QUILLS CANADIAN POETRYQUILLS CANADIAN MAGAZINE · VOLUME IX
VOLUME IX www.quillspoetry.com $9.95
STATIONARY HONJO · SUSANTO · JAMES · LEE · KEOHANE FARINA · FAVRON · FERNANDES · COMEAU · BOLITHO DOUGLAS · BOLEN · GHAFFAR · KRALJII
Among many others... www.quillspoetry.com Quills 2010 Cover_Quills 2007 Cover 17/01/11 8:55 AM Page 2
ATTENTION CANADIAN POETS!
to Quills Magazine r $15 ue fo cheq end er: s blish or the pu der directly from www.quillspoetry.com CANADIAN POETRY MAGAZINE CANADIAN POETRY MAGAZINE CANADIAN POETRY MAGAZINE CANADIAN POETRY MAGAZINE
COVer ArtWOrK By SArA MACIntyre “Morning Peace” Please see biography on facingfacing pagepage
Publisher WILLIAM BYRON SHEARDOWN
Design inteRnational web eXpRess
Lithography COLOUR EXPRESS
Bookbinding & Finishing LpaciFicARSEN ’bS indeRyBOOKBINDING LTD.
Distribution DISTICOR
Website Design kode websites
Guest editors pandoRa’s collective, bonnie nish & daniela elza Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine is independent Quillsof government Canadian Poetrygrants andMagazine is privately is independent funded. of government grants and is privately funded.
2013 Volume IX QuillsQuills Canadian Canadian Poetry Poetry Magazine (ISSN:(ISSN: 1708-3486) is published annually. Editorial, Editorial, subscriptionsubscription and and main main offi office: ce: PO #1 -Box 1455 21660, Brigantine Vancouver, Drive, BC V5L Coquitlam, 5G3. Individual BC V3K 7C2. Individualsubscription subscription rates: $10.45 rates: per year$10.45 domestic; per year $20 domestic; per year $20foreign. per yearSingle foreign. copies: Singlecurrent copies: issue, current$10.45; issue,back issues,$10.45; $10.45. back Makeissues, cheque$10.45. or Make money cheque order payableor money to orderQuills payable Canadian to PoetryQuills CanadianMagazine . Poetry Any supplements Magazine. publishedAny supplements under Quills published Canadian under PoetryQuills Magazine Canadian are Poetry not Magazineincluded inare the not subscriptionincluded in the price subscription but may price be purchased but may be at purchased an additional at an cost additional as per costsupplement. as per supplement. Bulk orders Bulk for orders schools for or schools other orinstitutions other institutions can be requested can be requested in writing in writing to the toPublisher the Publisher at our at main our main address. address. Submissions Submissions are accepted are accepted by email by email only. only. Copyright Copyright of ofindividual individual poems poems remains remains with with author. author. Only Only notification notifi cation of of accepted accepted submissions submissions will will bebe given.given. Copying Copying done done for forany anypurpose purpose other than other personal than personal or educational or educational reasons is prohibited, reasons is requestsprohibited, must requests be made must in writing be made to inour writing main offi to ource address. main office Any change address. of Any address change should of beaddress given should at least be 6 given weeks at in least advance 6 weeks of innext advance edition of and next include edition old and address, include newold address,address andnew effectiveaddress and date. effective Any miscommunication date. Any mis-communication or misdirection or misdirection of address change of address falls change on the onusfalls onof thethe subscriber.onus of the Wesubscriber. will make We every will make reasonable every reasonableattempt to attemptdeliver pastto deliver due issues. past due All rightsissues. reserved. All rights Copyright reserved. Copyright© 2013 by ©Quills 2010 Canadianby Quills PoetryCanadian Magazine. Poetry Magazine Canada Post. Canada Mail AgreementPost Mail Agreement Number: 4086 Number: 5023. 4086Printed 5023. on FSC © Certifi ed Stock. 2013 Annual Issue
Cover Artwork by SArA MACIntyre “Morning Peace”
Sara MacIntyre is an artist currently residing in rural northern Alberta with her husband and 4 children. raised in the yukon territory, her northern artistic roots run deep. Sara has nurtured a passion for drawing since early childhood. She has always been deeply moved by the rugged, dramatic, and often stark landscapes of the north and has sought to express and interpret what she sees, whether it be line, color, or movement, with lyrical results. Her current preferred medium is leather, and for the last 3 years she has directed her artistic energy into creating original, framed compositions that evoke bright, vast, snowy expanses; crisp cold nights beneath the northern lights; sweeping winds that cut across grassy foothills; and the rich darkness that envelops inhabitants and visitors in the heart of a boreal spruce forest. timeless and magical . . . reflections of our dreams. Sara’s northern-themed works have been peripatetic. they now hang in halls and homes all across the country, from BC to the shores of nova Scotia, as well as in the USA, Denmark, Ireland, and Switzerland. you can see more of her work at her public page: Steep Creek Designs by Sara MacIntyre @ Facebook.com
i Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
On Being a Guest editor
When Byron asked me to be guest editor for the ninth edition of Quills, I knew the effort and dedication necessary to take all of your submissions, read through them, select and order them into an issue. I felt this was a task that needed two sets of eyes and so I asked Daniela elza to guest edit alongside me.
Having worked closely on other editing projects with Daniela, as well as hosting a reading series with her, I knew that her professionalism would help to get this job done quickly and seamlessly, with a good amount of fun thrown in. I didn’t realize how important this would be to the process until its later stages. to take over four hundred pages of submissions and narrow them down to about sixty is a challenging task. Many considerations went into what came together to shape this issue. We were pleased to see a cross-section of writers submitting their work. From novice to established and award winning, we read each submission carefully. When it came to making our final selection, we were surprised and pleased to discover how aligned our choices were. thank you to all who sent work in.
Working with Daniela has been an absolute blessing. I suffered a concussion just before we had to sit down and finalize the issue. What this meant was that Daniela took on more than her share of the work when she knew I wasn’t able. I thank her for that. this process was one of love and joy, both because of what you shared with us, and also because of the possibility of working with someone I so admire and call friend.
We hope you will welcome and enjoy the new voices as well as the voices of established and/or familiar poets that we have chosen for you here.
Guest editor/s Bonnie nish (with Daniela elza)
ii 2013 Annual Issue Contents
RobeRt MaRtens 1 Fog
elizabeth syMons 2 tunges
Maggie bolitho 3 upwaRd Mobility
susan Mccaslin 4 deaR cRow
tiMothy shay 5 noRMal day
Michelle baRkeR 6 FaMily poRtRait
chRisty hill 8 Made oF clay
david FRaseR 9 MaRgaRet, deceMbeR 1971
alan hill 10 cleaning My glasses
liliJa valis 12 dancing in the Rain
tiMothy shay 13 not bRoken but talking to MyselF
beRnice leveR 14 blood on ouR hands
candice JaMes 15 cRushed autuMn
caRl leggo 16 gullibility
Jeb gaudet 17 aFteR the bReakdown chRistopheR levenson 18 back to FundaMentals
J.J. steinFeld 19 a displaced Jew Questions hiMselF
on a high holy day
JenniFeR zilM 20 ouR lady oF peRpetual help,
FebRuaRy 13
taRa wohlbeRg 22 in 1621 MR. buRton said...
