THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSIONS
Congratulations + $100 goes to Andrea Josic
2020’s last Open Drawer Poetry Contest #WINNER
$50 to each runner up: Aasiya Aslam & N Thomas Rector
DECEMBER’S WINNER: Andrea Josic
Location:
Tkaronto/Canada
Pronouns: she/they
IG: @localdollarama
POEM + BIO
Andrea Josic (she/they) is a queer Bosnian-Canadian poet, performer and comedian based in Tkaronto (Toronto, Ontario). AJ has been competing in slams across Turtle Island for four years and was the champion of the 2020 Toronto Poetry Slam and the 2019 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam. A graduate from Ryerson University's journalism program with a minor in English and the former Fun & Satire editor at The Eyeopener, they are an award-winning journalist and multidisciplinary artist. As a textbook Aries, she hopes to cultivate healing and community joy in her work. Find them on Twitter and Instagram @localdollarama.
(ALMOST) DAUGHTER INHERITS THE MATRIARCH
I will always be my mother’s swelling
she says my shell is recipe booking
"knees that knock
wrinkle in left cheek
lower back carves"
but I am not the her she expects me to be
I am but the aftertaste of a woman
my given name is tongued sandpaper
that undresses the rind out of a drying throat
and rots the girlhood I denounced at 18
when my mother and I run along the grass
our limbs are harmonious applause, she says
"can you see us in grandmother?
her kiln breaded me and
sunned your flour for 34 years"
grandma remembers me at 13
a beanstalk child, stretching just like her
old photographs could prove time travel
but I hush regret this inherited matriarch
a lineage that ends with me, ungendered
away from the bellies that have homed me
**
When did you start writing this piece?
I started writing this piece in April 2020. Whenever the weather gets warmer, I find myself reflecting a lot on my gender and gender expression as I begin to shed layers and show more of my physical self. This year I was inspired to write this specific poem as I began to think about how my gender relates to my matriline.
What do your 2021 plans look like? Are there any major projects you are working toward?
In 2021 I'm pursuing writing full-time after recently graduating university. I'm publishing my first chapbook later this year while I explore further avenues for my craft. That may look like a Master's, a fellowship or a larger project, but I also have plans for lots of shows and collaborations with other artists!
On January 30th, Andrea will be featuring at FreeFlow Showcase
Click here to watch Andrea’s reading of their winning poem
DECEMBER’S RUNNER-UPS
Aasiya Aslam’s POEM + BIO
I'm a wandering soul, an amateur writer and a designer. Recent restlessness to discover myself pushed me into heaps of immigration paperwork and one impromptu trip later, I found myself in amazing Ontario, in the peak of the pandemic. My day job as an architectural designer helps me eat my weight in sugar but in the quiet of the night my heart still lives in India. Moving away from family and starting fresh is hard especially for someone who was loved throughout her being by amazing parents, siblings, cousins and grandparents. Being introverted, my childhood was mostly about books and imaginary story telling. But somewhere in my late twenties, reality shook me into believing that stories don't always have happy endings. I want to be able to write about anything that means something to me and also things that mean nothing. I also love traveling and indie music. In future I would love to save up enough money to travel slowly and write stories along the way.
IN MY DREAMS
In my dreams my grandmother is a protector,
Much like her hijab that set her white frizzy hair
from spiking through its weave.
I remember her eyes changed color
from amber with my pain
to black with troubles.
She knew my voice too well.
No lie escaped the barbs
of her forehead lines.
In real life, my grandmother provided her wisdom
from years of surviving this world.
Her soul invested in my dreams.
My flaws were powdered chalk she erased.
I grew up in a house of matriarchal fondness.
The world called me by a different last name
but I'm a product of her genetics.
She's no longer hostage to worldly seasons
But lives in my evening prayers.
My home is protected by the remains of a woman
whose word was unlike the folded corner
of a prayer mat.
I see my grandmother in my dreams
She is neither light nor song nor voice
But my protector in smudgy glasses,
frizzy hair and broken teeth.
And I sleep well as I know I will dream again.
**
When did you start writing this piece?
I wrote a couple of lines in appreciation of my grandmother in 2013. I was living abroad for a couple of years before I returned to my hometown in India to spend some time with my grandmother, who was living the last few days of her life. She was a very pious woman and before I left to chase my dreams, she blessed me with a short prayer for my protection. I've felt that I've always had a guardian angel watch over me at all times and this feeling made me stronger in many ways. I let the memories of my grandmother sit in my journal as short verses for all these years but decided to fine tune it with this poem 'in my dreams' for this contest.
What do your 2021 plans look like? Are there any major projects you are working toward?
I've had little courage to share my personal experiences with a large audience. So this year, I definitely want to refine my writing and work on pieces that are inspired from my own life. Optimistically speaking, I'd love to have my pieces published in zines to start off with.
