (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Jake Kennedy)

    Fiction

  • Paul Sunga, Because of Nothing at All
    (Fredericton: Goose Lane, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Micaela Maftei)

  • Kevin Marc Fournier, Brief Life
    (Winnipeg: Enfield & Wizenty, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Spenser Smith)

  • Nonfiction

  • Joshua Whitehead, Making Love with the Land
    (Toronto: Knopf, 2022)
    (Reviewed by waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy)

  • Tomson Highway, Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions
    (Toronto: Anansi, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Margaret Sweatman)

  • Susan Glickman, Artful Flight: Essays and Reviews 1985-2019
    (Erin, ON: The Porcupine's Quill, 2022)
    (Reviewed by Brian Bartlett)

  • Mentionables

  • Manahil Bandukwala, MONUMENT
    (Kingston: Brick Books, 2022)

    Rhona McAdam, Larder
    (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin, 2022)

    Délani Valin, Shapeshifters
    (Gibsons: Nightwood, 2022)

    Margaret Atwood, Dearly
    (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2022)

    (All reviewed by Book Reviews Editor Jay Ruzesky)

Cover
  • SGidGang.Xaal / Shoshannah Greene
    Shining Like Gold, 2022
    Digital painting, 4,800 x 6,000 px
    Collection of the artist
Contributor Notes
    KATHERINE ABBASS is a multi-genre author of Lebanese descent. Her work has been published in various magazines, including Room, Riddle Fence, and Funicular. She lives on Treaty 6 territory. Instagram: @kj.abbass

    JENNA LYN ALBERT is a genderqueer poet and community organizer living on the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik people. Their debut collection of poems Bec & Call (2018) won the New Brunswick Book Awards’ Fiddlehead Poetry Prize. They served a two-year term as the City of Fredericton’s Poet Laureate (2019–2020). www.jennalynalbert.com Twitter: @JennaLynAlbert

    BRIAN BARTLETT’s books include seven collections of poetry and a selection of his prose on poetry, All Manner of Tackle (2017). His most recent books are Daystart Songflight: A Morning Journal (2021) and a chapbook, Shakespearean Halifax (2021).

    GLORIA BLIZZARD weaves multiple cultures, music, science, and spirit with experiences as a Black Canadian woman of Caribbean heritage living on Indigenous lands of the Americas. Her essay “The Year of Jazz” was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her first book of essays will be published by Dundurn Press. www.gloriablizzard.com Twitter: @GloriaBlizzard Instagram: @gloriawrites

    KAYLA CZAGA is the author of For Your Safety Please Hold On (2014) and Dunk Tank (2019). She lives in Victoria, BC.

    PAUL DHILLON, a second-generation newcomer to Canada, grew up on Qukin ?amak?is, homeland of the Ktunaxa people, also known as Cranbrook, BC. He is a high school English literature teacher. His work has appeared in The Malahat Review and Prairie Fire and been nominated for a National Magazine Award. He lives in Vancouver, the unceded and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil- Waututh Nations.

    SUE GOYETTE lives in K’jipuktuk (Halifax). Her most recent collection of poems is Monoculture (2022). She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Dalhousie University and is Artist in Residence in the Max Rady College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba and Halifax’s current Poet Laureate.

    SGIDGANG.XAAL / SHOSHANNAH GREENE, born and raised on Haida Gwaii, is a member of the Staawaas XaaydaGaay, from Hlkinil llnagaay (Cumshewa village). She pursued a Bachelor of Media Arts at Emily Carr University, with a major in hand-drawn animation. During these years, her interests shifted from classical animation to classical Haida formline. Today, Shoshannah works as a full-time artist, with a creative practice focused on Haida design, both traditional and digital painting, and illustration. Instagram: @thecatking

    S. I . HASSAN is a Canadian immigrant/settler of Egyptian and German descent who lives, writes, and works on the unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples. She isn’t sure if her grandmothers are cheering her on or rolling over in their graves.

    MAGGIE HELWIG has published six books of poetry, two books of essays, a collection of short stories, and three novels; the novel Girls Fall Down (2008) was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Helwig, who lives in Toronto, is sneaking back into publishing after spending a long time doing other things. www.maggiehelwig.com Twitter: @MaggieHelwig

    JAKE KENNEDY is currently collaborating with writer Paul Hong and artists Paola Poletto and Ivetta Kang on a multimedia project entitled “Mr. Cho Stayed for Tea.”

