Reviewed by Andrew Woodrow-Butcher Greg Kearney, An Evening with Birdy O’Day (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024), 336 pp., $24.95. At 69 years old, Roland is long past the peak of his hairdressing career. And after 25 years together, he and his handsome, chronically ill boyfriend Tony have settled into a...
You are ninety-eight and blind and nearly deaf and can hardly walk and live mostly in another world now, a world in which dolls can talk and each person appears twice, and in this other world, I like girls, or so you tell my mum matter-of-factly one afternoon as she sits with you in the care home...
Deirdre opens the door, a vision of opulence with onyx hair and topaz eyes. One look at her and Cassie forgets about Ben and the kids. She finds herself in the narrow entryway of Deirdre’s apartment. Cooking smells of oil and garlic permeate the air, settling in her throat. “It’s been too long!”...
Liquid dark slides down our throats, sloshing against curved glass. I place my goblet back on the dash. The evening air shifts, a mineral of many disguises. Body twines within itself. Groaning from the cold, the liver and the heart sit — at the centre of our existence. † A deep and pulsating gloomp...
And while I may look like a prophecy-monger, we shall confine our attention to the clump of houses in a seaport subdivision, home to Lancelotti the Italian abbot, a respectable and veracious man save for his tentacle suckers, big as saucer lids. Absolutely I am governed by sunbeams. When death...
I love you pandemic o sweet sweet pandemic. I love you new flu I love you flattening the curve I love you doors closed people inside families hidden from view. I love you whatever it is that brings Eva and me to each other’s mouths finally and our shaking panting wanting. Like dogs, I want to...
We are excited to announce that Shawn Syms has joined the Plenitude team as our new Book Reviews Editor! Shawn comes with a wealth of experience in the Canadian literary sphere, including past associate and contributing editor to The Winnipeg Review and reader for The Ex-Puritan and This Magazine...
I look no further than the edge of my body my map to gather you oh brother my brother my brown skinned brethren my kin and distant loves my turbaned uncles my unclejis crowned like kings backs alder straight I gather you from the bastion of a ship a ship that sat ashore my uncles whose feet did not...
Reviewed by Trevor James McNeil Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer, Flung Out of Space (ABRAMS, 2022), 208 pp., $24.99 US. Greg Lockard and Tim Fish, Liebestrasse (Dark Horse Comics, 2022), 128 pp., $19.99 US. There is a notion among conservatives that LGBTQ2S+ folks have only existed since the 1960s—a...