N Thomas Rector’s POEM + BIO
(TBA)
THERE WAS NO CONTEST IN NOVEMBER
OCTBER’S WINNER: Furqan Mohamed
Location:
Toronto/Canada
Pronouns: she/her
IG: @heyfurqan
POEM + BIO
Furqan Mohamed (she/her) is a writer from Toronto, whose work centers around popular culture and social justice. You can read her poetry and essays online and in print for Top Magazine, Maggie, She’s Got Wonder, Trick Magazine, Feels Zine, The Vault by With/out Pretend, Mimp Magazine, and others. Her writing is often inspired by her diaspora, community, and the stories that can stem from the shared human experience. She is currently a Journalism Fellow at The Local, and an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto.
BREAKFAST (AN ABECEDARIAN)
An early morning arrives already
Beginning with
Colours
Designed
Especially
For
Good cups of coffee with
Hellos and morning prayers
Inquiries about plans for the day fly across the room
Juices and jams from different fruits paint the
Kitchen table
Like a boardroom gathering or perhaps a
Meeting of diplomats
No one seems to get a word in
On anything, but that doesn't seem to bother any of the
Participants. I look at my mother,
Quizzically and
Realize it's the
Same confused face staring back at me except
This one has got years
Under its weary smile. She's so
Very quick to remind me that
We don't get to pick our family. Like a
Xebec on the water
You are part of the current and where it carries you, with
Zero chance of escape.
***
When did you start writing this piece?
I wrote this poem in 2019, for a creative writing course I took during the fall semester- probably around September or October. Early in the course, there was an assignment that required us to write a poem in a form that we never experimented with before. I had written poetry in other traditional forms before, but when my instructor introduced the class to the abecedarian form, I was super interested. "Abecedarian" basically means to alphabetize, so each line in an abecedarian poem starts with a letter from the alphabet and continues in that order. It's such a whimsical and almost child-like form, so I was inspired to write about a specific and impactful part of my childhood, which is coming from a big family and sharing time and space with them.
Because so much of your writing and work is informed by community, how are you keeping connected these days? What’s keeping your mindset and creative process hopeful?
Zoom calls, group chats, and all things virtual have been a blessing. There are some valid critiques of the internet and its effects on us, but lately it's been helping me to continue in fostering my community at a distance and introduce me to some new ones. I've also been reading a lot about previous historical crises, specifically about the ways communities have dealt with them using creativity. And presently, there is so much art meant for healing, resistance, protest, and joy. Keeping both my mindset and creative process full of hope these days has been a challenge, but seeing the ways people continue to cope and create encourages me to keep writing for myself and others.
Links to a few more of Furqan’s works: furqanmohamed.com
View Furqan reciting her poem: https://www.instagram.com/missbrittab/
SEPTEMBER’S WINNER: Lucia De Luca
Location:
Montreal/Canada
Pronouns: she/her
When did you start writing this piece?
I started writing this piece in August 2019 after I returned home from a half-year trip to Australia and New Zealand. When I left in January 2019, my little brother was little; he was a kid, and he was shorter than me. When I saw him for the first time in July 2019, he was a teenager, taller than me for the first time, and his voice was more powerful. He was the same but different. This poem was inspired by being hit with all these differences at once because I was not there to see them develop gradually.
What projects are you currently working on? Is there a dream collaboration or idea that you would like to see come to fruition in the near future?
I am working on a poetry website, and I am slowly working on a book. My goal is to self-publish and self-fund the book within the next couple of years. Another one of my goals is to start competing in some bigger slam competitions. I especially want to make it to the Toronto Poetry Slam semifinals. That being said, I just started a teaching career so that is my main focus right now.
Links to a few more of Lucia’s works: https://linktr.ee/luciadeluca
View Lucia reading her poem: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFu3oUfAjII/
POEM + BIO
As an English teacher and emerging spoken word artist, Lucia De Luca plays with stories in the classroom and on the mic. Her storytelling is retrospective and often centers around family and her Italian heritage or nods to past versions of herself. Her work has been published on the TEDx and Bankstown Poetry Slam YouTube channels, and in Baby Teeth Journal and Yolk Literary Journal. In 2019, she completed an internship at Word Travels (organizers of Australian Poetry Slam), and in 2020, as a member of Mcsway Poetry Collective, she organized McGill University's first-ever slam.
SUMMER 2019
Brother,
your body will make you
bigger, and louder, and squarer, and shadowed,
but you filled a room before your limbs
reached for a more expansive version of yourself,
before they balanced between a loose shoelace and a layup
You have a voice of petals (he is man, he is not, he is man, he is not),
but you had depth before
icicles elongated at the back of your throat
You have a confidence of petals
(he believes in himself, he believes in himself not
enough),
but you were capable of the appropriate amount of grip
for a handshake before
your hands told you they were hesitant to shed their skin
I came home to a version of you that
is part evaporating time capsule
and part resurfacing treasure,
not buried by you
but recognizable and gasping for breath
Share your comments and congratulate Lucia by following her IG & Linktree: @luciadeluca96 & https://linktr.ee/luciadeluca
AUGUST’S WINNER: Nnadi Samuel
Location:
Lagos/ Nigeria
Pronouns: he/him
When did you start writing this piece?