nathaniel s. Rounds 23 leisuRe tiMe FoR the dispossessed
sean aRthuR Joyce 24 what wakes this Mountain
chelsea coMeau 26 ghosts
catheRine Mcneil 27 discontinuity
Robin susanto 28 night song
sheila peteRs 29 geological tiMe: new yeaR’s eve
kaRly stilling 30 last woRds oF FRida kahlo
chRistine lowtheR 31 peRhaps healed
ibRahiM honJo 32 this MoRning
John b. lee 33 Macdonough 15 public school,
new oRleans the assassin as a child
david MeRRiField 34 FiRst step
Melinda cochRane 35 selF poRtRait oF pooR
iii Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Roy RobeRts 36 donna
dennis e. bolen 37 FoRest town sluMbeR
lauRa douglas 38 Juvenile
Joseph a. FaRina 39 displays
david wood 40 MontReal
patRicia sMekal 41 bol, cRoatia
asheR ghaFFaR 42 attRaction
kelsey keohane 44 a baR FoR the bete noiRe
caRol haRvey steski 45 the waitRess
FaRan ghahReMani 46 June 15, 2009
Jude neale 48 still liFe
Robin susanto 49 huMMingbiRd - FoR bJF
sho wiley 50 tuRn
sean wiebe 51 at the delta hotel, cape bReton
sean wiebe 52 syllogisMs with My daughteR
Mickey bickeRstaFF 53 indiscRiMinate
R.c. weslowski 54 in lieu oF calling heR beautiFul
allen Qing yuan 55 Rain, Rain, go away
Jana e. silna 56 night stoRM
sheila peteRs 57 a song FoR andRés chopping
onions
kat wahaMaa 58 My gRandMotheR’s house
elee kRalJii gaRdineR 60 backstitch
celeste snowbeR 61 suppeR by the sea
wilhelMina salMi 62 cetology
cecile FavRon 63 Just aFteR the end-oF-lunch bell
shannon Rayne 64 white, an inventoRy
MaRni noRwich 65 panhandling
k.J. MunRo 66 klondike coMposition
chelsea coMeau 67 Ruby-thRoated
Raoul FeRnandes 68 bioluMinescence
caRol shillibeeR 69 Mouse tail wRites
John b. lee 70 the Full MeasuRe
contRibutoRs 72
iv 2013 Annual Issue
Volume IX
v Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
vi 2013 Annual Issue
RobeRt MaRtens
FOG
the world’s white, a shivering lung. the streets, a sheer gleam. lampposts hunched, like crone ghosts withholding old wisdom. even the crows are pale and nearly invisible, disembodied voices. sky and earth seeping together, a single formless flow. listen – the drip of a branch. the pad of a cat. someone will arrive soon, i can sense it, someone who vanished a long age ago. the silver haired cedars. the hill, luminous, to my front door. we may dissolve. breathe in. the cold white spiral of spirit. the insomniac thrust of headlights. a city’s smeared glimmer. in this covert curl of hunger and hope, of memory’s milk, thick and billowy, the end of a phantom army’s homeward march. surrender. breathe out. someone’s arrived, draped in white, and we can’t see. joy. an honest dawn cracking the camouflage. morning star warmed by your breath. old, gnarled fingers. this isn’t solace, this is prayer. our snowy valley melting in the exhale. our nation in a flare of fog. the world’s open lung, the white of your eye. 1 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
elizabeth syMons
tUnGeS
the creek talks in long sentences with no end to the rocky middle ground
Moist mouth borders the pelvic path sage brushes lips kissing tarragon tongues (tunges) time
Water runnels roots mud gravel sand as my inner voice babbles on and on
2 2013 Annual Issue
Maggie bolitho
UPWArD MOBILIty
A raven squats on the peeling roof crows boil by, bleating and scolding, as cherry blossoms strain in crusted green captivity
I schlep my heavy backpack up the hill away from the white-capped water toward the tired building where boiled cabbage and constant sorrow linger in the hallway
Sunshine sprawls on distant mountains. I lift my eyes from the gray sidewalk In a shimmering window my reflection smiles back A stranger in my clothes.
3 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
susan Mccaslin
DeAr CrOW
pirouetting on a streetlamp your instrument
for Cirque de Soleil manoeuvres, casting your flecked eye streetward
pitching us street slang, noir song we interpret as a “caw” or “cackle”
actually less a grate or rasp than a finessed blast:
What I do is me: for that I came1
Such a solitary iamb ta-duming against cumulous
Dangerous calligrapher Don Juan Castaneda hipster—
Pitch Black zero— Dark night of the Stroll
Where away?
1As Kingfisher’s Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame. —Gerard Manley Hopkins
4 2013 Annual Issue
tiMothy shay
nOrMAL DAy
One day this week will be a normal day. She will call me and we will, as always, only speak sweetly. I will send her a letter with several of the first flower petals torn from a spring time of gummed up clocks and sharp rain raking this black street of noise and displacement.
Fear wants to scuttle a surprised ship, but pirates are everywhere and some of us have trained in the hold, through the dark rocking of continual thought and have grown from projection or pollen to the tough briar patch in possession of the corner lot.
I want her but she does not want me and so incredulous, I take pain killers until sufficiently kerou-wacked, beat down to stanley turrentine ballads saxed soft with a scattering of smoky cheap candles.
5 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Michelle baRkeR
FAMILy POrtrAIt
It hangs in the living room pretending to be a photograph of our family when we were all much younger and didn’t fathom the irony of smiling. though it knows
it is happiness holding its breath, this frozen moment of cheese, all of us playing dress-up in our frills and pressed trousers: the girls with feathered bangs, boys in homemade haircuts, posing on frayed couches. Abba’s Dancing Queen plays in the background.
Behind that couch is the room where we played house, and hide- and-seek. Up the steps, Mom’s sewing room, that vinegar smell of new fabric, the scissors with zigzag teeth. Multi-coloured Chanukah candles, where an argument looms over a camera – but that is still years away from this moment.
Did the photographer know? We would need this portrait later when things turned ugly – phobias and frowns, words we could never take back.
6 2013 Annual Issue
We would need to remember the homemade ragdolls, that safe harbour of touched-up history.
Here, the photographer might have offered, keep this as proof – once upon a time we were happy, if only for the second it took to press the shutter. He soaked our cheerful images in developing fluid, but we found a different acid bath, the chemical soup of accumulated spite that dissolves every kindness. yet here it hangs, this family anachronism, a rare memory of fondness. Our lives still furled like new ferns, bitterness awaiting us in the next frame.
7 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
chRisty hill
MADe OF CLAy
In the morning, he sits at the pottery wheel Listening to the old radio stashed in the corner. At his feet, sponges litter loose floorboards Where caked clay drips between cracks And time drifts through his calloused fingers. Beneath the grey barn beams He slides his thumb up and down silky clay Collected from the bottom of riverbanks. He molds dreams into teacups, wishes into bowl And, loses himself in the spinning.
In the afternoon, he stands in front of a countertop As flat as a desert covered with fine grey dust. He rolls slabs of clay, flattens furrows with fingers, Imprints intricate patterns with delicate lace. With fine tools, he cuts out a hundred Christmas ornaments: Angels, elves, saints, and goddesses. He is released by the repetition, savoring the smell of the earth For a moment, at peace with himself.
In the evening, he straddles a wooden bench, Behind him, the sun sets in the kiln glowing a fiery red. Ornaments dry in the wind on the sill. Above them, he catches his reflection in the window; His flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves; Hands gritty, submerged in the ever-changing nature of clay.
Here, he sculpts nightmares into masks, shapes fears into fountains, And sells them to hide in the foliage, as scarecrows for gardens to ward off evil spirits and keep the darkness outside his window at bay.
8 2013 Annual Issue
david FRaseR
MArGAret, DeCeMBer 1971
On the snow I hold my arms out wide like the angel above my brother’s crib. Mr. Harris will be mad at me when he knows I’m missing from his class. He’ll call my mom and she’ll be mad at me, and we’re moving on the weekend; Uncle Bobby’s helping us. When Mr. Harris finds me in the snow, I’ll tell him how last night I held my baby brother, how blue he was, how quiet, like my doll with her missing arm, how I didn’t tell my mom ‘cause she was busy with Uncle Bobby, banging the bed against the wall. I won’t tell him how I carried my baby brother with me to the school, how I made angels for him in the snow, how I made a crib and tucked him in behind the bushes by the steps and made more angels to keep him safe. they thought he was a doll. I won’t tell Mr. Harris how each night I want, not to cry, just stay warm, like my baby brother now, wrapped up in his bed beneath the snow.
9 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
alan hill
CLeAnInG My GLASSeS
It was from Grandma that I learnt it
to run the noose of watered light across the lens
to hive the gold up from the glass with the swirling of my fat fleshed thumbs
to be a jeweler under candlelight to polish up the puckered corneas to points.
thirty years later on I can only just recall her face -her voice has gone as have her views on almost everything
and what memories remain…
the boiled candies scattered across a rug like smoking grapeshot
her artery napalming sponge cakes
broken bodied tights reclining over chair backs
the bleeding colors of the Union Jack collecting dust in an unused cupboard of her seaside bungalow
10 2013 Annual Issue
the snarl of that Jack russell that could tear the leg of an elephant how I was just too drunk to make it to her funeral: then this recollection of a brail that I trace between the frames that reads to me the person that she was brings to me the body of a woman standing still beyond the archeology of sight.
11 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
liliJa valis
DAnCInG In tHe rAIn
even if you no longer smile, the rhythm of rain tapping in the streets of your hidden life can stir your feet to answer.
As you dance past where you used to live, leaping over rubble, gravity eases its grip, releasing the stars in your feet.
