“before Ion even take the the world Vin, I ergeam given the gift of bravery. today the 2021sun hasWriting come Contest up just for us. it tricks us into thinking the previous grim days have just been a dream, and we have finally woken up. It is the first win- ter I have hope for spring.” “I do not necessarily deli- ght in making DECOLONIZATION a day job.”“you come from a long line of strong women.” “You know your heart. And it’s not always easy. One day, your parents will realize.” “A small cloud of dust puffs out behind me, like the ghosts of my footprints get up and leave me.” “before I even take the world in, I am given the gift of bravery. today the sun has come up just for us. it tricks us into thinking the previous grim days have just been a
antú C
dream and we have finally woken up t is the first win aimondi , . I - R aula P by ter I have hope for spring.” “I do not necessarily delight designed
v er o in making DECOLONIZATION a day job.” “you comeC UVic Libraries & the Office of Equity and Human Rights acknowledges with respect the Lekwungen people on whose traditional territory the University of Victoria stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Fiction Charlie Eggeling, Goodbye to Peeling Leather 5
Sydney Low, I’m Going to Live with my Girlfriend 12
Non-Fiction Jenessa Joy Klukas, Identity 17
Sarah Holman, Sudoku and Speedos 22
Poetry Valentina Ibarra García, Ode To Angélica 28
Leanne Hill, If I can adapt then I will not die 32
Spoken Word Antonella Cecilia Luzardo Gonzalez, My Mother Looks At Me 35
Lindani Khoza, Dear White People 38
1 Introduction
on the Verge is a writing contest that showcases and celebrates emerging UVic student voices by inviting submissions based on an annual theme under the broad rubric of equity, diversity, and human rights. Open to all UVic students, the contest invites submissions in the categories of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and spoken word.
Co-sponsored by UVic Libraries and the Office of Equity and Human Rights, the contest would not be possible without the significant support of the Faculties of Business, Continuing Studies, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Humanities, Human and Social Development, Law, Science, and Social Sciences.
In addition to winning a cash prize, all winners receive an award certificate, and a spot in a writing workshop with each year’s celebrity judge. The judge for 2021’s contest was award-winning, best-selling author Monique Gray Smith.
The theme for the 2021 contest was resilience. In the year of a global pandemic, we asked student writers to respond to this theme through the following questions: Resilience is a capability many are seeking to help them make it through turbulent times. What constitutes resilience? How can we practice resilience in relation to decolonization and reconciliation, to the pandemic, to oppression and marginalization, and to our current global political arena? How can we bear the challenges of our times and recover from them to build new bonds of strength, hope and courage?
Our winners were evaluated and selected based on the following criteria: excellence and proficiency in writing and technique; engagement with the theme in a meaningful way; awareness of equity, diversity, and human rights; and adherence to the word limit.
Congratulations to all our winners and much gratitude to all who entered!
2 2021 Celebrity Judge
Monique Gray Smith is a proud Mom of teenage twins and an award-winning, best-selling author. Her first published novelTilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience won the 2014 Canadian Burt Award for First Nation, Métis and Inuit Literature. Since then, Monique has had 7 books come out, including Speaking our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation, which as a finalist for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. In the fall of 2019, every child in Canada entering grade one received a copy of the dual language, English/French and Cree edition of My Heart Fills with Happiness. Monique’s new children’s book When We Are Kind has received positive reviews and landed on the BC Bestseller List before being officially released. In 2019, Monique received the City of Victoria Leadership Award for Reconciliation. She is appointed member of the Board of Directors of Royal Roads University and the Minister’s Advisory Council for Indigenous Women for the Government of BC. Monique is Cree, Lakota and Scottish and has been sober and involved in her healing journey for over 29 years. She is well known for her storytelling, spirit of generosity and focus on resilience.
3 Fiction
4 1st Place Goodbye to Peeling Leather
by Charlie Eggeling
Judge’s Comments:
“From the first scene, I was engaged and a champion of the character. To be dismissed, and of at all places, Hospice lays a beautiful foundation for us to witness their resilience, the powerful relationship between them and their brother and to understand the deeper dismissal by their parents. The scene with the grandmother was enrapturing and the love and adoration was palpable. I was deeply moved by how the grandmother both saw and knew Jamie, these lines capture so much, “You know your heart. And it’s not always easy. One day, your parents will realize.”
Charlie Eggeling is a second-year undergraduate student in writing and political science. He was born and raised in Kelowna, BC, and now resides in Victoria. He primarily writes fiction and screenplays, with an emphasis on themes of social issues, philosophy, and human connections.
5 Goodbye to Peeling Leather
by Charlie Eggeling
The hospice my grandmother stays at reminds me of elementary school field trips to the nearby care home. Except there is no bingo and the faces are not so excited to see me.
I walk up to the receptionist’s desk. Say hello politely. Wait for any acknowledgement whilst she clack, clack, clacks her way on her computer keyboard.
Nothing. I say hello again. She glances up.
“I heard you. Who are you here for?” Eyes back on the screen. Clack, clack.
“Josie Abington.”
Clack, clack, clack. “Relation?”
“Grandchild.”
“Name?”
“Jamie. And before you—”
“There’s no Jamie listed, here. Only one grandson, Henry.”
“Yeah, I was gonna say—”
“Direct relatives only.”
“I know that,” I snap, and pause when the receptionist gives me a look that says she’s never been snapped at before. I reach into my pocket for my wallet, slip out my ID. “There was a problem with the paperwork. Look, here. Jamie Abington.”
At the very least, she does look—but still shakes her head. “We still need you whitelisted here.” She gestures to the screen I can’t see.
“Isn’t the patient more important than a damn whitelist? She’ll beg you to let me in, just ask her.”