I started writing this poem sometime in April this year, when I first had the idea of my second chapbook "Subject Lessons". Being a student of language, I have always wanted to delve into this study— culling my ideas of various subjects into my poem(s). I love experiments a lot, & this has been it for me.
What are you currently reading?
I hardly get stuck to one collection. I love variety & I pick on everything like a bird would. But, recently I'm reading more of Angie Estes & Danusha Lameris' works. There is a long list, but both are just amazing.
What are some of your favourite reading material that you return to:
A.R Zarif- Guglielmo
Danusha Lameris: Small kindnesses
Any advice about writing, especially writing with Impact:
I would say Impactful writing takes a lot of time & risk, & taking note of the littlest things around & revisiting that draft all over again. That way, you have something to get the reader's nod.
Links to a few more of my works:
https://theseventhwave.co/makeshift-borders-nnadi-samuel/
www.gordonsquarereview.org/nnadi-samuel.html
POEM + BIO
Nnadi Samuel is a graduate of English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, PORT Magazine, Gordon Square Review, Rough Cut press, Rigorous Magazine, Blue Nib journal, The Elephant Magazine, Lunaris Review, Inverse Journal, Canyon Voices, The Collidescope, Jams & Sand magazine, Journal Nine, & are forthcoming in Liquid Imagination, The Quills, Eunoia Review & elsewhere. He won the Splendor of Dawn Poetry Contest April 2020, got shortlisted in the annual Poet's Choice award & was the second-prize winner of the EOPP 2019 contest. He is the author of the chapbook "Reopening of Wounds" & "Subject Lessons" (forthcoming). He is a co-reader at U-Right Magazine.
BEFORE WE GAVE IT SOME ENGLISH
Things of cul-de-sac comes in a round phase:
black orb, wearing a Nike stain,
waiting for some English— to spin
& boot our word class— a barking eight & part of speech,
where war is an adverb named before a sling, whittling our dead-end.
The points, scoring a high pitch on peeled walls, to patch a purpose.
so many men lift to this sport;
butting the air, like bearded reptiles
tossing their red heads to memorize the glyphs: a keeled font— schwa, rebent in a
sound where all consonants means loss:
your version of syncope, bringing stress to this poem.
a coyote howls to these letters, missing it's teeth how we miss the intrusive r, to pair a diphthong:
a twin & upturned language— since this world too is spinned up.
stretched, like a tongue making a French effort, till we gave it some English,
even when other race never hopped to this sport.
In a different clan, a different need brings them to forge their letter from gargoyles,
guttering home a sibilant— spilled rough, to sound their careless hush notes:
a varience, like the twin walls pushed to our dead-end:
saying, we can now storm the street, & boot a word class reckless,
without sustaining our gifts.
***
Share your comments and congratulate Nnadi by following his socials: @Samuelsamba10 on Twitter & Samuel Samba on Facebook.
JULY’S WINNERS
When did you start writing this piece? Can you recall what inspired it?
Ayòmi: “ I started chiselling the poem in my skull the month I gave attention to the news of Ahmed Arbery’s killing in Georgia; mid-March, 2020. His tragic death spurred the jogging and lapsing verses of the poem. ”
Paige: “ I started writing this piece in November of 2018. I was doing a lot of student organizing while in school and I was really burnt out and the only thing that kept me going was my Spotify account and a few close friends who were also feeling the institutional burnout. So anyways I was very disillusioned and listening to Closer to Fine on repeat because that song calls out higher education but is still able to exist outside of it. I had to accept that even though I loved learning and reading, doing it within an institution was not doing me any favours....BUT I had invested so much time so I really was just stuck, a few credits from finishing my degree. I guess this poem comes from the frustration of being in an institution that wasn't built for me or people like me. Feeling like an intruder and struggling with imposter syndrome and having that reflected to me in the form of extreme burn out. ”
Zainab: “ I started writing this poem the end of May 2020. I was sharing a bed with my younger sister in my mom's house in New Jersey where I was quarantining with family. ”
What's keeping you grounded these days? Any advice for dealing with stress?
