A month into my second year of university, something attaches itself to my thoughts. I am lying in bed in the blue October night when I am suddenly stricken with the knowledge that I am not good. That I will never be good. That to continue to sustain my existence is unjustifiable. It’s just me and...
rode my horse into the sala rossa noise show— lemon yellow crop top, bumble bee stockings a thirst for blood reimaged as gentle dancing haltering hordes bellow for more discordant jazz i refill my glass with a pabst from my pocket on stage a woman in polite dress crafts crackling synths by hovering...
Ancestral magicians perform not tricks, but truly magical acts, like taking a blue and white pearl the colour of the earth and placing it in her work-hard palms. This is my mother, entangled in sisters, brought to peace in age, throwing off years like a hot fur coat, years of bitterness turned some...
After Natalia Ginzburg’s “He and I” He likes working on the patio. I prefer cooking up a stew or pouring out cocktails. I do the grocery shopping, take the car to the mechanic, and ferry cardboard to the recycling centre. He keeps the house plants alive, launders the sheets and towels, and fills...
A Bop Reports note Crocodiles with leather purses. Mountain Goats in puff sleeve boho shirts. Animals foregoing shoes, and girls, now Toucans, selling their Kia Souls to fly wingtip-to-wingtip to work, while Rabbits sleep on their husbands’ heads, hearts beating slow despite the predators next door...
The cuckoo has laid its eggs in my (mother’s) brain. It found the cerebrum a spongy roost, an almost natural habitat and now, flying the coop, expects me to take care of the babies. I consult a field guide. Learn the cuckoo is a strange relative of the roadrunner, its song a series of hollow...
Reviewed by Li Charmaine Anne Hollay Ghadery, The Unravelling of Ou (Palimpsest Press, 2026), 200pp., $21.95. Loss is presumed as we age: the loss of ignorance along with a loss of innocence. Yet across countries, time periods, and generations, a new grandmother retains her childlike wonder—and...
Interview by Shawn Syms In connection with the annual Victoria Festival of Authors taking place October 12 to 18, 2026, Plenitude book reviews editor Shawn Syms interviews Jordan Abel, a queer Nisga’a writer from Vancouver and author of multiple books including The Place of Scraps, Un/inhabited...
Announcing the winner of our Summer Poetry Contest! Join us in congratulating Sadie McCarney, whose poem, “At Broke Kid Summer Camp, We Taught Ourselves About Spirals,” was chosen as the $500 grand-prize winner from close to 200 individual poems submitted to our first-ever poetry contest. Here’s...
