Reviewed by Ben Rawluk Matthew Walsh, These are not the potatoes of my youth (Goose Lane, 2019), 92 pp., $19.95. I don’t want to have to use the word liminal, but all the spaces in Matthew Walsh’s debut poetry collection These are not the potatoes of my youth are absolutely liminal. Walsh is a Nova...
Interview by Rob Bittner Here is the third of four interviews and story excerpts as part of our Youth Spotlight project. For details on this series, see our original post. Rhyan St. Louis’s “To Be the Moon” utilizes a somewhat claustrophobic timeline along with earnest dialogue to create a palpable...
Michael Russell I hold the last picture of you fold it into the pocket of my mouth, chew. Daddy, you taste like love and devastation. My teeth rip you the way you ripped yourself from me. In front of the bathroom mirror I ask Where is Stephen? The steam lifts like a bridal veil and I vomit the wolf...
Interview by Rob Bittner Here is the second of four interviews and story excerpts as part of our Youth Spotlight project. For details on this series, see our original post. “How I Didn’t Go to Mexico” by James Cawkwell is a narrative about coming out as queer and trans, and the consequences that...
We are excited to announce that L’Amour Lisik has joined the Plenitude team as our new Associate Prose Editor! L’Amour is an artist, writer, and QPOC who lives on the unceded traditional territories of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples. She holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria...
Steacy Easton A few years ago, I went to Boston in November, to give a talk at Harvard about healing and religion, in the context of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that raised me. The Latter-day Saints grew up in the 19th century in frontier areas, and I was mostly talking about...
Interview by Rob Bittner Here is the first of four interviews and story excerpts as part of our Youth Spotlight project. For details on this series, see our original post. “The Ostrich Wife” by Annie Bhuiyan is a semi-autobiographical examination of what it means to feel uncomfortable as a...
Happy New Year from Plenitude! To start 2020 off right, we’re launching a special Youth Spotlight project this month. Stories by young queer and trans authors about teen/YA (young adult) experiences don’t receive as much attention as they should, so we’ve selected two fiction and two creative...
Abryna Bulford Nigankwam held my hand When spring blues hit me. Sometimes things don’t disappear, But change into something better. And here I am, whole, as I always was. What gift was I to give you, I ask myself, besides healing? I could not do it all, but only enough. And that is enough, is it...