Her brow lowers, looking like a parent receiving attitude from their child. “She’s
6 sleeping.”
I glare. “Bull. Fucking. Shit.”
*
In my shitty, barren studio apartment, I sit on my second (or third, or maybe fourth) hand futon couch, trying to remember how much I had purchased it for. Its faux leather is mosaic-like, peeling in a gross sort of pattern. I pick at a piece that’s deceivingly loose, hanging on for dear life despite itself.
In front of me are an overfilled suitcase and lightweight backpack. The rest of the room is empty, furniture having since been sold or tragically tossed away, leaving too much of what I don’t want.
My phone rings and I grab at it, pressing accept without confirming the caller.
“Got my text? Are you up for it?” I immediately ask.
My brother sighs heavily on the other end. “I’m on thin ice with mom and dad, too, you know.”
“They don’t have to know.”
“Just like they don’t have to know their own child is leaving the province?”
I swallow. “Just like that.”
“Gram’s going to be so upset.”
“I can’t just leave without saying goodbye.”
Silence. I can picture Henry chewing at his already too-dry lip. “Tomorrow at noon?”
I close my eyes, slouch in on myself. “Sure, that’s great. Thank y—”
Tone. Call ended.
I drop my phone to my lap. Fall to my side on the futon. “Maybe I can squeeze fifty bucks out of you.”
“Got kicked out of the hospice yesterday. That’s why I needed you.”
“Kicked out,” Henry repeats, eyes trained on the road as he drives.
“Well, don’t sound too sorry for me.”
7 He glances at me. “Not sorry. Angry.”
“Why? It’s nothing new.”
Henry pauses. “The lawyer came to discuss the will the other day, while I was at mom and dad’s.”
I tongue my cheek, but don’t say anything.
“Everything’s in our names. Nothing for them.”
I feel a strange warmth blossom within me, but I can’t tell the origin. Can’t tell if it’s selfishness or love at the forefront. Perhaps a bit of both. “Oh,” I manage.
Henry tilts his head to the side. “Oh, except the tea set. That’s for mom. And a few other nick-nacks.”
I huff a laugh.
“They argued that she wasn’t sound of mind to make that decision, but apparently she wrote it long before she was diagnosed with Lewy bodies.” He looks at me, then, smiling softly. “You’re going to be alright.”
It’s supposed to comfort me, yet all I feel is guilt.
*
I remember, as a child, sneaking into my grandmother’s room in the middle of the night to take up space in her bed. With my grandfather deceased before I was born, she was more than happy to oblige. Sneaking into her room in the hospice from the outside window gives me much of a similar feeling, but the urgency is heightened and so are the consequences of being caught.
Henry closes the window behind me, setting the curtains back in place with a sigh. “Might be the closest I’ve been to breaking the law.”
“Don’t sugar-coat it,” I say, “it is breaking the law.”
He smiles a bit, which is quickly lost on me as I look about the darkness of the room. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, and I can’t help but wonder what inclines hospices to lock the brightness of the sun away.
My eyes land on a heart monitor as it bleep, bleep, bleeps the life of my grandmother. And then I see her, looking half her true size, showing none of her
8 liveliness. I think the real reason they must have a monitor is simply to remind a patient’s visitors that they haven’t yet passed on.
She’s sleeping, of course, because what else is there for her to do? Her disease won’t even allow her the basic pleasures of reading a book when she can no longer focus on its words.
“You can wake her,” Henry says. “Last time I let her sleep she got mad at me.”
I go to her bedside and reach out a hand. A shaky, uncertain hand. I place it on her shoulder. I give her a little shake, unsure of how deep in sleep she is.
Her head gives a jolt, and her eyes come to life. And when they search the air and settle on my face, I see the fleeting image of who she was. Who she is, passed the confines of her disease.
My throat feels too tight to speak, but the words come out without my willing them. “Hi, grams.”
“Oh, Jaimie.” Her voice wavers like train wheels on their tracks. She moves her arms from the confines of her blanket, slow as her dwindling muscle will allow. Eventually, her hand finds my face. She smiles. “Thank God I get to see you.” One last time hangs in the air.
“I don’t have long,” I whisper. “I, um. I’m moving away. I wanted to say goodbye.”
Her smile is gone in place of surprise, but even that quickly fades, as if it were too much wasted energy. “C’mere.”
She gestures for a hug. I sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over her and wrapping my arms around her as best I can.
“Will you be alright?” she asks.
My eyes burn. I lower my voice to a whisper. “I don’t really want to go.”
Her arm releases me, urges me to pull away. She holds my face again. “You know your heart. And it’s not always easy. One day, your parents will realize.”
It hits me, then, that the first person to give me their boundless support is leaving. And I know these last words are precious, but anything of worth is lost on me, so I only say “thank you.” Over and over again, hoping it reaches.
9 “My Jaimie,” she says. And the name was another, once, but it sounds just as loving.
*
As Henry and I sit in silence on my peeling leather futon, I question why I invited him here.
“Sorry. We should’ve just gone to a cafe or something.”
“It’s okay. Privacy is probably better.”
“Right.”
Silence. The whiteness of the overhead light makes me cold.
My phone buzzes, and I thank its distraction. I look at the notification and can’t help but laugh a bit.
“What’s up?” Henry asks.
I pat the futon with my free hand. “Put this piece of shit on sale for fifty bucks. I just got a text from someone interested.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Ah, looks like they don’t have a way to pick it up, though—”
“I’ll give you a hundred for it.”
I look at him. “Huh?”
He pauses. Doesn’t look at me. “When you left home, this was the first piece of furniture you bought. Right?”
I snicker. “How do you remember that?”
His face isn’t amused. “Mom told me you bought it with money from the black market. I believed her.”
I say nothing.