12 2013 Annual Issue
tiMothy shay
nOt BrOKen BUt tALKInG tO MySeLF
So, not broken and I will sit patiently waiting for your attention. Should you order my disappearance, my cement boots; my hidden cage of work will become the polishing of your volume of poems, until shining bright apples and as crisp as each frenetic brief moment fly to your mouth in a haze of nectar, a crow’s black wings, crisp on the arc of a simple morning clothesline between our two houses: the waiting, and the foreign heart.
My words for you flap in the wind become dry stiff linen until shaken out by a quiet woman and folded with precision, the first sparrow song of spring accidentally captured in the folds, then at night as she sleeps in fresh sheets she smiles without knowing why or remembering.
13 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
beRnice leveR
BLOOD On OUr HAnDS
What woman can say ‘never had blood on my hands’ hers maybe another’s —
silence of secrets, sigh of sorrow slurp of another mug of amber ale or sip of delicate Chardonnay — whatever sedative works for you.
you have blood on your hands, from our bodies, from other bodies from whatever colour of skin split or we sliced crimson seeped or splashed soon to dry to rusty brown, easy to sweep or vacuum, even spray paint a lying green — still a crust of guilt keeps scratching clogging our memories
demanding one red focus measuring us our losses —
14 2013 Annual Issue
candice JaMes
CrUSHeD AUtUMn
An evanescent evening textured with raindrops, Falling down in sheets; A wet moon Spills a pearl shimmer Onto the tear stained streets. rainbows appear haloed in mist Over a beach damp and Sun kissed. Autumn shuffles in on windblown pages. Summer plays out on vagabond stages. Hot buttered sunlight dims and dulls, the lonesome cry of coastal gulls, Sunsets turn from pink to gray. the Sun goes down on Semiahmoo bay.
A wet moon, A tear stained street, An evanescent evening’s glint; the leavings of a crushed Autumn the flavour of moonglow and mint.
15 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
caRl leggo
GULLIBILIty
Neither reality nor illusion; often the one merges into the other in this seething world. ernst Bloch
another summer in newfoundland, another afternoon on George’s patio
head bent back from ernst Bloch’s traces, dim eyes deciphering tattered marks of hope
in an uncluttered sky: a gull, alone, even if multiplied countlessly beyond the Humber Arm
in the municipal dump just behind the hills near Mt. Patricia Cemetery, creeping closer, closer
the gull like a nimbus, a moment of light, an echo of Bloch’s fragments of wisdom
the scavenger startles with a splash of grace, unconcerned about us I must bear our hopes
with deep throat questions for suspending suckers, duped by no answers, a beacon, a searchlight
the light seen through a gull is full enough for swallowing a sword even, oh, to be gullible
16 2013 Annual Issue
Jeb gaudet
AFter tHe BreAKDOWn
he asked me why i couldn’t think of it as an aberration rather than as some essential part of my character as if I could pick out parts of myself like cuts of meat Prime Character and tenderheart while discarding the rest like so much gristle as if the attempt of such butchery wasn’t what got me there in the first place
17 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
chRistopheR levenson
BACK tO FUnDAMentALS
Zenith, algebra, nadir, alcohol, zero: Deport all these illegal immigrants, back to their Moorish homelands, we have no need of them! And while you’re about it, we can also make do without canyon, blarney, kiosk, khaki, thug — mere spoils of empire and conquest. After that let’s start on the French. For centuries now they have overrun us with their fancy concepts — soirée, hors d’oeuvre, souteneur, abattoir. Go for a final solution, run to earth, root out all these strange words that dirty our birth tongue. Down with everything not us, destroy these false gods! then back to the true folk in the sheepfold, happy with man, woman, blood, shit, fuck, kill, sleep stone, tree, sun , moon, night, die. now we are one.
18 2013 Annual Issue
J. J. steinFeld
A DISPLACeD JeW QUeStIOnS HIMSeLF On A HIGH HOLy DAy
Why can’t I have a yiddish accent that calls lovingly to the long ago with unencumbered piety?
Why can’t I be old world caught by the nurturing past imagining new worlds?
Why can’t I enter undisguised an undiscovered Chagall painting to hover above rooftops?
Why can’t I dream of Kafka writing an undarkened story with me a plausible character?
Why can’t I have a decent meeting with a clever perhaps erudite dybbuk up to no good, maybe worse?
Why can’t I write a prayer a talmudist would grumble at but by midnight or later offer a somewhat begrudging smile?
Why can’t I speak with God and one of us, at least, have something unambiguous to say?
19 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
JenniFeR zilM
OUr LADy OF PerPetUAL HeLP, FeBrUAry 13
1. On the bus gliding over the Burrard Street Bridge a man wearing more dirt than clothes tells me “Jesus is my only Valentine.”
the bus ascends West 4th, the conversation continues as though this transit prophet has a breathing body of a chance to work with the season and convince me to love the savior or, failing that, his present representative.
But the sight of the mountains as we pass Our Lady of Perpetual Help conjures a hush and silence carries us up to the campus where we disembark and diverge to separate beaches.
20 2013 Annual Issue
2. Spanish Banks is just cold enough to be empty of everyone except you sitting shivering in a borrowed coat facing a collection of atoms called ocean, on shattered stones called shore. you turns to me and right now we are only moments away from a day designed for martyrs, lovers and saints, when all scattered things gather together, defying ownership, to echo the old mantra
be Mine Be mine
21 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
taRa wohlbeRg
In 1621 Mr. BUrtOn SAID…
stars cannot influence reason so don’t ask me what my sign is, water or air a Libra who cares if there is no alignment
are there no lucky stars no twinkling worth a wish or a thwack of Orion’s belt no sip of heaven from even a Little Dipper?
if stars are nothing but a dying luminous ball of plasma that gravity gives life to – who is in charge of celestial dreams?
22 2013 Annual Issue
nathaniel s. Rounds
LeISUre tIMe FOr tHe DISPOSSeSSeD
rebecca She is painting nails with Disappearing ink robert writes love letters In the blood of innocents eddie draws pictures of the Führer Over maps of Israel and Jordan Mother projects Bible scripture Over walls painted Band-aid colour the girl on the twenty-third floor Is screaming mock protest in Portuguese While her man smokes Hollywood cigarettes And Chinese noodles and boiled crab flesh Invoke hunger through air vents and cracked ceiling And the ground way down below yields to this building of a hundred rented homes Like a lonely child to an enemy soldier
23 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
sean aRthuR Joyce
WHAt WAKeS tHIS MOUntAIn
On the morning of July 12, 2012, unknown to Valentine Webber, his two daughters and his partner Petra Frehse, debris was backing up in Gar Creek on the steep mountainside above the tiny community of Johnson’s Landing, BC. The creek empties into beautiful Kootenay Lake but after an unusually wet and extended spring, conditions were highly unstable. When Gar Creek gave way it swept down the mountain and crushed the homes of Webber and Frehse in an instant. Val’s daughter Diana was 22, her sister Rachel 17. Diana, an avid hiker, had hoped to become a screenwriter while Rachel had just graduated from nearby Kaslo High School. Their father (age 60) was a native of Ireland and the girls had planned to travel there to make a documentary film. Frehse (64) was a German retiree who spent part of the year living in a home next door to the Webbers.
this is not the call of the mountain they had hoped to hear. no stream-whispered invitation to a bed of moss beneath star-wild sky, where so many times they followed the forget-me-not trail to peace. But the mountain
comes to us all, eventually. A hundred years pass, a thousand, the majesty of silence complete. then—an arm lashes out, snapping beams and metal, crumpling a roof that kept out the rain.
24 2013 Annual Issue
Matchboxes against the universe, buttressed by love and faith so magnificently blind. Four souls now walk the path of the ancestors. Only they know what wakes this mountain, what beats at its dark heart.
Only they know whose spirits pass there.
25 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
chelsea coMeau
GHOStS
our bus inches slowly toward the car wreck, traffic stalled in all directions. a blue toyota has been edged off the road, pushed in at the middle like a folded accordion run out of music; beside it the offending pick-up belches plumes of steam.
lights spun slowly atop parked cruisers throw their languid strobe across shorn metal. our bus is directed gently and skirts around the edges of disaster, never touching it, but flirting with its idea.
this is how jim morrison got started, i think: jarred out of realness by an overturned truck, its passengers thrown onto the highway at wrong angles, scattered like fists of salt in the winter, a bag of dropped marbles, or so much broken glass.