Ayòmi: “ My reassuring fries (family + friends) make sure I don't develop literal cold-feet on this volatile climate-smitten ground we all tread to get to the home we have cloudy idea(s) about. Sometimes I wish stress is a kind of ghost I could banish with a few polls of prayer beads or rendition of Biblical slams, but no! Stress is stress, like instructing the deaf with intonations and not hand talking signs. I suggest one pay close attention to his/ her mental breadth and avoid any activity that tends to cross the borderline or consider your neck a prayer mat. Like I said earlier, about having attention to the news- news triggers me, especially of Covid death tolls and oppressions of my brothers & sisters out there. ”
Paige: “ The thing keeping me grounded these days is having a specific bedtime routine... and my friend's Disney Plus account so I can watch Twitches whenever I really need an escape. I also don't check what's trending on Twitter anymore-- the last thing I tweeted is that crunchy peanut butter is NOT crunchy enough. ”
Zainab: “ These days I am staying grounded by doing what makes my body feel good. I have been painting and cooking a great deal. I have been taking comfort naps in the middle of the day, sitting in the sun, praying, and doing yoga. What keeps me most grounded are my friends who I speak to often. My advice for dealing with stress is to listen to your body and do what makes it feel good. ”
POEM + BIO
BAYOWA, Ayomide is a Nigerian-Canadian poet, and filmmaker. He studies Theatre Studies and Creative Writing at the University of Toronto, Canada. He was a longlist of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2018, shortlist of the 2018 Eriata Oribabhor's Poetry Contest, 2018 and 2019 Christopher Okigbo Interuniversity Poetry Prize, and the runner up of the 2020 On-Spot Poetry Writing Contest. He is the author of 'Stream of Tongues, Watercourse of Voices.'
MORE THAN TWELVE KIND WORDS TO A N*GGA
We see black & white blend solely as a preset for photo manipulation.
If not mistaken, those are the only primary colours a black boy could remember.
A black man down my street never stops thinking everything is a huge mistake.
He recounts everyone makes a mistake;
even Oscar Wilde makes deliberate mistakes among his characters.
That of the cops' mistaken identity is not of colour blindness but a shark's inherent bloodthirstiness-
[flash fiction with the same anticlimax of black ink spilled on the street sheet.]
To jog is to begin at the finish line of window-eyed audiences.
To memorize a nuclear dial is to illusion a young skunk creeping your sidewalk,
the genus you consider the most dangerous missile launching in two legs,
the healthy leper you think does not have a place in your society.
His pigment is a fitness watch beeping his steps,
the neighbourhood signboards are contestants for the fastest finger.
A black mother is an Asian incubating grief swollen eyelid.
A black father ages blind to the daily pulley of red and blue pills,
he is the forebearer of the target his son inherits upon his back.
There are no visible signs of the angels of black death at work on the highways.
They lurk around with juxtaposed skin tones and grimy garments.
They are three-eyed monsters with a third on their body;
the same angels pray with a knee and cause a grown-up man to cry for his mother's presence.
Their Messiah didn't teach them how to fish without soaking their singlets,
how to catch a fly without a clap sound boomerang.
So, when the traffic light waves your feet to a clutch,
such that the highway melody messes up highlife
and the breeze tunes ascendos and crescendos around your shadow.
Run, black boy. Run! or Please, don't run.
Pick one; this is no joke. Be decisive.
***
Share your comments & congrats with Ayòmi by following him on IG/Facebook: @_officialayomi | Ayomide Bayowa
Paige Keleher is a Black activist and poet living in Montreal. She has a lot to be grateful for including but not limited to, the approach of Leo season, Macy Gray's On How Life Is album and the fact that she is writing this bio next to an industrial fan!
OH, YES THAT GOD
Oh, yes that God
the great
Dean of Students in the sky
you need at least 3 academic
Sources
to appease this Review Board
of life
of divinity (Closer to Fine)
of wisdom
And when you’re ready to submit,
You must disclose everything that you have
sorry to tell you
your trauma exists here
maybe you shouldn’t
have had so much faith
In the institution
Because it wants you
It wants you
To educate, to immortalize
To hand you a legacy (to
drop
—it off at my office)
But not to
Keep you alive
***
This is Paige’s 2nd prize from this contest! Send love & congrats her way on IG: @90210.mom
Zainab B is a creative from New York City by way of Sudan studying Public Health at NYU.
UNTITLED
I like it here
the creaking floorboards
that the ceilings and i face eye to eye
the refrigerator handle no matter how many times I screw it has open legs for everyone
I like my share of house chores and my brothers to myself
I like my responsibility like a family dinner outing. All of mine and a little bit of everyone’s dish, maybe more.
sleeping ra9 kura3**
with my little sisters hip bone edged into my thigh I cry
I like it here
I cry
I’ve finally found comfort here
I cry
because nothing lasts for ever
so how
long before it crumbles long while it remains
____________________
**ra9 kura3 is head foot
***
Share your thoughts & connections to Zainab’s words by following her on IG: @babi___z
JUNE’S WINNERS
When did you start writing this piece? Can you recall what inspired it?