His voice turns soft. “I never realized they treated you the way they did because you were trans.”
“Well. That’s manipulation for you.”
10 He looks at me, tears in his eyes. “Stay,” he says. Asks. “We can get an apartment together. I’ll talk to mom and dad. We’ll figure it out.”
And it’s tempting, really. But I’ve spent most of my life catering to others’ wants. I smile softly. “One day, maybe. But right now, I need time for myself.”
He just nods. I reach over, pulling on his shoulder until we’re hugging. His head falls into my neck.
“You can have it for free,” I say, “the couch.”
His voice breaks when, after a long pause, he says, “Thanks.”
11 2nd Place I’m Going to Live with my Girlfriend
by Sydney Low
Judge’s Comments:
“Metaphors are beautifully woven throughout this piece. For example, in the first paragraph we get enveloped in a metaphor that reveals much about the character. “A small cloud of dust puffs out behind me, like the ghosts of my footprints get up and leave me.” I love how in this short piece, we experience the various ways the character’s resilience is being tested, and yet, somehow I know they are going to be just fine!”
Sydney Low has been telling stories since she could form thoughts, and writing since she could hold a pencil. She is currently a second-year writing major, and one day hopes to create YA novels with a spotlight on queer characters. Her favourite genres to write in are dystopia/sci-fi and fantasy, but all of her work aspires to have diverse characters and be women- and queer-centric.
12 I’m Going to Live with my Girlfriend
by Sydney Low
I walk along the tire tracks in the gravel road, a lonely space shuttle following a trajectory that was plotted out for me years ago. A small cloud of dust puffs out behind me, like the ghosts of my footprints get up and leave me. I don’t leave as much of a cloud as trucks do when they drive by, but it’s still a cloud. Mine.
Just as the dark clouds start to reach me, I come up to the abandoned church. The cross on the top was blown off long ago, probably in a summer storm like the one that’s almost above me.
But still, I know it’s a church.
I swear it stares at me as I pass, like it knows, too. The dark holes where windows used to be look like mouths. I can almost hear my parents’ words from this morning’s shouting match—wrong and liar and learn to ignore it and it’s just a phase and not my daughter and bible verses and all the other stereotypical shit you hear about but never actually think gets said and, finally,get out, now—like they’re leaking from the windows. It’s late afternoon now and I’ve been walking since.
The first drops of rain begin to fall, slowly blotting out my footprints. Staring up at the sky, I smile and close my eyes, letting the rain wash my face clean, wash away the last of my tears like my footprints. I pull my hood up, shift my backpack on my shoulders, and keep walking down the road to the city.
To Raina.
Then I hear thunder and see a flash of lightning, steadily getting closer.
I look around for anythinganything—other than the church to hide in until the storm passes. But it’s just fields all the way to the horizon in every direction. I guess I won’t get very far if I get struck by lightning… With a sigh that turns into a groan, I hop off my imaginary trajectory and head for the church.
When I’m standing in front of the rotting-and-rusted-hinges door, wind blows through the old building. It creaks, echoing my groan back to me.
13 I glare at the faded wood. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but, frankly, I blame you for this. You can at least keep me from getting electrocuted.”
Inside, the church smells like dry grass. Pages of falling-apart hymn books flutter in the wind. I watch the storm through the empty window frame, watch the rain turn the gravel from dust to mud. But I can’t shake the feeling of being watched, of something staring right between my shoulder blades. Looking over my shoulder, I swear all the knots in the wooden beams look like dozens of eyes, all fixed on me. Unblinking. A chill runs down my back and I look away.
Lightning flashes followed by a clap of thunder. I step away from the window and sit down against a crooked pew, brushing strands of hair out of my face. The first thing I’m doing when I get to the city is cutting all my hair off.
My gaze wanders to my bag. Or… I reach into my backpack for my pocketknife. Turning the knife over a few times, I hold out a fistful of my hair and cut. I’m sure it’ll probably look like shit, but there’s something so viscerally satisfying about hacking my hair off with a pocketknife that I don’t care. I get lighter with every piece, like each one is a word, a stare, a hissed jab and anything else that followed me when I walked out of my town. All of it falling away and unraveling like it was never a part of me. When I’m done, I brush the hair from my shoulders and shake my head wildly. Rain beats down on the roof.
Next, I go through all of my photos and delete every. Single. One. With my parents or anyone from my town—my old town in them. Delete, delete, delete. I wish they were real pictures, not just digital, so I could leave them in this church along with my hair to get blown away, or to rot and fall apart like the hymn books or to I don’t care what as long as I never see them again.
Standing, I dump my whole backpack onto the dusty floor. I didn’t have time to think about what I was taking with me—I just grabbed things randomly—now I want everything that reminds me of that damn town gone.
“Y’know, I always knew this was going to come.” I ball up the sweater I got from a church secret Santa and chuck it across the room. “And I thought I was ready for it.”
I swing the belt I used to wear to dinners I didn’t want to go to around a few times before letting it loose and sending it flying up into the rafters. “But I guess I wasn’t.”
“Because even though,” I toss an old journal in the air and kick it, “I’d imagined it a million,” one knitted glove from my aunt, “times,” then the other, “it still really,” I rip my hoodie off, “fucking,” and throw it into the rafters too, hurt.“ ”
14 I don’t realize I’m shouting until I stop. The church goes quiet.
At the horizon, the sky’s getting brighter, like Raina’s sending the bright sky just for me.
A gust of wind blows raindrops onto my face. I swear I can hear Raina saying, “You’re such a sap, Jaz.”