26 2013 Annual Issue
catheRine Mcneil
DISCOntInUIty
i text a tomboy over breakfast memories of invisible passions scrapping on the popcorn air shoulder strap slip i am interested in teresa my lust rages for her o were i a man ain’t no exit cuz’ there ain’t no door get set go here i eat stones teresa saw the father and son enter the river she had a bad feeling ... b b shshsh feet in the sound sand makes light takes the holy trees water the young the father bashes into a boulder the boy can not hold throttled by the current he didn’t last more than ten seconds pain-fountain sirens the whole town turned more real meaning of things rustling the world is god the mystery place particular accidents rumors in Spences Bridge
Jack Layton died yesterday love is better than anger 27 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Robin susanto
nIGHt SOnG
evening releases its crows to be summer in the cavern of the caw
the constellations are breaking From their cliff on high Overweight stars marching like lemmings to shatter before our eyes And wander all night At street level, a galaxy bright and broken
everything is falling night from space, the street from its light Summer we pull down
But to whom is this confetti? What wedding in night’s narrative? told in bolts of shadow Where darkness rips its velvet
A dance for the broken Maybe Stars to duck under And archway for the homeless
28 2013 Annual Issue
sheila peteRs
GeOLOGICAL tIMe: neW yeAr’S eVe
Sometimes the clouds hang low muffling conversation between the rocks and sky. It’s as if the mountains aren’t there, as if we’re in some country or other where the hills keep mumbling past, the promise of mountains never delivered. they’re there though. they’re always there and they’re not sleeping. And that’s not grumbling you hear. Under the wet blanket they’re giggling. they’re planning their next party. What colour to wear. How much glitter to sprinkle into their uncombed hair.
When the boyfriend came to visit all those years ago they snickered at my disappointment. Waited until he was gone to jump out from behind the curtains and yell, surprise! I laced up my dancing shoes and got right to it.
Last night those same mountains dressed up in their bright white shirts and packed themselves into the hall. Someone’s kids played horns and belted out old soul standards – try a little tenderness In the midnight hour Chain of fools – while we flung ourselves around, moonlight sprinkled in our hair. For old timers, we still dance pretty good.
29 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
kaRly stilling
LASt WOrDS OF FrIDA KAHLO
no more.
that is, she has given you everything already. It sits there in the painted lilt of eyebrow and the stern pleats of hair and petal her gaze abjuring any inquest.
She has girded herself with a jungle of wild animals: monkey and prowling jaguar winged creatures in her hair and jewelled at the column of her neck.
these are the notes she leaves behind, the embryos a glittered trail of broken bones and discarded clocks. A stomp. A whisper. And in her notebook: ‘I hope the exit is joyful – and I hope never to return.’
30 2013 Annual Issue
chRistine lowtheR
PerHAPS HeALeD
to listen for summer is like listening for a poem. the seal, resting below deck, groans. through the fog a chittering of raccoons in the littoral zone, their careful percussion of stone-turning in search of crabs, isopods, chitons. Such is the compulsion toward defining a season. this coast is baffled by a cold hand held over the harbour’s mouth, opal glaze muffling the setting sun. Columns of mist mimic the forest’s front row of hemlock and cedar, that same grace in form and movement, ritual moving over water, a ceremony without invitation, silent. the sun sets and night’s ink blends slowly from treeline into sky, silhouettes melting as if by their own distinguished design. Along this precise timeline -leaf-rustle by molecule- the world stills into deepening quiet like a gradual falling-to-sleep, the faces of my loneliness retreating. How right: a day expunged by vapour, events softened, numbed, perhaps healed with the sharpening of some sweet scent. young people’s voices carry over water, strum of acoustic guitar from a neighbouring floathouse. the stars are sealed off, there is no hope of northern lights, of meteor showers. the damp cave of night is held close, closed.
31 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
ibRahiM honJo
tHIS MOrnInG
this morning a bird landed on the window of my poem in the form of a letter unseen so far
she carried me in her and my word in her chirping
i don’t know whether because of this the morning cried
32 2013 Annual Issue
John b. lee
MACDOnOUGH 15 PUBLIC SCHOOL, neW OrLeAnS the assassin as a child
Lee Harvey sits with his hands folded on the desktop lost in the serious scold of a schoolmarm chalking the wall with work not yet imagining the Soviet not considering Dallas on a wall map nor dreaming the death of our dreams the building that frames his thoughts in glass is painted oxblood red, fixed square on the yard one-half block from the famous jazz and Mardi Gras of Bourbon Street perhaps he studies the hair on the back of his hands he studies the delicate line of his bones the heart-blue veins where thin flesh fades the grey-white of wet paper and he breathes as he flexes his finger regarding the shame in the skeletal shambles of his own arithmetic and the ink-blue lore of Jackson the Southern legend of Davis and Lee but he is a boy not yet grown black with the ghost of his name in the schoolbooks of men his future still dark with omens of gall and the wince of a nerve in his gut
33 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
david MeRRiField
FIrSt SteP
- that is, first independent step
it was spring that first day
and dry and I the small boy immobile in the dappled play of brilliant white the light grey
there within the doorway
a front door gaping and I statue riveted to its sill disabled by the light
the do’s and don’ts of bricked certainty
dry and prim that first spring white the mirrored days and green a first step beyond unseen
but for spring light and sky
and somewhere on the highest leaf
or in a bush beneath
a bird
34 singing fiercely 2013 Annual Issue
Melinda cochRane
SeLF POrtrAIt OF POOr
Quietly absorbing philosophy in a bottled up past with no music in it, put me down as insignificant until I am asked to write memoirs, then I have voice, rooted, obtained through the observing eye of poverty
from casting light in cave floors, there ain’t no glass ceiling found over these wooden doors, talkin’ heads, paint in café houses, food on rubber stamps, ain’t no song that ain’t in hats, castin’ light on the damned and quiet floors and there ain’t no ceiling found on doors.
35 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Roy RobeRts
DOnnA
She had a referral from the Department exact bus fare and the address of next scrawled on well-wrinkled paper that she gripped with a guarantee, said thanks and goodbye, promised to call and braved the streetcar ride into this lower east end of the city to take a room at the Hamilton.
Streetcars are zombie waiting rooms and the iPod recluses and other reluctants well-versed in eye-contact etiquette compressed her insecurities. She dangled in the interlude of no fixed address and a life will transit a mind there, a riddled mosaic on the run learning to hunt for confidence.
the Hamilton is nice enough considering and the ‘hood is no more dangerous than any of the others she’s lived in been lonely, depressed and sick in. I came on a streetcar named Powell I imagine her saying when she reminds me of Blanche Dubois, out of luck, frail and a little undone.
36 2013 Annual Issue
dennis e. bolen
FOreSt tOWn SLUMBer
those who fell awake too late Shrugging off the toxic blanket numbed in the classroom Staggered by onerous future Straining to heft wood metal paper toting somber books Wresting anachronisms Fearing war and economics
Prepared at any moment to cover and duck and go away laid off From a zillion mill jobs
Who daydreamed terminal and Slept off youth In the phantom mental mist Sculpting giant mental towers
Sought the big exit By cerebral shift or thrill charge
Slurring wild in a rebuilt english sedan With the boom boom barking doors Speaking whole lives Shouting violent minds Forcing the edge
Skidding joyous In a barren parking lot of snow
37 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
lauRa douglas
JUVenILe
He’s only twenty-two and the ink is already faded from black on hard gold to papery green like the money he stole with the tip of a knife probably not even as sharp as the pencil he pushed into my arm when the teacher’s back was turned round shoulders hard as rocks smooth like apples and rolled back past his ears the letters are illegible loops and curls across his stretched chest, sunburnt leather skin raw. “He has a weight on his shoulder,” she said “not just a chip.”
I could picture it, there, heavy, just above the little round scar where someone had roasted a nickel in the flame of a Bic lighter and then pressed it against his skin, leaving a mark for him to show off on the school bus the next morning.
38 2013 Annual Issue
Joseph a. FaRina
DISPLAyS
only tourists, forced school groups and aspiring artists fill the museums of Florence grouped by colour bands or following a flag they move from room to room eyes darting like schools of fish to paintings, frescoes and busts. the Florentines are all outside savoring the October sun the city vibrant around them sitting along the Arno arm in arm, kissing, eating pistachio gelato living their dolce vita while we tourists experience their renaissance in darkened halls of ancient art and crumbling stone descriptive translator audio guides firmly inserted in our ears.
39 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
david wood
MOntreAL
Gargoyles smoke cigarettes atop rusted fire ‘scapes in dying day’s alley ways, baiting each other with tawdry smiles.
torn-out stair cases leave jagged lines on the walls of ramshackled ware houses, wrapped in new growth’s graffiti.
