In summer the grass turned yellow & long, the light grew its leaves over my arm, we kept plants in the classroom, & once, a bunny rabbit. My mother said to bring it home, & there it stayed, till autumn fell upon our faces like the blood-salt of obligation. I & my sister wandered the...
The woman smoking meth across from the bodega looks like your sister, so you offer her a pack of cigarettes and forty-three dollars if she’ll pretend to be her for one night. You could afford to pay more, but this is all you have in cash and she takes it. Up close, she looks less like Reed: acne...
Her eyes glow green under obsidian skies She gives the midnight cowboy a silver dollar and he hands her the elixir sealed with wax She tells me that life begins when you open your eyes in the morning She wants to show me the field where the wild horses run while their watcher sleeps Her eyes glow...
1. Write what you worry about on sticky notes. Throw them on the ground and draw a circle of water around them. Sprinkle salt onto the circle to light it on fire. 2. Start by texting, “I’m worried that…” in a message to yourself. Think about how sweet pecan pie...
This one Sunday night I stood in my bathroom with the door open while Cass talked me through her most recent horrible week. Cass was tall, blonde, thin. Light on light on light. Except, she kept her long hair dyed bright colours and wore baggy clothes with a lot of patterns. This all had the effect...
Pain thuds the drum before I leave the ear appointment, but the clinic staff wave me out the door. The throbs become thumps of bass through floor boards and I call 811, wincing against my pillow. The thumps release into fizzing, then sputtering I laugh off over tea and a roommate’s raised...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai jaye simpson, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Editions, 2020), 112 pp., $18.95. Shortlisted for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers, and the Indigenous Voices Award (2021). In jaye simpson’s debut book, it was never going to be...
Interview by Rebecca Salazar In connection with this year’s free and virtual Victoria Festival of Authors taking place September 30 to October 4, Plenitude poetry editor Rebecca Salazar interviewed VFA panelist Danny Ramadan about his writing, fundraising work, and literary festivals. Queer...
As part of the Victoria Arts Council’s Poetry in Public project, Tharuna Abbu’s poem, “Emergency Measures,” has been published into five different languages! This poem first appeared in Plenitude in July 2020 as part of our Queer Isolation in a Pandemic series. Here is the full excerpt from...
In summer the grass turned yellow & long, the light grew its leaves over my arm, we kept plants in the classroom, & once, a bunny rabbit. My mother said to bring it home, & there it stayed, till autumn fell upon our faces like the blood-salt of obligation. I & my sister wandered the...