Scribe: “ I would say I started writing this poem in February 2016. My friend & producer Onglish had produced a soul beat called ‘That Real’ & it inspired a poem after I finished writing my verse. ”
Allison: “ I started writing this poem April 2018, while in Jamaica. It is inspired by my quest to speak to my blackness and womanhood. My goal was to write a short story that depicted how it feels to not feel so happy at times and the struggles I was facing . I have a short story called "The Act of Showering'" that is very much different on my blog www.hourlyreads.ca/shortstories that inspired me to write this poem. The hope was to reconnect with what being black really means to me when I'm not struggling on my worst days. This writing contest certainly inspired me to pick up the pen again and complete "Birthright". The textures of this poem are inspired by the culture in Kenya, though I was in Jamaica. I visited Kenya when I was 19 an it holds a very special place in my heart. ”
Ojo Taiye: “ I can't really remember exactly the month I wrote this poem. But the year should be late 2018, if my memory serves me correctly. And again, I wrote the poem as a sort of solidarity for heart broken lovers whose lives never remain the same after they were jilted. ”
Paige: “ I started writing this poem in October of 2018. I was working on a series where the intention was to reconcile my religious upbringing with becoming a Black queer person who was curious about other ways of "finding god". I liked the story of Lilith, Adam's first wife that no one talks about. I read her as an unapologetic figure and as brave. She is considered a motif for original sin, a queer icon, and in my head, she's actually purple from head to toe (I think that's because the word Lilith is close to Lilac). I wrote several poems about her embodying different roles in my life and turns out I think we'd make a great couple! ”
dione c. haynes: “ this poem started off as sketches/ point form notes during the winter months late 2019 to early 2020. alot of times simple phrases come to me during my mostly insomniac existence or while studying demolishing english is a theme i started in a much earlier poem and is a tenet i now follow ”
If you could dedicate a song to “Black Life & Joy” what track would that be?
Scribe: “ This is a really hard question because there are so many brilliant songs by Black folk. My personal pick would be Bad, Bad News by Leon Bridges. ”
Allison: “ If I could choose any song that depicts Black Joy & Life, I would choose "Everything is Everything" by Lauryn Hill. When I was 18 I played this song over and over again before I started my post secondary education and it really spoke to my love of life, my faith and my belief in the seasons of life. The song stands for what kind of person I want to be. I quote "...who won't accept deception , instead of what is true". ”
Ojo Taiye: “ To be honest, I am not a fan of music. I don't think I know the right answer to this question. But I guess ''Hello'' by Adele would suffice. ”
Paige: “ Hmmm...Everything is Everything by Lauryn Hill, Groove is the Heart by Dee-Lite, September by Earth, Wind and Fire and Sweetness by Shayne Bailey ”
dione: “ the Black musical canon (artistic, scientific, everything, really - as they so beautifully intertwine, complement and inform each other) is vast and there are soooo many songs - but the one that comes to mind is soul ii soul's 'keep on movin" when i first heard the song i thought of a great bass line, amazing vocals, etc. i think of it now, in terms of the aforementioned but also how we keep on moving - through centuries, through ghoulishness+foolishness, through time travel and towards personal and collective greatness. ”
POEM + BIO
Joshua ‘Scribe’ Watkis is Cass' Husband & Z's Daddy.
Scarborough born & raised, West end Rez.
Poet, Prophet & Arts Educator. Owner of WORD IS BOND
Canadian Poetry Slam Champion & internationally published writer.
latest single: https://ampl.ink/W4v24
latest article: https://www.thelily.com/im-the-father-of-a-black-baby-girl-how-early-will-i-have-to-start-preparing-her-for-a-lifetime-of-war/
Fall In/Hop Out
Hear, a holy place
Loud speakers whispering bass lines
Shears singing hair down into
the decrescendo of scalps
Here, a holy space
Slang like speaking in tongues
strangers perceive as raging debates
We hood pentecostals making passionate conversation
No violence,
everybody here to catch a fade,
draped up, caped crusaders
A blade to your neck is not a threat
but an act of service
Here, sacred & safe
Hear us praise one another
We walk in a mess, leave fresh again
Barber’s playing Jesus to our Lazarus hairlines
Do we not deserve the confidence of immortals
on their way back to war?
I fall in this chair,
the wear of a veteran on my face
I hop out the shop
fly, everytime.
***
Send your congrats to Scribe and give him a BIG shout out on IG/Twitter: @ThisIsScribe
Allison Dyer: I am a Jamaican-Canadian in my late twenties, living in Scarborough, Ontario. I love writing, especially poems and have recently dived into short stories. I have a blog called hourlyreads that I am now developing by contributing more of my work. I am an avid reader turned writer, and hope to be published one day.
Birthright
Wake up Kailey, wake up Kailey
The sun is shining
through your window
Sun rays dancing on your enriched mahogany skin
reminding you nothing beautiful comes from sin.
Your birthright glows in the winter and reminds the average on-looker
of warmer days
Wake up Kailey, wake up Kailey
God is calling your name.
Do you feel it in the air?
Can you hear it in your voice? Your Ancestors whispering from the land of deep rivers.
Where the roads are rich in red sand
And trees bear fruit
The Earth sings your name
because you have a sprouting seed inside of you
Joy to Black life
Joy to Black life
The Earth remembers your mane
Strong like a Lion
Sweet like a Deer.