40 2013 Annual Issue
patRicia sMekal
BOL, CrOAtIA
Here, the sun is a beast. It opens its summer eye early and drops its ponderous body on Bol. Before ten it fastens talons on treeless streets, grasps hapless pedestrians, pins their skinny shadows against naked walls. All day its ravening beak picks the town clean of shade, exposes its bones, leaves every throat unslaked.
Alongside, the Adriatic laughs, teases the desiccated shore, promises sparkling waters, heavy with salt.
41 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
asheR ghaFFaR
AttrACtIOn
When I met you with a basket of thyme, meeting and vanishing— meeting and parting at once. there is no word so one invents a language—a quadruple bypass. I am not a man of oxymorons: a threshold is many traces meeting at a point, dividing both points without dispersing itself. A threshold between ventricle and brain: a division of two times until fire cancels both momentarily.
I arrived at poetry with the intention of disappearing. Poetry is the tactile language of thresholds, religion without its manacled form. God pursued me with a hammer and a nail – wanting to shutter me up like an abandoned house. I want to reveal your impossibility, but that wouldn’t be fair game. Let your mask be in its strange beauty.
If I unmask you, how will I know that your mask completes you? If I fail to remember you’re wearing a mask, the dream might not be filled with double entendres. If you bend backwards and strangle me, I might not know your murderous intent. A threshold is…is not…like a child. even if there is no word, one reinvents it. no longing for a native tongue breeding contempt. you felt we must debase it rather than shape it at the vertebrae. every heart is a whorehouse, every language debased, some more than others. your African doll fell into the ocean; I’m chasing the pieces of the doll lost when you crossed. Its absence is your being that you can’t grasp. If the past doesn’t attack you, why go back to its misery? If you have that kind of conscience, you’re no better. the ethics you espouse deny whirlwind that encompasses you and makes a plaything out of your conscience.
42 2013 Annual Issue
Hence, every civilization is in a poem bound in a library waiting to be bombed. the translators wander in a delirium of rubble. the sky erupts into an obstacle course and then a horoscope of stars. the astrologers organize the debris into oracles. then the rawhide of human affection and the somnambulist’s weight ripen into the curse. Spread the rug on burning feet.
Prayer breaks through the sky and doesn’t penetrate the fossil. In the sky, wind tossed souls tussle. the enlargement of the archaic body makes the physical body shrink. the needles that inject the color in your skin are the price you paid for the scorpion on your limb. you cried, blackness, blackness. If the hammer comes down with the needle, do you agree?
43 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
kelsey keohane
A BAr FOr tHe Bete nOIre
It can be seen in the steady quake of the evening’s yawn the last toast for bare fingers, ring-less masses of draconian saints the bulls-eyed shot glass emptied by the woman in white Verboten romps in the back room, next to the mop and bucket Between a bearded drunkard and plaid-clad choir girl While preachers sang pool-table hymns to the busty waitress Whose profile read: middle-aged and engaged.
44 2013 Annual Issue
caRol haRvey steski
tHe WAItreSS
this iconic canadiana resort camp sports on its logged walls a circus of varnished fish in various stages of gape. the sole evening-shift waitress attends school during the days, keeps a toddler back home. And on smoking summer nights she dishes deep-fried dreams to fishermen and families before the bonfires raze, blurring the line where horizon and flame converge in a hazy lick. the smell of the grease trap is saunaed into every part of her— becomes a signature scent— and even her ex-lover three years removed tastes salt and creamed oil on his thick fingers, still, and thinks of her.
45 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
FaRan ghahReMani
JUne 15, 2009
it’s all so quiet when i lean against a pole by palest moon and in my ears the smoothest song She’s wrote for me to never hear though i listen still
as my dad tells Me faran really think about it you love us and our home —and Her voice had Her self in it too— but they won’t last
when i recline by eternity the maids pool their old bodies to cover hardly a third of the largest and most yellow moon against finer branches setting like the wind
and to its left a whiter orb too dim for the sun rimmed by a bruised halo also setting with time-lapse speed
when She arrives with Her father he explains the bodies in the sky as the moon and the sun are three years apart
46 2013 Annual Issue
and deep in the ocean before his pool he smiles to his Daughter to go swim and She says I would the others ask me to explain so i let the waves carry me to the omen but have a friend hold my hands before they take me back or before i awake with a whisper of my own name in my head
47 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Jude neale
StILL LIFe
In the window at twilight the waxy reflection of purple begonias grows from the wet nest of her mouth.
It’s too late for her pretty amazements as if she could possibly know the way to tipperary without the map.
She’s ready to fall even before she walks the high-wire
Her blood’s laced with a lethal injection of whirling and turning and nowhere to hide
from those eyes
ever watching
her French-polished nails
tap tapping on bone.
48 2013 Annual Issue
Robin susanto
HUMMInGBIrD - FOr BJF
they beat their wings faster than your eyes so you can see them stand still in midair, upright just long enough to address you as angels. they are small so they can do away with the argument of muscles. And with the little room they have, they let beauty take up most of it. they carry prisms instead of pigments in the matrix of the feathers so the sun may be tiny, and hides and seeks at the whim of summer’s angle.
And when they tell you that survival is not their aim, you believe them. they have flown a thousand miles just to show you what green can mean, for the sake of your heart’s first beat, the one that has stayed the youngest and most tentative; they have drown so it may step out with wings upright in the midair of its fear.
Beauty is medicine. this is their labour. Because holy work is little work. And heaven makes its case by the littlest of its creatures.
49 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
sho wiley
tUrn
Golden poplar, dark green spruce, dry scent of needles, soft old moss, that’s my loss —my exile— that brings me to your bed and room, deep in the city’s clutch, love you as much as if you sprang from my womb
sky was so blue I never turned to the moon for solace, streams full of bright, cold mouthfuls sufficed all need for a charmed while, why didn’t I stay their child? Prairie sunsets undid me, I surmise, with their colours stretched my heart a size too wide for simple things kind, made me set off to seek the wild that springs up through cracks if denied
50 2013 Annual Issue
sean wiebe
At tHe DeLtA HOteL, CAPe BretOn
there is a why which presses me against the pane, right up against the ninth floor window, a something from this long view into the horizon, where rings of sunlight are swirled within the waves, an ever changing fingerprint curved along the shore. How could I not drag this desk across the room, the white page of a poem unwritten, the profanity of staring at a wall of white; how could I not push all my furniture out the window, to be the object of your longing?
I want to feel the history of your fingers what they have traced, the moisture that remains in the swirls of your skin, what propels and compels you, why longing is never understood. I want to be in your dress rehearsal for infinity, a kind of reciprocity to adventure, cryptid archetypes, ogopogo feelings that sink unseen into the mysteries of your non judgement, pirates and priests alike forgotten with treasure still buried in their hearts.
With all my furniture rocking in the rhythms of your tides, I’ll put my dance floor here; in the buoyant nothingness beneath my feet, then I will know what it means to walk on water.
51 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
sean wiebe
SyLLOGISMS WItH My DAUGHter There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy, (Hamlet, I.V.)
Picking her up from soccer, I say, Socrates is a man, and all men are mortal, ever the teacher, I then explain how what comes next trains the brain’s power of deduction.
We think together for a while, and I give her clues as we close the distance to home. therefore Socrates is…[waiting, waiting]…mortal, and as I provide what I wished she’d guessed, we play again: She says, I love soccer. I say, I love you. therefore, she says, Let’s go to tim Hortons. trumped, I realize there is much more for me to understand about philosophy.
52 2013 Annual Issue
Mickey bickeRstaFF
InDISCrIMInAte
the Spaniard Brought me language books, two Spanish records, and five hundred words of miscellaneous vocabulary the Frenchman Added another language book, Camus, Sartre and teilhard, and a new way of making love.
A deep-eyed Jew produced a study of Judaism, selected poems of Layton, and richler’s novels. each desertion placed another disillusioned book upon the shelf.
By loving, I learned to distrust without discrimination.
