This Accident of Being Lost By Leanne Betasamosake Simpson House of Anansi, $19.95 This Accident of Being Lost is a powerful collection of short stories and songs by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who is quickly becoming known as one of the country’s greatest storytellers. Unique in its fragmented […] More »

I too am redacted, unsuitable reptilian, shell of speech I have forgotten, unless ravines can drown each sound they cup from my throat. Exposed against this anemone August is a way of unlearning the untaken graft of leeching questions, a mischief starved in whys. Why-because too much is the way of knowing the chrysalis before […] More »

That morning     on a hostile beach, eyes fixed on glimmering edges    of the old world, you were already forgetting     your real name. Not the one borne from parents’ careful     knowledge of glamor ous silver screens & all-     american sweethearts, each syllable leashing your neck     […] More »

I’ve made a note and stuck it to my desk: Don’t be less of a flower but, could you be more of a stone at the same time? —Mary Ruefle  The first philosopher rubbed fur against amber, which then drew feathers and hair to it like a magnet. This was evidence of the stone’s soul […] More »

1. look, you won’t like this truth every girl competes, edits herself daily double checks, avoids dessert. we’re born again in your eyes in every man’s eyes we become legendary or not, pitiable, just friends. a women’s face is her price tag. 2. I know niceties demands we lie but I’m trans, the least girl […] More »

The seating area of the Burdock music hall is cast in a faint glow by the string lights above. A spotlight creates a faint hue behind a microphone. Tonight’s artist line up is taped on the microphone stand. The Slackline Creative Arts Series is ready for another show. The volunteer-run arts series started in July […] More »

Am I Overreacting, or Are You Over Me Reacting? I make myself a moon calendar, the lunar cycle no more or less important to me than checking David Levithan’s Lover’s Dictionary Twitter feed to use as a horoscope. I write myself a moon calendar and it goes: bullshit moon, stupid stupid ugh moon, kill me […] More »

RAM Forehead smooth as bone china, you are the witness, clinging to opinion as though it were fact, convinced of your own divinity. Your voice reverberates against empty streets. Streetlights pick up the tune, turning like tuning forks, the hum barreling along telephone wires and out the open mouths at the end of each line. […] More »

As a teenager, Nasra Adem wrote in her journal about “dumb boys” and watched videos of spoken word poetry and slams on YouTube. Inspired by poets such as Carvens Lissaint of New York’s The Strivers Row, she started posting videos of herself performing, waiting on the courage to do so in front of a live audience. […] More »

DESIRE IN SEVENS i. pace across city streets under the full light of moon like the coyote in winter, coat the colour of dirty snow not knowing one day beyond the next, moving with unconscious, habitual desire, carrying only the fear of loud noises and an intimate knowledge of the cold. ii. return to a […] More »

The Two Sisters Written by E. Pauline Johnson, illustrated by Sandra Butt Waterlea Books, $19.95 Poet and performer E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) died more than a century ago. But B.C.-based illustrator Sandra Butt revived one of Johnson’s iconic poems—“The Two Sisters”—in her picture book of the same name. This retelling of a First Nations’ legend […] More »