I grin to myself. “You hear that, oh all-seeing bastard god?” I say to the empty building. “I’m heading for the city to live with my girlfriend and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
I tuck the things I want to keep back in my bag. My pocket knife I used to carve “J+R” into benches wherever we went. Comic books with queer characters, bent at the corners from being hidden under my bed; I can’t wait to see them out on a shelf. A book of photos of nebulas Raina and our friends pitched in to get me for my sixteenth birthday last year, with all their names signed in the front. The T-shirt from the first concert Raina and I went to.
The bright sky comes. I pick up my backpack, much lighter now, ready to leave. Outside, I pause before I close the door. I look up at the face of the church. “I’d burn you to the ground if I could.” I slam the door shut.
Just in a T-shirt now, the damp air gives me goosebumps. I keep my eyes on the horizon and start walking again. At the end of the road, Raina’s waiting for me.
15 Non-Fiction
16 1st Place Identity
by Jenessa Joy Klukas
Judge’s Comments:
“The author captures the perplexity of identity in multiple ways, including what people might see on the outside, may not be how we feel on the inside. I could feel the anguish of not being connected to home community and the longing that twinges the heart as they and their adopted family drive past her home community and she says, “that’s where my band is.” This story not only lets us be witness to the resilience, but also to the self determination of the character. Even through all this, they are finding their way forward, refusing to be put in one of the boxes society wants them to fit in.”
Jenessa Joy Klukas is a fourth-year Writing major at the University of Victoria. She was raised in northern BC on the land of the Haisla nation but belongs to Xaxli’p First Nation. Her favourite activity is snowshoeing, she plays guitar and ukulele in her spare time, and her favourite books are The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
17 Identity
by Jenessa Joy Klukas
“You look like you should be from Moscow,” Corissa told me one day. It was in early June, and Corissa was the infant-toddler teacher at the daycare that I worked at. She was staring at me, her statement entirely unprovoked and unasked for. Turning to look at her I tried to mask my surprise by matching her intensity. “I’m sorry?”
“You look like you should be from Moscow,” Corissa repeated. “With your porcelain skin and all, you look like you’re from the mountains, the mountains of Moscow.” She assessed me up and down. I knew what she saw. Brown eyes, brown hair, round face, and skin that was olive-toned and freckled and didn’t quite know if it was supposed to be tan or just a weird form of light beige. I assessed her back. Blonde hair, makeup that was too dark, and to orange for her that didn’t match her neck. Pretty. Brown eyes.
I was Indigenous, of Metis and Xaxli’p descent. To add up the numbers I was around 60% Indigenous—which Corissa knew. I’d told her when she’d asked on several separate occasions, but she seemed quite infatuated with the fact that I “looked white.”
Corissa’s comments started as innocent—casual remarks that built up to daily belittling. “You’re so fair! I can’t believe you’re Indigenous!” Corissa was a sixteenth Indigenous. Every chance she could find she would remind me that she was also Indigenous which I didn’t question or remark on. “I’m so tan. Everyone asks me if I’m native in the summer!” She’d say. “But you? You’re so fair. You don’t look Indigenous!”
“Not all Indigenous people look the same you know,” I’d try to remind her gently. “There are different skin tones.”
“You’re just so fair,” she’d mock in reply to my explanation.
Corissa’s belittling of my Indigeneity reminded me of high-school—unsettled and not feeling as if my Indigenous identity mattered. Grounding my roots in my ethnicity and accepting who I am, working on being culturally aware and finding my place as an Indigenous woman has been the hardest part of discovering myself. The phrase: “I was too white for the natives but too native for the white” was a phrase that settled inside me as I grew up. It felt like a phrase that I shouldn’t say. It felt shameful and dark, and bad, and angry. Angry for being both white and native.
18 My birthmother was an Indigenous woman of the Xaxli’p First Nation, which is located in Lillooet, BC on the Fraser River. My birthfather is of Metis descent. I was born on May 28th, 1996. My birthparents, both teenagers, placed me up for adoption—I was adopted on June 6th, 1996. I was adopted into was a loving German family. I moved to a Kitimat a small town in Northern BC surrounded by mountains and on the Douglas Channel. I lived there until I was nineteen.
Kitimat was and still is a very multicultural community, accepting and loving. Many members of the Haisla nation would invite me to Haisla events, I’d be referred to as cousin, and I would never feel different or set apart. When I struggled in my Indigenous identity I would struggle at home.
Home. It’s supposed to be about safety, but family dynamics are complex and mixed and sometimes dark. My parents were accepting, and kind and tried their best to support me. “But you were practically raised white,” my mom would still comment.
Raised white?
I never understood how my mother could think I was ‘raised white’ when my Oma would say that when I was too loud that it was ‘the Indian in her.’ If I was ‘raised white’ why did I have to be told about how I ‘shouldn’t drink because you’ll become an alcoholic’? If I were ‘raised white’ why did my Uncle want to use me for my status card so he could fish on native land?
I was raised in a white family but that did not mean I was fully white, and that did not mean I was treated as white. I didn’t receive the dismissal that a white person would receive, something I realized before I was ten. The fact that I was both Caucasian and Native didn’t seem to matter. The 40% Caucasian part of me was rarely if ever, spoken off—perhaps because it was already accepted, and okay, and ‘normal’ for my German family. Nothing needed to be said. The Indigenous part, however, came up constantly, and almost always in a negative context.
As I grew older I felt a growing disconnect to who I thought I should be. I tried and tried, I reached and reached, but I couldn’t find a way to feel native. I was proud of being Indigenous. I was proud of my culture. I knew I felt loved and accepted into the Indigenous community but I somehow still felt disconnected. My nation was far away. I didn’t live on the res, and I didn’t have many who could understand.
When I tried to talk to my mom she would shrug and tell me that maybe one day we could go visit Lillooet. We never did. We drove by Lillooet once a year on our
19 way to Abbotsford to visit my Aunt and we never stopped. I would stare longingly through the window as we passed. “That’s where my band is.” I would say each time. The announcement would make it feel more real.