53 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
R.c. weslowski
In LIeU OF CALLInG Her BeAUtIFUL
She said “don’t you dare call me beautiful” right after I said it, “that’s just you being lazy” she said. “that’s like you saying I’m a generic no name brand cereal when I’m really Sugar Crisp and Frosted Flakes leave
“beautiful” to the jerks at People Magazine and the 32,000 plastic surgeons who subscribe to it. If you think I’m beautiful find a new way to say it, be original if you mean it, you’re a write, say
I shine like a house on fire in the middle of a blizzard, say I’m just like that moment the first time anyone saw Star Wars or that I dance like a 5 foot tower of Djenga full of tequila, tell me
I’m blorp I’m gorvoonga I’m zazzle phht ahhhhhh or that when you see me and your heart skips a beat the only thing you can think of is
boodle widdle wa wa wa woooooo”
54 2013 Annual Issue
allen Qing yuan
rAIn, rAIn, GO AWAy
It often rains on me It’s not something I pay for regularly, Since it doesn’t even wash the pane of the window Only obscures my vision of the road and the lights rather, the psychic clouds cry for me As my own sympathetic companions But I do not need their pity or compassion I just need myself the rain leaves, traveling on a journey Attending to its own matters But it’s really inside me, always
Sometimes the rain overdoes it, Showering me with its “gifts” When I don’t really feel that way that all
But maybe if I pay, the rain will go away
55 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Jana e. silna
nIGHt StOrM
I used to have skin like apricot blossoms balmy fresh infused to extreme dusted with freckles those recklessly scattered deeply constellated wanton Pleiades shadows of stars reversals of night
I used to carry hair like accidental birds nests fallen from a branch tangled in effortless tumbles those moonlit wisps arbitrary whorls falling in ribbons against the rain permanently mixed
and now in artless dismantling I sleep a sudden sleep
56 2013 Annual Issue
sheila peteRs
A SOnG FOr AnDréS CHOPPInG OnIOnS
Andrés chops onions on the scarred wooden board. He cries. then he reaches for the carrots.
I’m guessing Andrés is pretty thin, guessing he’s got stomach trouble. the great leveler, the stomach. no matter how rigorous your analysis, no matter how noble your intent, no matter how committed to courage, the sick, the anxious, the terrified belly clamours for attention like a squalling baby, spitting up his mother’s milk. those long years together, you and your stomach, behind the Huacariz prison doors. you don’t get fat in there. there is beauty thinking of Andrés chopping onions Working with his body to soothe other stomachs. His tears flavour the broth. Fragments from his quick fingers – chopping carrot suns, slicing onion moons* – enter the hot soup’s heart. Salt and flesh in the mouths of his brave patrons transformed to laughter and fierce spirit exhaled into the air, diluting diesel fumes and fear. Air that goes everywhere, that slips between bars, slides under doors and reaches deep into the lungs of those still inside. Breathing. Breathing.
*See “the Ladle” from Pig earth by John Berger
57 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
kat wahaMaa
My GrAnDMOtHer’S HOUSe
My Grandmother’s house is empty Dust mutes the loom, spider webs hang On the long curtainless windows the kitchen floor is bare, worn but for the spot that bore the huge metal woodstove.
She stood before that enamel fire-breather Face red from the heat. the trestle table laden Breathing under checked cloths Flour dust on our hands, tasting the earthiness Of the raw dough, smiling.
I, sitting, small on the magenta carpet Sunlight slanting through long windows Illuminating particles of dust, waiting, even then. Plants, verdant green, some with coloured flowers Smothering the small front room.
Walls dark, tongue in groove, rich, reflecting firelight Shadows on the small square door - open A black hole, a bare-rock cellar, preserves and potatoes. She surfaces chilled From its reaches. the outhouse, a two-seater, but rough Waiting to sliver, my tender baby flesh. It stood grey, aloof, surrounded by 100 ft pines that howled like wolves When I ventured there at dark
58 2013 Annual Issue
the loom singing, white threads vibrating piano strings Her wavering Finnish, the minor chords lamenting, to the beat of the banging’s Of productivity, planting and planning, lilacs and veg- etables Always things growing, expanding, living All gone.
But the house has recorded all Deep within the wood And now breathes memories for me.
59 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
elee kRalJii gaRdineR
BACKStItCH
A secret language is sewn into the seams
a costumed language of rick-rack plackets, pin tucks, gussets, patterns that I dream as I sit quiet, plotting. Intention feeds through the sewing machine. Some things are not spoken of – pride or fear, the scheme
that cuts my mother tongue to ribbons. So clean
the knife a husband uses, his fist
shears off what I’m allowed, reinforcing what he vows. Silence in the sewing room: my fingers scream across bolts and yards, smoothing myself into the seam. He does not recognize the cleverness or care about the messages
sewn along the seam: knife pleat, prick stitch bar tack, whip stitch, flat-felled seams pattern weights, roll lines, released darts; I tell him what I mean.
Pressed against his skin the drape of a different dream
basted and reinforced, stitches even and clean
60 I sing a secret violence deep into the seams. 2013 Annual Issue
celeste snowbeR
SUPPer By tHe SeA for my mom Grace
Mother and child perched on sand salted and sunned skin in late afternoon melt
As sunset turns over its mouth the melody of salt awaits sub-marine sandwiches from Frank & Sam’s, a new england shack on the side of Short Beach
Pickles and onions in-between Italian deli-meat and chopped tomatoes the fragrance of salt in the air and tongue the delay of returning home a child’s delight - a mother’s promise the birth of nature’s wrap supper by the sea, a ritual of eating at water’s edge, on the cusp of time elongated as laminaria, my favorite seaweed
Huge strips of thick shiny brown seaplants - stranded in mud in the dusk of low tide
61 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
wilhelMina salMi
CetOLOGy for Brian Jungen
triumphant, majestic held, suspended like our breath an offering of the eternal cradled by air,
Fragile and weightless Still, each vertebrae connects in balanced power the endurance of the arch of the back marrow from plastic bone
Slick ivory skeleton of bowhead whale consumes the children who gasp in awe and delight.
62 2013 Annual Issue
cecile FavRon
JUSt AFter tHe enD-OF-LUnCH BeLL
nonsense flitting through the air while the teacher takes attendance.
Attempting to mingle with the already boisterous voices, the announcements are still inaudible.
A clap can be heard as an ignored text thuds onto the floor, only a few studious students lean over their planners.
the hiss of a bottle of pop. the rustle of paper and candy wrappers. the boredom of twelve years in school.
Only a few sit quietly contemplating? lost in thought? or just lost...
63 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
shannon Rayne
WHIte, An InVentOry
At Bump n Grind Café:
Florescent glow of Apple logos , flickering. Shirtless men, lacking tans or grace.
High top sneakers. iPod ear buds. exposed waist bands.
the cream cheese sandwich I overpaid for.
the ‘new’ platinum colour of fringed bangs, framing the barista.
napkins scattering as motorcycles blur by.
64 2013 Annual Issue
MaRni noRwich
PAnHAnDLInG
I ride the Skytrain, wait for words to drop from white ceiling and yellow posts to my yawning notebook.
A fellow rider eyes me with something like suspicion: maybe she disapproves of channeling on city property.
But like a beggar in a fancy restaurant, I defy: tip my notebook to the cosmos, ask for psalms.
65 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
k.J. MunRo
KLOnDIKe COMPOSItIOn
memoir seals memory in a sentence a life sentence served in the yukon where prospectors with numb fingers pan crouched in the tumbling creek dreaming of the motherlode the poet claims cranberry letters exposes fireweed vowels records raven consonants extracts poetry from this rocky landscape sluicing syntax prospecting participles past passed away
a life story remember beginning (3) middle (3) end spelled out subject & predicate nuggets of gold ink preserved in poetry
66 2013 Annual Issue
chelsea coMeau
rUBy-tHrOAteD
three hummingbirds circle the deck outside, lured easily by a backyard feeder. i offer them all that i can: false nectar in plastic tubes the shape of scarlet creepers, pieces assembled from a kit i bought at wal mart. there is nothing real about what i give them, it is only sugar and tap water. if they know that i’ve tricked them, they don’t seem to care, allowing me to sit near them while they drink, their ruby throats untouchable and burning in the late-day light. i imagine what it might be like to move so impetuously, drunk on a fake sweetness, darting beneath the yellow sun and straddling impossibility.
67 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Raoul FeRnandes
BIOLUMIneSCenCe
Walking out the sensor gate at the public library after a heavy reading, there’s that fear the alarm will go off simply from what is held in your mind. you reassure yourself with the thought that no matter how abstract and fuzzy it gets up there in the wire-tangled A.V. room, you are still lunch, with possible leftovers, for that wolf and her cubs. you have to imagine the wolf and her cubs, obviously, but it helps. When it comes down to it, it’s completely dark just a few millimetres beneath the skin, no matter how real the little flickers on your nerve endings feel, what with this strong coffee, this pulsing sky. you remind yourself deep sea lifeforms have evolved bioluminescence for practical, not spiritual reasons. Lunch, leftovers, etc. A strong wooden chair is a real and tangible thing, which is why philosophers and poets are always referring to it, holding on it, when lost and hovering around their rooms. Sometimes you catch yourself singing without knowing you are singing and sometimes you don’t ever catch yourself.