    KATE KENNEDY is a poet, reviewer, and book editor. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and twice selected for the Best Canadian Poetry in English anthology. Originally from Lillooet, BC, she now lives in Victoria. www.katekennedyeditor.com

    MEHR-AFARIN KOHAN is a Toronto-based writer whose fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Citron Review, The Los Angeles Review, and Antigonish Review, amongst others. Her flash fiction was selected for Best Small Fictions 2021. Born in Tehran, she immigrated to Canada as a teenager. She is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst by profession. www.mehrafarinkohan.com

    D. A. LOCKHART is the author of multiple collections of poetry and short fiction. His work has been shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award, Indiana Authors Awards, First Nations Communities READ Award, and a finalist for the ReLit Award. He is pùkuwànkoamimëns of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation and currently resides at Waawiiyaatanong and Pelee Island, where he is the publisher at Urban Farmhouse Press. Instagram: @daniellockhar Mastodon: @Wazhashkpoet@mstdn.ca

    MICAELA MAFTEI lives and works in Victoria, BC, where she teaches English and writing at Camosun College. Her short fiction has been published in various anthologies and journals, and her co-written book of short stories (with Laura Tansley) appeared in 2019.

    REBECCA MANGRA is a Canadian writer and editor. Her critical writing and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in publications such as PRISM International, Room, and This Magazine. She is working on her first novel. Twitter: @rebeccamangra Instagram: @rebeccamangra

    CAROLINE HARPER NEW is a writer and visual artist from Bainbridge, Georgia. Her poems are grounded in anthropology and rooted in the Gulf Coast, where she reckons with natural disaster, concepts of extinction, and love’s potential for violence. New is currently a Zell Fellow at the University of Michigan and the Dzanc Writer-in-Residence in Ann Arbor, Michigan. www.carolineharpernew.com

    PAULINE PETERS is a queer African-Canadian writer living in Toronto. Her work has been published in Canadian Literature, Room, The Fiddlehead, PRISM International, Literary Review of Canada, and her chapbook The Salted Woman (2021). She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

    CALE PLETT is a nonbinary writer who lives in Winnipeg, MB. Their short fiction and poetry have appeared in Riddle Fence, Prairie Fire, Grain, CV2, The /tƐmz/ Review, PRISM International, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere. They are currently working on a queer YA horror novel called The Saw Mouth. Instagram: @calesmoothie

    C. RAFUSE lives in Ottawa, ON.

    DEEPA RAJAGOPALAN won the 2021 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award for her short story “Peacocks of Instagram.” Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Room, Arc Poetry, EVENT, and The Quarantine Review. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Twitter: @derajagopalan Instagram: @deerajagopalan

    SHANE RHODES is the author of six books of poetry, including Dead White Men (2017), which won the Ottawa Book Award. He has also won the Alberta Book Award, the P. K. Page Founder’s Award for Poetry, and a National Magazine Gold Award. He lives in Ottawa, on unceded Algonquin, Anishinabek territory. www.shanerhodes.ca

    PAUL RUBAN, born in Winnipeg, is a French-language author, screenwriter, and literary translator. His debut collection of stories, Crevaison en corbillard, received the 2020 Trillium Book Award. His French translation of Derek Mascarenhas’ Coconut Dreams was a finalist for the 2022 John Glassco Prize. He splits his time between Canada and Germany.

    NEIL SMITH is a writer-translator from Montréal. He has won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the Quebec Writers’ Federation First Book Prize and been nominated for the Journey Prize, the Sunburst Award, and the Governor General’s Award for Translation. His latest novel is Jones (2022). Instagram: @neilwordsmith

    SPENSER SMITH is a Regina-born poet who lives in Vancouver. His first book of poems, A brief relief from hunger, is forthcoming in fall 2023. www.spensersmith.com www.folkfungi.com

    MARGARET SWEATMAN is a novelist, lyricist, and playwright, living in Winnipeg. Her most recent novel is The Gunsmith’s Daughter (2022).

    WAASEYAA’SIN CHRISTINE SY is Ojibway from Lac Seul First Nation and Bawat ing Sault Ste. Marie. She lives in unceded lək̓ʷəŋən territories on the slopes of PKOLS. She is mother to a bear, human to a cat, a poet, and works in the area of Indigenous Gender Studies.