*
I feel most at home with my Indigenous identity when I feel heard. It took years to settle into my skin as an Indigenous woman. I started telling my family I was uncomfortable with their assumptions on my Indigeneity and their remarks began to fade enough to let me grow more comfortable with myself. I started to tell people just because I ‘didn’t look native’ didn’t mean that I wasn’t native and I stopped listening to their opinions. Slowly I learned to build a community—a community of people who would hear me and ground me in my Indigenous identity.
When I moved to a new university at twenty-two I was welcomed into the Native Students Union. I walked through the lounge door and I tried to do it confidently.
“Hi!” A student leader greeted me. I almost jumped out of my skin. Was I going to get kicked out? Did he know? Was I not native enough? Suddenly it’s high-school again, suddenly it’s being scared of Corissa again, suddenly…suddenly…
“Hi!” I said. I smiled and he smiled back. He was taller than me, his hair was a little darker, but his skin tone was the same as mine.
“I’m Josh,” he said.
“I’m Jenessa-Joy.” We chatted and he asked me if I was new and what I was studying, and we talked about what he was studying as well.
“Where’s your nation?” he said.
“Xaxli’p,” I told him. “Lillooet.” Josh walked over to the wall where a map of all the nations in BC hung.
“How do you spell it?” He smiled as he scanned the map carefully. I told him.
“It’s near the Fraser River.”
“Oh, there it is,” Josh said, running his finger over the map overtop of the marker that reads Xaxli’p.
“Yes, there.” My smile hurt my cheeks. I was acknowledged and I was seen, heard. “That’s my nation.”
20 *
Slowly I’ve come to realize what the phrase: “I was too white for the natives but too native for the white,” means to me. I’ve realized it’s the gluing together of pieces of what I’ve been feeling and what people have been doing to me. It’s people telling me I don’t look native enough or I don’t look white enough. It’s people telling me that I’ve been raised white. Its people questioning my Indigeneity.
Slowly I work towards healing. One step at a time. I build my community strong and I allow myself to be heard.
I’m both Indigenous and Caucasian. I am primarily Indigenous with Dutch ancestry. I am not too native for the white or too white for the native, I am simply me.
21 2nd Place Sudoku and Speedos
by Sarah Holman
Judge’s Comments:
“This story simply made me smile, from my heart and my face. The way Opa was revealed to the reader was pure magic and I wanted to know more about Opa, but also about the whole family. Opa and the family’s resilience was woven throughout the story, with the final water-skiing scene telling much about him and how the family supported him, his ambitions and ultimately his joy.”
Sarah Holman is a Canadian writer, currently in her second year at the University of Victoria. Her major is Writing, focusing specifically on Creative Non-Fiction and Screenwriting, and her minor is Digital Media. She is currently living in her home town in the North Okanagan, where she works part-time at the local cheese factory. In between school, she spends most of her time outside, hiking and exploring around the area.
22 Sudoku and Speedos
by Sarah Holman
Opa taught me how to play sudoku. One winter, at a relative’s home in Whistler, he sat staring at the newspaper with a pen in his hand. After I asked, he showed me how to play, and a few games later, I impressed him.
“Good with numbers. Going to be an accountant one day, just like your Opa,” he said, so proud of me. Little did he know I would become an arts student, and that numbers weren’t exactly my forte, but he has always been an optimist.
He loves the world. He has seen more of it than anyone I have ever met.
“One-hundred-twenty-eight,” he would declare, like he was holding up a trophy. One-hundred-twenty-eight countries. The number would climb each year, and at Christmas I would wait for his latest story—his latest adventure.
“So, I was climbing up this mountain in Finland,” he said, pronouncing the Finnish mountain in his German accent. My Oma rolled her eyes—she thought he was too old to be climbing foreign mountains. “I felt very light-headed. All of a sudden, I was on the ground and they were carrying me down in a stretcher.”
He would bring home treasures, or what he thought were treasures.
“It’s delicious,” he told my brother-in-law, who was still new to the family. He’d brought home what’s called a century egg; an egg that had been preserved for one hundred years.
“A Chinese delicacy,” Opa said—it was black and smelled like rubber. The newest member of the family didn’t want to disappoint our grandfather, so he took a bite. He may have gagged a few times, but he swallowed it.
“Delicious!” Opa repeated an absurd amount of times. I never saw him eat one.
He loves everything about the world. Although, he has every reason not to.
Axel Zitscher grew up in Berlin. He was born on July 3rd, 1939, at the start of it all. He lived it—the day his brother was thrown from his mother’s arm after a bomb hit their
23 home, the day he heard that his anti-Nazi activist father had “fallen from a cliff and died.” And most importantly, the day World War II ended.
Despite experiencing this world, he loves every part of it. He preaches travel to his children and grandchildren, claiming there is nothing more valuable than a trip around the world. Even Berlin, once filled with tragedy, he loves to go back to. He brought his children there, and baptized them in the same church he grew up in as a young boy. He showed them everything, but not much was said—the stories came later.
Opa has a good eye— he knows when he has spotted something special. In 1957, he frequented a coffee shop, one that had a particularly pretty German woman behind the counter.
“He came to get coffee every day,” my Oma said. “We had our first date there.”
After meeting Gisela, my lovely grandmother, his “schatze” (meaning darling in German), they hopped on a boat and sailed across the Atlantic. He wanted to break the cycle—his children would not grow up like he had.
He had trained for a few years in the hospitality industry before leaving Europe, but when they reached Sudbury, Ontario, he had to start from scratch. Not only with work, but with language, culture and everyday life.