68 2013 Annual Issue
caRol shillibeeR
MOUSe tAIL WrIteS
hollow reeds bend the dark mud marks on november’s shore || four tiny toes|| imprint night’s hunt for summer seed fine lines of ice map cold water dreams image scrawling back through the dark: half a pelvic cradle & owl-felted hair; mouse tail writes across long dead skies no snow yet, but the chainsaws have been run- ning late day winter grey aspen and birch smoke hangs from black chimney pipe larch trunks across the path a truck making its way back down the mountain maps distance like bat sonar sweeps in the hollow of a boot print a tattered owl feather stirs barbules hook the air hackberry shudders with the passage of first night owl rustle of a hare still moving mouse remains unheard
69 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
John b. lee
tHe FULL MeASUre
there’s the voice of the dog in the barn you can measure his mood in the mind take his size from the weight of his breath seek his span in the volume of sound find fear in the blood of his moon or loss in his lonesome lament you can know both by girth of his ribs and fall of his thought how his heart might break over hay or race like a hare on the lee where he’s home in the scattering clods that screed in the wake of his claws what wags on the hinge of a leaf what sleeps in a slow-dying snow where the knots are like stars in his world and the dust shafts that swirl to be seen seem angels gone mad to the floor
what he names for the car on the road what he calls to the yard in the dark or the sun if he’s held until noon is this not the shelter of hope is this not the lonesome repair come close to the lock and I’ll say what’s gathered away in the windings by rain and by wind on the heel that covers the land 70 2013 Annual Issue
71 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
Contributors
Michelle baRkeR’s poetry has been published in several literary reviews, including the 2011 Best Canadian Poetry anthology. Her first novel, The Beggar King, will be out in 2013, published by thistledown Press. Please visit her at www.michellebarker.ca
Mickey bickeRstaFF was born and raised in Montreal, and moved to BC in 1971. Her work has appeared in tom Wayman’s Paperwork, and Silver Bow Publishing’s anthologies, Sudden Thunder and Royal City Poets. dennis e. bolen is a novelist, editor, teacher and journalist, first published in 1975 (Canadian Fiction Magazine). He holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria (1977) and an MFA (Writing) from the University of British Columbia (1989), and taught introductory Creative Writing at UBC from 1995 to 1997.
Maggie bolitho’s short stories have won awards and been published in anthologies in Australia and the US. Her yA novel, tentatively titled Lockdown, will be released by Great Plains Publication in spring 2014. www.maggiebolitho.com
Melinda cochRane has a poetry collection called “The Man Who Stole Father’s Boat”, Backalong Books. She’s published in online magazines such as, Life as a human, Young Men’s Perspective Magazine, and Shannon Grissom’s magazine. Melinda has received the Mary Belle Campbell scholarship for poetry from the north Carolina Writers network. chelsea coMeau is a 25 year old writer currently developing her first full- length collection of poems. Her work has placed in contests for Pandora’s Collective and was selected by Amber tamblyn as the winning entry for BUSt Magazine’s 2011 poetry competition. lauRa douglas is a young Canadian writer, artist, and student. She grew up on a farm on Wolfe Island, in Lake Ontario, and she is currently studying english Literature and environment Studies at McGill University in Montreal.
Joseph a FaRina practices law in Sarnia Ontario. He has been published nationally and internationally in Quills, Mobius, and several other journals. the author of two books of poetry: The Cancer Chronicles and Ghost’s of Water Street. He is currently experincing the poetry of being a grandfather to his new muse Cadenza.
72 2013 Annual Issue
cecile FavRon is a high school student from the small northern community of rosswood, British Columbia. Her passions are designing wearable art, working for political change, exploring cultures, and being different. Capturing a unique perspective in poetry is a new interest.
Raoul FeRnandes have been previously published in Event, CV2, and Poetry Is Dead and has poems forthcoming in The Malahat Review. In 2010 he was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award. He is currently assembling his first poetry manuscript. david FRaseR’s poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Rocksalt, An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry and Walk Myself Home. He has published four collections of poetry, Going to the Well (2004), Running Down the Wind (2007) and No Way Easy (2010), and Caught in My Throat (2011.) Home Site: www.davidpfraser.ca elee kRalJii gaRdineR directs thursdays Writing Collective, a program of free, drop-in creative writing classes in Vancouver’s Downtown eastside. She is the editor and publisher of five chapbooks from the Collective and the coeditor with John Asfour of V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012), which was shortlisted for the 2012 City of Vancouver Book Award. A frequent collaborator, elee leads workshops on creativity and social writing. Her writing, which earned the 2011 Lina Chartrand Poetry Award, appears in north American anthologies and publications.
Jeb gaudet lives in Calgary. He recently had his first poem published in Grain magazine and a long time ago had a short story in OnSpec magazine. asheR ghaFFaR’s poetry has appeared in CV2, Literary Review of Canada, Lichen Arts and Letters Preview and dANDelion. He is currently working on a doctoral degree at york University in Social and Political thought. In 2003, Ghaffar was stopped at the Wagah border post, where hundreds gather to watch the spectacle of the aggressive flag-lowering ceremony on both the Indian and Pakistani sides. In Wasps in a Golden Dream Hum a Strange Music, his debut collection of poetry, Ghaffar describes the affective dimensions of “race” from the perspective of a Canadian-born Muslim. “In the age of surveillance,” he writes, “the border is where one discerns the pulse of a nation.” the Toronto Star said: “Ghaffar’s inspired lyrical wordplay (“everything somehow / became metaphorical in the furnace of my mind”) and fervent willingness to shake things up make this an auspicious debut.”
73 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
FaRan ghahReMani was born in 1989 in tihran, Iran. He moved to Vancouver, Canada as a teenager to embark on scholarly work at the high- school level. He has since read english at Capilano and Simon Fraser University. alan hill has travelled extensively and worked in jobs ranging from renovating old graveyards to working in a jellybean factory. He started writing while living and working in Botswana. He has been previously published in Canada in CV2, Canadian Literature, Vancouver Review, Antigonish Review, Sub-Terrain and in a number of anthologies and in the UK in South, The Wolf and Turbulence His first full collection ‘The Upstairs Country’ (Silver-Bow Press) was published in early 2012. chRisty hill’s work has been published in The Pillar, Meow, Poets & Painters, The Mizmor L’David Anthology and Soliloquies. In 2009, she won the Summer Dreams Poetry Contest. She is a featured reader around the Lower Mainland. ibRahiM honJo is a poet-writer, sculptor, painter, photographer and property manager. He was introduced in many magazines, newspapers, and radio stations. Honjo received several prizes for his poetry. He is author 13 published books and represented in seven anthologies. His poetry was translated in: Korean, Slovenian and German language. candice JaMes is Poet Laureate of new Westminster, and author of 4 poetry books, A Split in the Water, Inner Heart, Bridges and Clouds and Midnight Embers, A Book of Sonnets. sean aRthuR Joyce (a.k.a. sean aRthuR Joyce) is well known in the West Kootenay region of BC for his popular newspaper columns and books on local history. He has published in literary magazines in Canada, the US and Britain and is the author of two collections of poetry from new Orphic Publishers, nelson, BC. kelsey keohane is a twenty-one year old, Ottawa-based writer working to complete her Undergraduate degree in the english (Honors) program, with a minor in History, at Carleton University. She enjoys reading and writing poetry in her spare time.
74 2013 Annual Issue
John b. lee was appointed Poet Laureate of Brantford in perpetuity in 2004 and Poet Laureate of norfolk County (2011-2014). His work has appeared internationally in over 500 publications. the author of well over seventy published books, he is the recpient of many prestigious international awards for his writing including being two-time winner of both the CBC Literary Prize for Poetry and the Peoples Poetry Award. He lives in a lake house overlooking Lake erie in Port Dover, Ontario. caRl leggo is a poet and professor at the University of British Columbia. His poetry, fiction, and scholarly essays have been published in many journals, nationally and internationally. His books include: View from My Mother’s House; Come-By-Chance; Sailing in a Concrete Boat. chRistopheR levenson, who moved to Vancouver from Ottawa in 2007, has published ten books and two chapbooks of poetry. His next book, Night Vision, will appear next Fall with Quattro. He helped revive Vancouver’s Dead Poets reading Series. beRnice leveR, poet, freelance editor and workshop leader, enjoys Bowen Island life. Her 10th poetry book is “Imagining Lives”, Black Moss Press, 2012. She edited WAVES, 1972-1987. Active in writing organizations, she is delighted to help other writers. www.colourofwords.com chRistine lowtheR is the author of Half-Blood Poems, My Nature, New Power, co-editor and co-author of Writing the West Coast: In Love with Place and Living Artfully: Reflections from the Far West Coast. She lives in Clayoquot Sound.