You belong here.
***
Keep in touch with Allison and her latest word via Twitter & blog: @allysayshello1 https://www.hourlyreads.ca/
Ojo Taiye is a young Nigerian who uses poetry as a handy tool to write his frustration with society. He also makes use of collage & sampling techniques.
ABSENCE IS SOMETHING SACRED after Hanif Abdurraqib
last night i waited
for my phone to flash
your name
to tremble loud
on a table with the arrival
of your voice
this is how i remember you
as grass
as flowers
as anything pushing
out of the earth in the
name of its own survival
i am a collection
of haunting sorrows
since you ghosted into
the dawn
that gently gathered you
in its yellow palms
with you
i am wrecked
with joy
i am saying
when the morning came
i crawled from
the window which poured
light into the space
you left in the bed
***
Keep in touch with Ojo Taiye by following him on IG/Twitter: @ojo_poems
Paige Keleher has spent her time in quarantine yelling at her former professors for their anti-blackness, re-watching all seven seasons of Pretty Little Liars (it's worse than we remember) and becoming a ScrabbleGO champion. She is very close to ranking her top 5 favourite songs of all time and in her search, she has realized that Keane's Hopes and Fears is a great breakup album.
LILITH’S CARAMEL SKIN
Lilith’s caramel skin
honours her ancestors
her hair is pastel purple
and the pears in her garden,
are the juiciest
when she whispers sin to me
annotates her own biography
I am sure, so sure
that I love her
she looks good in a ballgown
she looks good in a strategically
placed
leaf
she looks good to me everyday of the week
Saturday night she glows
Sunday she rests
under my weighted blanket with me
***
Send waves to Paige and shine more light on her poetry by following her on IG: @90210.mom
rampage! [dione c. haynes] lives on treaty 1/ winnipeg through interesting and unsurprising circumstances.
chorus 49/50
i have pushed society’s constrictions off the ledge
my eyes go to night as the sky goes to day
the sound of Black womxn on podcasts, chirping birds and sirens have become my latest lullaby
every attempt at pronouncing our languages is a dagger in the rotting rootedness of the oppressor
in the meantime, i demolish english
i wear the sun like a cape and learn graciousness including the art of moving out of the way, to let the enemy fall. meditation secures the vision of numbers turning into tall trees and clear oceans. the out breaths blow back the Niña, Pinta and the Santa Maria
i have been suspicious of smiles like bouquets of peonies and dahlias, smiles my cells tell me are familiar my pens have dried, like my tear ducts, but my mind is far from empty
baths during thunderstorms present the least risk of electrocution, though enlightenment is always possible
all of these assorted fears and trust me, there are many, cannot and will not erode my spirit
my heart weeps with relief at this departure.
flecks of ashes in my hair. similar to new, sparkling sap from the pines or streaming crystals on a window during a storm.
the laugh that follows, is all freedom
***
Send energy and congrats to rampage! aka dione c. haynes on IG: @threefigleaves
MAY’S WINNERS
When did you start writing this piece? (year/month) Can you recall what inspired you to write it?
Lisa: “ I started writing this poem about two months ago. It's largely inspired by the documentary "Blackfish", which I watched a couple years back. I remember being drawn to the beauty and power of these amazing, intelligent creatures. Upon hearing of the second round of this contest, I sifted through the back of my poetry closet and found a few stanzas I had written about orcas. To expand upon the significance of the poem, I decided to tie in pieces about my cousin's upbringing in China. I found myself intrigued by the idea that there are many similarities between him and the whales; as a result of family conflict and academic struggles, his childhood has been fractured with constant moves between different cites. This is a poem about the beauty in wandering - and my hope that him and my uncle can find happiness even without a home. ”
Vanessa: “ I started writing this poem in August 2016. Around this time, I recently completed a Creative Writing class at Ryerson University and this piece was simply a practice of applying what I learned in class about poetry. Since I was also going to counselling regularly, I wanted to explore my trauma through a creative medium. So, I picked a snippet of a memory from my childhood and examined the fears I had at that moment. After I wrote this poem, I put it away. Although I really liked it, there was a lot of hesitation to share it because I was afraid of the criticism I would get as a daughter speaking of her mother. Looking at this poem almost four years later, I can see how this has been one of the many gems gathered in my healing journey. ”
Michelle: “ I wrote this piece in September 2019 when I was accepted into a Winter Tangerine Workshop. There was a prompt on writing a poem based on our experience with our mother figures. Thus, I started thinking about how often our insecurities are instilled in us based on our family and household. As someone who's always struggled with body image issues, I wrote this poem as an unlearning of the self-hate of my body. ”
How has your writing and/or creativity been impacted by the pandemic?