Five years and four daughters later, a job opportunity came up in British Columbia. Desperately wanting to escape the brutal winters, Opa closed his eyes and traced the west coast with his finger. He landed on Tsawwassen, a small town on the coast of Vancouver.
In 1973, they purchased a house, 5087 Erin Way, for $17,000.
After a few years working, Opa decided to go back to school in 1980 for business. He graduated a few years later and created Axel Zitcher Financial Services. Zitscher without the “s” because apparently, “These Canadians can’t pronounce it right.” He became a very successful accountant—at 81 years of age, his business is still thriving, and he still works every tax season.
“I thought this was going to be your last one,” I have said to him a number of times. My Oma had told us he would stop working this year, and the year before that.
“I love what I do,” he would say, so simply, as if it were not work at all.
After hearing all his absurd and entertaining travel stories, I remember asking him
24 where his favourite place in the world was. Surely, it would be some foreign country that I hadn’t heard of.
“What do you mean?” he looked at me as though it was a silly question. “Tsawwas- sen is pretty nice.”
Opa is a strong man, but he is not immune to everything. This past year, after being diagnosed with bladder cancer, he accepted his fate. For a while, we didn’t think he would get treatment. He’s a firm believer in the “natural route” of life.
We were all relieved this time, when he didn’t allow the natural route to take him. I think he loves us too much to give up that easy.
So, he went through it all. He explained to me how odd it is to lose control of your own body. Then, when he started to get better, he explained how amazing it was that he could pee on his own terms again.
“It is interesting to watch your body deteriorate,” he said at the dinner table one night.
“You are born, and you grow into a human. You learn how to talk, how to walk, how to live. And then you get old, and you forget how to do all those things,” he said, while sipping on his classic scotch and soda.
“Doesn’t that scare you?” I asked.
“It’s the circle of life,” he said.
His old age and deteriorating body haven’t stopped him. Opa has always loved to swim; he goes to the pool every morning and does a few lengths, to stay in shape. He refuses to wear anything but a Speedo.
“He says the regular trunks ‘hold him back,’” my Oma said to me at our family cabin this summer. I tried not to draw my eyes to my grandfather standing there in a Speedo, with his big belly overhanging the tight swimwear.
A few years earlier, at the age of 75, he attempted water-skiing for the first time at that same cabin, in that same Speedo.
“I want to try that,” he said to my uncle Dave, pointing at one of his grandchildren in the water.
“You want to water-ski?” uncle Dave asked him, trying not to laugh.
25 Next thing we knew, Opa was in the water, strapped into the skis and looking a little regretful.
“I’m ready,” he yelled, clinging onto the tow rope.
Opa may have guzzled a few litres of lake water and fell at least a dozen times before he stood up, but he did it. He had a big smile on his face, too—I think he likes proving us wrong. Although, I remember him walking with a limp the next day, sore from the strenuous watersport.
Not only can he waterski, but he is also one hell of a dancer. Every holiday, all the drunk relatives break out in dance at the end of the night. The music blares, drinks spill, and we celebrate, the Zitscher way. Amongst the drunken aunts and uncles, there is Opa, taking my Oma’s hand. No matter the song, she will accept his offer for a dance, and they will waltz, even to AC/DC, my uncle Dave’s favourite.
Everyone notices when the pair start dancing. Things seem to slow down; we all watch as they move around in perfect synchronicity, as if they have practiced the night before. But they have just danced their way through life. They know every step, every beat. They may have stepped on each other’s toes once or twice, but they have never stopped dancing.
Opa danced with me at my prom, and while I’m not well versed in the proper way to waltz, I followed his lead. That’s one thing that didn’t impress him: my dancing skills.
“Just follow me,” he said, and I tried my best.
He guided us; he continues to guide us. Not only on the dance floor, but in life. To this day, he is hardworking, loyal and as white-haired as can be. He is one of those people that you will remember; not because of the lessons he taught you, but the way he taught them.
“My beautiful Sarah,” he said to me, and putting his hand to my cheek. “Now next number, what would go there?”
I gazed down at the newspaper in my hand, ready to fill in another spot in our beloved Sudoku game.
“Seven?” I would ask him. He nodded as I jotted down the number.
“So smart, you are,” he said with a smile.
26 Poetry
27 1st Place Ode To Angélica
by Valentina Ibarra García
Judge’s Comments:
“I love the journey of resilience the poet took me on. There are a few lines that I had to read a few times, they resonated with me profoundly. For example: “before I even take the world in, I am given the gift of bravery. today the sun has come up just for us. it tricks us into thinking the previous grim days have just been a dream, and we have finally woken up. It is the first winter I have hope for spring.” Lines that have deep insight to the resilience present within Angélica.”
Valentina Ibarra García is a second-year Psychology and Environmental Studies student. Born and raised in Mexico City, she moved to Canada pursuing different opportunities and perspectives. Motivated by her English teacher, she has been writing since she was 13; this is the first time she has submitted her work. She has also begun working on her first novel.
28 Ode To Angélica
by Valentina Ibarra García
1999
it is early in the morning when the doctor exclaims ‘she has pink shoes!’ to my mother. my parents are overjoyed at my arrival. my mother’s hair falls pretty at her shoulders, she pushes her bangs away from her eyes and whispers valentina—valiant, her voice is so soft she can paint skies with it. before i even take the world in, i am given the gift of bravery.
2001
before i learn to walk, i roll. rather than crawling, i roll from one side to another as if the living room is the countryside i am eager to explore. it is from this moment that my parents know there is no stopping me when i set my mind to something.
2006
this is the year when my family moves to the united states. maybe i am too young to know nervousness, or maybe bravery is already steeped deep within me, either way i face the first day of second grade with enthusiasm. nothing takes it away, not even the two boys making fun of me for not knowing the english word for ‘nostrils’.