RobeRt MaRtens was born and raised in an ethnic Mennonite village, where he learned the poetry of community and petty oppression. His poems tread the tremulous boundary between the wider world of secularism and the face to face concreteness of his youth. robert has coedited and cowritten historical and literary anthologies. susan Mccaslin is an award-winning Canadian poet and Faculty emeritus of Douglas College, the author of eleven volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press, 2011). Susan resides in Fort Langley, British Columbia. www.susanmccaslin.ca
75 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
catheRine Mcneil, singer-songwriter from Vancouver, B.C., has poems from her manuscript ‘Emily & Elspeth’ in Queer Chroma, Rampike, One Cool Word & Sinister Wisdom. Other publications : West Coast Line, Event, Capilano Review, Whetstone, Exact Fare II & The Fed Anthology. david MeRRiField has lived in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island for over thirty years. kJ MunRo is from Vancouver, B.C., and now lives in Whitehorse, yukon territory. President of the Whitehorse Poetry Society since 2010, she helps organize the biennial Whitehorse Poetry Festival. Her poems have appeared in Lake, Cirque, and Modern Haiku among others.
Jude neale from Bowen Island, Canada, was shortlisted this year for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize (Ireland), the 2012 International Poetic republic Poetry Prize (U.K), and nominated for the Canadian reLit Award , a national body that celebrates some of the best books coming out of independent presses.
MaRni noRwich is a writer/editor and writing workshop facilitator with her business, Inkcat Media & Associates. She’s the author of a poetry collection, Wildflowers at my doorstep (Karma Press, 2008). sheila peteRs lives near Smithers in northwestern BC. Her poetry and fiction have been widely published in Canadian journals. Her most recent book is a novel, The Taste of Ashes (Caitlin). For more about Sheila’s work, go to www.sheilapeters.com. shannon Rayne is a Vancouver writer. Her poems have recently appeared in Filling Station, Poetry is Dead and the Feathertale Review. She is working on her first book-length collection of poems, tentatively titled ‘Coffee Stained’, investigating coffee culture in Vancouver, through the lens of poetry.
Roy RobeRts is a Vancouver poet. His poetry has previously appeared in Prairie Fire, The Prairie Journal and four anthologies. nathaniel s. Rounds A reformed photographer born in Wichita Falls, texas, nathaniel S. rounds writes from Halifax, nova Scotia. wilhelMina salMi is from the interior of British Columbia. She graduated from Okanagan University in Kelowna with a BFA in visual arts and creative writing. Her creative background spans visual arts, poetry, dance and performance. She currently resides in Vancouver. 76 2013 Annual Issue
tiMothy shay is a Vancouver poet published in Canadian literary magazines, on CBC radio, chapbooks, anthologies and a book. Shay hosts the Hogan’s Alley Open Poetry night and co-hosts Pandora’s Collective twisted Poets Series. He is a former editor of Horsefly Literary Magazine. caRol shillibeeR Born of a union between an artist and a scientist, Carol Shillibeer believes sci-po is a fertile connection. two ways of thinking, of hearing the world speak: adenosine tri-phosphate is a fundamental life metaphor. the similarities she sees between sci & po might be a case of convergent evolution, but OK, she can write with that too. Her poetry has appeared in Room, The Malahat Review, Ditch and others. [email protected]
Jana e. silna is a philosopher, writer and an artist, originally from Czech republic. She raised a family British Columbia and pursued graduate studies at Simon Fraser University. Jana holds a PhD in education and her research passions are phenomenology and poetry, specifically embodied writing and hybridization of academic and poetic genres. She lives on a sailboat in Cowichan Bay, BC. patRicia sMekal lives on Vancouver Island, and is a director of the WordStorm Society of the Arts. Pat’s poems have been widely published in Canada. In 2009, she launched a chapbook, Praise without Mortar, and in 2012 her book, Small Corners was published (Ascent Aspirations). celeste snowbeR, ph.d. is a dancer, writer, poet, and educator, who is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of education at Simon Fraser University. She is author of Embodied Prayer and co-author of Landscapes in Aesthetic Education.
J. J. steinFeld lives on Prince edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published fourteen books, including Would You Hide Me? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Misshapenness (Poetry, ekstasis editions), and A Glass Shard and Memory (Stories, recliner Books). caRol haRvey steski’s work has appeared in Prairie Fire, CV2, on CBC radio, and was chosen for Winnipeg transit’s Poetry in Motion contest. She lives in toronto, selling her soul to government in exchange for a steady income and pretty ok benefits.
77 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
kaRly stilling is an emerging writer who lives and studies in Vancouver. When not exploring themes of myth, death, and the media in her writing, she works in the film industry and spends her free time reading and watching films.
Robin susanto is a Statistician by training. He teaches and translates by day, and adds it all up to poetry by night. His latest work appeared in Wild Weathers, a gathering of love poems by Leaf Press. elizabeth syMons is a painter poet published in poetry journals including Prairie Schooner, The new Quarterly, Agua Terra (Ascent Publishing) and The Dalhousie Review. She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets and the Federation of BC Writers. Her interests are political and environmental issues, hiking and swimming. Her paintings can be found on her website SymonsArt.com liliJa valis is the author of Freedom On The Fault Line (2012). Her work has been included in four anthologies. She reads her poetry at literary and musical events, and at liberty-oriented conferences. She lives in Vancouver. kat wahaMaa is a singer-songwriter, performing artist, photographer and sometime poet. Her songs have been used in live theatre and film. She is also an ardent activist and has spent years working on the issues of violence against women/peace-making and the environment.
Rc weslowski is Canada’s 2012 Individual Poetry Slam Champion. He is a vowel huckster who howls at the gloom. He has toured Canada, the U.S. and U.K. performing his words in all sorts of venues and in front of a variety of confused audiences. sean wiebe is an assistant professor of education at the University of Prince edward Island, teaching courses in language and literacy, curriculum theory, and global issues. His most recent book of poetry is How Boys Grow Up, Acorn Press. sho wiley, born in Medicine Hat, writes poetry and speculative fiction. After getting her degree in Creative Writing at UBC, she began to perform spoken word with the first Van Slam poets. the slam credo of poetry for the people led her into also performing marriages and memorials for six years. She has now returned to perform at the popular poetry venues in Vancouver and new Westminster.
78 2013 Annual Issue
taRa wohlbeRg Finalist in the City of Westminster (UK) Poetry Competition, tara Wohlberg’s poetry was short-listed for the Malahat review 2010 Open Season award and won 2nd Prize in the 2009 Writers’ Collective Poetry Prize (Canada). Her lyrics are published by eC Schirmer, Boston, and Oxford University Press. david wood was born in Southern Ontario. After completing an Honors BA in Language and Literature at Brock University, he began traveling and writing his way across europe and Asia. David has been previously published in Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, 2011 volume VIII. allen Qing yuan, born in Canada and aged 17, currently attends high school and co-edits Poetry Pacific in Vancouver. Since grade 10, Allen has published poems in dozens of literary journals across 12 countries, including Blue Fifth Review, Cirque, Contemporary American Voices, Cordite Poetry Review, Istanbul Literary Review, LRC, MOBIUS, On Spec, OAR, Paris/ Atlantic, Taj Mahal Review and Toronto Quarterly. Poetry Submissions welcome at [email protected]
JenniFeR zilM is a poet, an occasional religion scholar and a community mental health worker. Her writing has been published in several journals including Vallum, Room, Quills and Women in Judaism. She lives in Vancouver.
79 Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine
80 Quills 2010 Cover_Quills 2007 Cover 17/01/11 8:55 AM Page 2
ATTENTION CANADIAN POETS! Submit & Subscribe! Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine accepts submissions and needs your subscription. “Quills is so beautiful… it’s like a collectors item! I’m buying a subscription for 2 years…” –VICKI GABEREAU “Simultaneously colourful and bullshit-free, this publisher could become the best influence on Canadian poetry in history.” –LYLE NEFF, WESTENDER
CANADIAN POETRY MAGAZINE
SUBMISSIONS: See our website for details. Email your 3 submis- sions with “Quills - Submission” in the subject line to [email protected]. Do not send attachments, instead type your poems into the email and include a 35 word bio and your mailing address.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: $10.45 for one annual issue (includes GST) www.quillspoetry.com