Lisa: “ The main way the pandemic has impacted my creativity is that I now have more time on my hands. With this slower pace of life, I am able to spend my evenings writing. Right now, my goal is go through the giant pile of unfinished pieces I have - and, one by one, turn them into complete poems! ”
Vanessa: “ My writing has been on pause since the pandemic. Since writing can be an emotional process for me, it’s been challenging to dive into writing new pieces because I am trying to manage the emotional nausea I feel from the roller coaster I’m constantly on these days. I recognize that, although I’m not ready to write new poetry right now, I can still absorb inspiration by journaling and reading novels/poems. ”
Michelle: “ The pandemic has been a double-edged sword for me. At first, the uncertainty of the future has put me into survival mode to the point where I was too anxious to create. This dread coupled with the new responsibilities of caring for the immunocompromised individuals in my family took quite a toll on how much writing I was producing. What got me through the funk was the number of virtual opportunities that became available to me. The sheer volume of online open-mics, slams, workshops, and contests that came to fruition during this pandemic astounded me. Our society seems to have realized that artists bring innate meaning and value to our lives when we slow down from the outside world. ”
POEM + BIO
Lisa Shen: I'm a 20-year old Chinese-Canadian spoken word poet from Toronto, Canada! I started writing bits and pieces of poetry in high school - but took more strongly to the artform this past November, after attending a student-organized spoken word night. I'm also in the midst of an undergraduate degree in molecular biology at McMaster University. In my spare time, I enjoy baking, playing the piano, and recently - photography! I also spend a great deal of time thinking about the acquisition and raising of my future golden retrievers. :)
ORCA WANDERING
How do the orcas know to trace the shores of
the Pacific, from North to South, never-ending?
Between California and the Vancouver coast;
Clicking and singing to their sisters;
Dorsal fins straight and gleaming in the Western mist;
White eye patches reflecting morning glow;
Eating the turtles and seabirds along the way - beautiful killers.
After his mother left, I watched my cousin,
a five year old boy, drift from city to city:
Hangzhou to Yangmeiling to Chiang Mai.
In the quiet of the night, across thousands of miles
of unforgiving Atlantic, I can hear the faint sound of
my uncle crying an ocean over his son's heart.
Each year, from two floors below, drifts the sound of my father's worried tongue, trying to stitch them
a passport to Canada.
- but the orcas know no borders, do not care for statehood marked by ink on paper.
They glide silent through the golden waves,
nomads of the sea, as if each drop is their own.
I want to ask their watery bodies
if they have ever felt the tug of a homeland -
Or if they live for this kind of roaming.
I want to add my voice to the
underwater song and whisper:
can a boy find a home in wandering too?
***
Say congrats and follow Lisa along her writing journey on IG: @lisashenthepoet
Vanessa Adzonyo: I am a Filipina-Togolese plant mom in my 20s, based in Toronto, and watcher of old Bollywood movies between the 50s to 80s. I'm a proud introvert who can make you feel like the funniest person in the world and actually mean it. Although I feel quite new to poetry, I'm working on being more courageous to share my story and see it as art!
the act of ironing
rotating fan blew summer oxygen through my mother’s bedroom
my small self sat beside a pile of tired clothes
stiff as the classic steel bed frame that held me up
hands kneading each other
eyes steady on the iron plugged into the wall
steam danced out of the pressure plate’s holes like a scary red dragon from fairy tales
heat increasing by the second
my mother’s anger was
unpredictable without misgivings
two spoonfuls of chilies for a lying mouth
my skin was hard soil she dug her nails into, my burial
my mother, small as nightstand, began to iron
I studied her in the act
a new retribution played in my mind
I turn into wrinkled cotton
water sprinkled for cleansing
surrendered to compression
to the sizzle of the iron on resilient skin
I considered
the shirts on the bed and
wanted to know if they too, have cried out
***
Keep in touch and send love to Vanessa on IG: @its.vah
Michelle Lin was born and raised in the buzzing metropolis of Toronto where she's been subjecting people to her loud opinions ever since. She is a youth spoken word artist and activist; her work touches on what it means to be the queer daughter of Asian immigrants. She served on the BAM! Toronto Youth Slam Team for two years, and had the privilege of going to Brave New Voices (an international poetry festival) with BAM!. A current first-year in Kenyon College, she majors in English and Creative Writing. She is the winner of Button Poetry's video contest in the youth category and her video "Yellow-To Van Gogh" is slated to appear on their channel in May 2020.
SELF PORTRAIT IN MY MOTHER’S MOUTH
Most babies come out screaming, gasping,
looking for anything they can suckle on to.
I came out of the womb swallowed
by my mother’s fallow protests.
Mother’s belly rounds to make a wasted miracle
& never does the elastic-band-snap.
Mother plucks at her stretch marks
the same way she picks up shards
from my dropped dishes.
You did this.
A malleable younger-self for correction.
She straightens sutures in my stomach,
& licks the tears from my eyes to call herself full.
Guilt is inbred.
Every meal feels like a white flag
to the open teeth inside me.
In this household,
the women chew only on their screams
until it makes them bloody ravenous.