2007
it is my eight birthday. rain has closed down the philadelphia zoo and we find ourselves heading to the museum of natural history instead. this is the first time i learn that even in the greyest days, one can find warmth and colour.
2010
when we move back to mexico, it is difficult for me to recognise it as i once did. spanish rolls off my lips like a difficult tongue twister. my old friends play different games now and have different friends too. i think a part of me has stayed behind in the woods of pennsylvania. i yearn to find her. this is the year where my longing to explore the great world out there begins.
29 2013
secondary school brings with it hope for a fresh start. it isn’t long before it also brings new challenges, as life does, and i find myself spending most of my time at the hospital room where my mom is. although the chemo makes her tired, not a saturday goes by when we miss the harry potter marathon playing on the tv.
2014
it is my mother’s birthday. the garden reeks of joy, the sounds of laughter and clumsy feet dancing come together to form the soundtrack to a grand party. today the sun has come up just for us. it tricks us into thinking the previous grim days have just been a dream, and we have finally woken up.
2014
six months have passed and the same people find themselves in a dimly lit room, though the guest of honour’s laugh is nowhere to be heard. the room is coloured in a way that puts the Black Sea to shame; there is a silence in the air that would make one think it is being submerged in it. the only sound breaking through it is of tears being wiped away on cloth.
2015
before i tell you about being resilient i must tell you about the times i was not. about the pain and grief that moved into my chest during my freshman year of high school. unpacked their many bags and refused to leave for years. about the young girl desperate to uncover the magician’s secret so she could make herself disappear. so she could go someplace else; to another universe where your bones cannot have cancer.
2017
i have a friend with honey-coloured eyes who writes about me and my happiness as if it is something beautiful. as if i hold magic in my laughter just like my mom did. he believes in me and maybe that’s all i need until i can believe in myself as well. this is the year where i lay in my father’s arms and realize maybe love is not out to destroy but to keep me safe. after years of pushing it away, for a fleeting moment i think to myself,how brave i am to let it in.
2018
december arrives bringing a layer of cold with it. but for the first time in years i
30 look in the mirror and realize my eyes hold spring inside them again. i am no longer the ivory morning mist. though it is december, i could swear april has taken over the room. it is the first winter where i have hope for spring. it is the first winter where my throat does not burn when saying my mother’s name, but rather welcomes it like sweet tea. and just like that i feel the flowers in my heart begin to bloom again.
2019
this is the summer where her absence no longer makes my chest feel heavy. it is the summer where i feel her everywhere around me; in the way my brother laughs and the full moon shows her reflection by the river. for the first time in ages i feel my heart lifted by the sun, my name called by the winds as a reminder that i am allowed to feel afraid, but there is bravery in getting up, in continuing. this is the summer where i forgive myself for taking so long to get here. and i realize that i used to want to get better for her and now i want to do it for myself too.
2020
this is the year where i follow my spirit as it answers to the mountains’ call, arriving to a new country that accepts me as i am. this is the year where i find home in the waves of the ocean and the thick forests of canada. this is when i fully begin to love myself and trust my path. this is when i can finally love in a way that does not hurt. it is now more clear to me than ever that no matter the adversity, nothing can take away my life’s purpose; my bravery takes me on.
2021
another february arrives knocking at my door. i almost forget my mother’s birthday, but i am reminded of its fast approach by the hummingbirds that float out in the garden. seven years have passed since her last birthday here, but the air feels just as light now. for so long loss and grief made my heart heavy. for so long i felt as if i would never see the sun again. but now, as the eleventh day of february approaches. i am reminded of my mother’s words:
of course there is pain, but if you complain it hurts more, if you laugh it hurts, but it goes away more quickly.
31 2nd Place If I can adapt then I will not die
by Leane Hill
Judge’s Comments:
“This poem is stirring and captures both anguish and resilience. It gives us insights into the cost and endurance required of resilience. I absolutely loved everything about this line,”I do not necessarily delight in making DECOLONIZATION a day job.””
Leanne Hill (she/her) is a mature student completing her social work degree at the University of Victoria. Originally from Saskatoon, SK, Leanne now lives and grows on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen speaking and WSÁNEĆ peoples in Victoria, BC. Her work focuses on the themes of social justice, womanhood, and violence. Her writing can best be described as finding one’s own identity in the midst of society that routinely defines how a woman should be. Leanne is an ensemble member of the 2020- 2021 Fireworks Mentorship Program for spoken-word artists. She continues to find her voice through creativity and passion.
32 If I can adapt then I will not die
by Leanne Hill
A heavy head filled with thoughts of tomorrow’s change
An aching back carrying the stress of endless hours
If I can manage to get out of bed today If I can intertwine my body with a lover’s sweet scent If I can scroll through my news feed without bursting into tears If I can look to a stranger for conversation that feels like medication relief … I am busy saying things will be different but sometimes I don’t believe it
I want them to know how it feels to be forgotten I do not necessarily enjoy making everything about feminism I do not necessarily delight in making
DECOLONIZATION a day job
We don’t have to agree with each other to respect each other
The blood on my hands begs me to try
even when trying brings great sorrow
33 Spoken Word
34 1st Place My Mother Looks At Me
by Antonella Cecilia Luzardo Gonzalez
Judge’s Comments:
“This piece stirred something deep in me. It spoke not only of the resilience of the artist, but also of their mother and how the mother reminded her, “you come from a long line of strong women.” We all need people in our lives who remind us of the strength of our lineage and Ancestors. I also loved how the artist spoke about defying all the rules, another hurdle to jump, crawl, slide under...””
Antonella Cecilia Luzardo Gonzalez is in her final term at UVic graduating with a B.A. in Philosophy. She is a proud Venezuelan-born and B.C-raised spoken-word poet who has taken a hiatus from performing, but hopes to start again after she graduates. In her writing and everyday life, Antonella approaches the world through the lens of a woman of colour who believes in the importance of being human in a world where we often forget what that looks like. She also explores themes of strength, mental health, and spirituality.
35 My Mother Looks At Me
by Antonella Cecilia Luzardo Gonzalez
My mother looks at me She says, “You seem to be fine to me” She says, “I think you have faced enough trauma that nothing can bring you down anymore”
In that moment, I let a tear slip from my eyes In that moment, a million lifetimes flash before my eyes In that moment, nothing has felt more safe and more dangerous at once
See, from a young age I knew I would have to live fearlessly I have memories of 5 year old putting on a Bratz angel costume and dancing to Shaggy’s Angel in the living room Full freedom, full defiance Knowing very well the day before my father had said I look like a whore in the costume and that that music wasn’t appropriate for little girls
From a young age I have memories of defying all the rules I was given Knew that my life was not an exaltation to others, but an exaltation to my own liberation And while to some your words seem like abuse, to me they were just another hurdle I must jump over At times I tripped over them, climbed slowly over them, I would even crawl under them But a lifetime of finding ways to get past each hurdle has led me to the woman I am today
I think little fetus me understood my fight more than I do at 23 See, my mother had me in her womb when she would visit her brother in maximum security prisons in Venezuela See, my mother would argue for his freedom in court rooms while she carried me in her belly
36 When my uncle passed away from the aids he contracted in prison, I felt his energy released into my veins And I curse myself for even feeling something so bold
When my heart got broken for the third time, I wept in my mothers arms
My mother looks at me She says, “We come from a long line of strong women” She says, “Remember that that is where you come from, women who stand no matter how many times they are beaten down” She says I am to be proud of the matriarch that I come from In that moment, I smile with tear filled eyes In that moment, I envision every woman in our ancestry filling her small dim room In that moment, nothing has ever felt more safe and more dangerous at once I tell you this as a testament to what a matriarch can do for a little girl
See, I’ve made therapists cry at my stories I have memories of an 18 year old girl leaving her first love Her first love was the same man who took away all her dreams in one sentence. The first man who ever raped her and enjoyed it. The first man who became her sanctuary when the abuse at home was too much
From a young age, I left my abusive partner right after my mother left hers Knew that my life was not an exaltation to others, but an exaltation to my own liberation
I curse myself for even feeling something this bold For feeling like my mother and I have paralleled existences, like when I was born the simulation got confused and tried their best to not have two strong women in existence at the same time The simulation has brought us each more hurdles than we thought we could handle Has brought us more darkness than we should have shown through My matriarch has shown me more strength than any conquered war, any grand civilization When we hold hands, my mother and I decree our liberation
37 2nd Place Dear White People
by Lindani Khoza
Judge’s Comments:
“Woven in this piece are profound questions that had me reflecting on the potential answers that general society might consider and how those answers wreak havoc in many ways. As a parent, I resonated with the artist’s mom taking of their hoodie ‘cuz she don’t want me to die.’ The artist beautifully captures their lived experience and the lived experience of those who love them and want to protect them.”
Lindani Khoza is a writer, musician and artist from Cape Town, South Africa. He has been writing and making music since his early childhood. Over the past few years he has coordinated, organized, and participated in several productions, showcases, and festivals in Southern Africa and Eswatini. In 2018, he wrote and produced the song “Colour” for Swazi Rapper, King Terry. “Colour” went on to win Song of the Year in the 2018 MTN SWAMA Awards and secure a top spot on the Taffy Raw Top Charts.
38 Dear White People
by Lindani Khoza
Dear White People,
I knew I had to say something but couldn’t find the words. Right now I need you to listen it’s the only way that you’ll learn. Right now, I need you to feel me. Just try to relate, don’t try to debate I wrote this freestyle with tears dripping down my face
I don’t think you feel the pain, you better say their names, the only justice that they’ll get is from beneath the grave. That’s: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, It’s got a lot of black folk thinking ‘that could’ve been me’
To think it could’ve been her, to think it could’ve been him to think it could’ve been anybody with melanin skin. Why are you offended by my outrage? I know my rights You’re fighting for your comfort? Man I’m fighting for my life
I’ve got my license and registration, my hands in the air the police saying I’m scary and I’m just saying I’m scared. I’ve got my hands out my pocket, I’ve got my head out my hood, so tell me what am I doing that’s got me misunderstood?
Jesus? Please come back. It makes me feel like it’s a sin just for my skin to be black It’s got me feeling powerless and I don’t know what to say, I think it’s time I surrendered I think it’s time that I prayed
Because all of this got me on my knees wiping tears from my eyes Mama took all my hoodies cos’ she don’t want me to die
39 and she don’t want me to drive. She told me not to raise my voice if I want to survive. But We gon’ braid out hair, We gon’ stand up tall, We gon’ rise even higher every time that we fall. We gon’ stand for the truth, We gon’ believe in our youth Black Lives Matter to me, I hope they matter to you.
Dear White People,
I hope they matter to you, just as much as the next one. I hope they matter to you
Feel my pain, hear my cries got my hands where you can see em’ tell my story if I die skin’s too dark to be alive show my picture, say my name all my people fear the same. Too many bodies on the ground you know what it is
Man, I don’t want to survive Man, I want to live
40 With Special Thanks To:
Lisa Abram
Jonathan Bengtson
Paula Raimondi Cantu
Amy Loggin
Kamilla Milligan
Ry Moran
Monique Gray Smith
Jennifer Wells
Publication designed and created in InDesign by Paula Raimondi Cantú
© University of Victoria Libraries, 2021 All Rights Reserved
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