Some nights we would do sit-ups together
& our shared thereness was a prize.
I truly wanted to be beautiful for her
& if not beautiful then not-there-at-all.
I stitched myself shut at the seams,
stamped out love handles like weeds,
but hunger is still part of the body,
even if everyone around the dinner table
calls it a thing that heaves.
***
Send cheers to Michelle by following her on IG: @michellelinofficial
APRIL’S WINNERS
When did you start writing this piece? Can you recall what inspired it?
Daniel G.: “ I started this poem in October 2019, and I was intrigued by the idea of exploring how trauma is inherited from generation to generation. In my case, I’ve always been interested in the biological phenomenon of apoptosis (which is basically a kind of programmed cellular death for the purposes of growth and development within an organism), and I was wanting to explore how domestic violence and trauma manifest in the brain, with regard to how we self-blame when traumatic things happen to us. I also wrote it for my good friend R*** ”
Zara: “ I started writing this piece in January 2020. After spending a month in my parent’s home country, Bangladesh, I heard stories about my family all over the world. When I returned to Canada, my father and I were talking about our family and my grandmother came up in the conversation. Later on, I wrote this poem and completely forgot about it until the 'Open Drawer' poetry contest was announced. ”
George Lee: “ I wrote this piece as a response to a challenge started by the new San Antonio poet laureate: Andrea Vocab Sanderson. I wrote it at the start of National Poetry Month. Her challenge was to make a typography poster and the poem and/or line had to start with "my tongue is" #mytongueischallenge was the hashtag everyone used (: ”
POEM + BIO
Daniel Garcia's work appears or is forthcoming in SLICE, Denver Quarterly, The Offing, Ninth Letter and elsewhere. A semifinalist for The Southampton Review Nonfiction Prize (formerly the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize), Daniel is also a Rustbelt Poetry Slam Champion, a national haiku champion, a recipient of the Myong Cha Son Haiku Award, the 1st Place Personal Essay Award at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, winner of the Bat City Review Short Prose Contest, and holds a Notable in The Best American Essays
APOPTOSIS for R.A.
note* out of respect for Daniel’s pursuit to get this piece published along with a new collection of poems in periodicals/lit. journals, we will not be sharing the piece in its entirety. Below are some of my favourite lines from the poem.
when my own hands have found my throat. memory says i am reenacting some old hurt. they / were just the closest weapons i could find.
as if squeezing her into the sky / was all he knew to make her stay. did no one tell him to ask?
i’ve been / gasping ever since. that’s how i know i was young once.
***
Get more from Daniel Garcia on Twitter: @daniellovesyooh
Zara Rahman is a Bangladeshi-Canadian student based in Toronto. At sixteen years old, Zara is an active leader, artist and thinker within the city. Zara is passionate about business, social justice, spoken word poetry and youth advocacy. She has won numerous poetry slams, has published work and is a member of the ‘BAM! Toronto Youth Poetry Slam’ team. Zara continues to share her story with others, whenever she can today.
SOPHIA
when baba called me to sit
I peeled my ears off
and let them mold in his walnut palms
for him to begin
While your daadi and I were living in Canada together, and she had her last toes dipped into heaven; we went to visit the doctor. The doctor was a stout Italian man, with butter blotched teeth and a brown suit. He asked my mom what her name was. I sounded the syllables into Bangla and she replied,
Sophia.
baba begins to laugh.
The doctor’s eyes rolled into round roti. He stuttered shock waves to say that was his daughter’s name. His daughter sat on the corner of his ebony desk with a graduation cap slung over her head. I swear electricity must’ve stunned his organs and white flesh when he talked to your grandmother. They were family now but he still spoke with a salted tongue. What else ya expect from Doctor Butter Teeth? Someone like us could be like him.
once baba told me this story
I start to write
maybe because I am tired of thinking
maybe to resurrect Sophia from the dead
***
Let Zara know what you thought of her poem by giving her a shout on Instagram: @zara.rahman._
In George Lee’s words: I’m a non-binary angel just trying to speak my truth and take up space. I’m a Houston native and people tell me I look like Beyoncé. (Haha kidding...unless...) Anyway, I’m 28 years young and new to the poetry game. I love the family and community I’ve found and hope to encourage all the gaybies to speak their truth even if their voice shakes.
LENGUA
My tongue is the reason your man keeps logging into grindr.
Has him checking Kik, Snapchat, and his email.
Leaves a fuckboy when he can’t fuck boys without making them into a secret.
My tongue is a screamer.
My tongue is the gayest motherfucker I know.
Is a femme top and power bottom. Knows how to fuck the shit out of you and then clean up afterwards.
My tongue will tie your heart into a cherry stem and *then swallow it*
Is a giver. A taker.
A hunter and gatherer.
But most importantly my tongue.
Doesn’t give a fuck what you do with yours.
Because my tongue
Minds
it’s
own
fucking
business.
***
Give George Lee some love on Instagram: @georgele3