Tag: mtl

“Grandma’s Hands” – Josh Elyea

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As I sit on the bus, I look to the lady next to me. She has severe hands, crooked fingers with hard knuckles. My grandmother had hands like that. I used to stare at them, gnarled and hooked like talons, as she tried to teach me to play the piano. She used to laugh when I’d play only the black keys, and she’d sing softly, almost at a whisper, when we’d play her favorite hymns. She had a terrific voice, my Gram—one of the all-time greats. It was a voice of contradictions, hers—polite but gravelly, blue collar but lyrical—and she had a funny way of speaking, an off-kilter cadence to her voice that was somewhere between southern drawl and Irish poet. She hated her voice, but it made for the best stories and the best Sunday mornings.

My grandma’s hands used to drop the needle on her old Crosley, and somewhere in the fog of my memory I remain a child, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, awed that such a primitive system of bumps and ridges could summon forth the soul, the smoulder of Sam Cooke with apparent ease. The needle of the record player was hypnotising, intoxicating, but there seemed to be no immediate correlation between the movements of the needle and the sound of the soul music cascading through the room. I couldn’t understand, and when I asked my grandmother why this was, she told me that you couldn’t see soul, you just had to listen for it.

 

these words by Josh Elyea were inspired by the work of Shanna Strauss

“Diaspora Blues” – Nailah King

SHANNA STRAUSS_ Hadithi Njoo_ Mixed media on wood_ 24in x 30''

“Where are you from?”

He was asked this often and the answer was always difficult. What they needed to understand was his journey didn’t start here but a place miles and miles away among lush earth and under a coral sun. Massive ships sailed to the shoreline taking whoever couldn’t escape, headed to the unknown. Those they captured cruised through seas and oceans but many died along the way.

He imagined that his ancestors made a break for it and ended up in the Caribbean. Warm shores, tropical fruit, sun, sand, but far from home.

Some of his friends talked about creating family trees on the internet, talked about their families. Uncle John is married to Auntie Lynn. They met in university in the ’80s. How nice to have an ancestry so clear and defined, despite having robbed others of the same.

He often thought about them.

It made him angry to think about a known point in his bloodline where the stories stopped. He couldn’t get stories about any time before his great-grandparents. Even those stories were limited. His parents couldn’t even remember their names.

They talked about carnival, Kadooment days of the past, in great detail. The costumes, the music and the food. Who they saw and who they danced with. They didn’t want to think about that dark history; about who before them could have been slaves.

What he knew of any place was a story. Even in Canada.

He’d never been to Whistler—or even Banff. He remembers the Rockies from a train ride they took when he was very young. His mother told him that the mountains were beautiful and breathtaking. He just remembered a flash of brown and grey rock and wanting to use the bathroom.

Sometimes, he remembers the beaches. The smell of the sea and the sound of his grandmother’s voice.

He wondered, did she think about them, his ancestors?

His friends often questioned him about his heritage. “There’s no information earlier than your great-grandparents?” they’d ask him.

Depending on his mood, sometimes he understood their incredulity. With modern technology like ancestry.ca, and 23andme, he should have been able to make inroads, progress.

Still, he didn’t want simply names. He wanted their stories.

He wanted to know what Africa was like, what life was like before lives were taken. Before histories were skewed, erased or lost.

It was good enough for them to have their meaningless anecdotes about how their uncles, aunts and whoever else got together. He wanted more.

Each year, a new patch of information came to the fore through old photographs, family connections or new stories.

Still, he wondered about them.

Who did they love, or lose? Did they know it was the last time they’d see their lands and what would happen to the generations that followed? Did they have hope they’d return?

“Dude, you totally drifted off.”

“Oh, I’m from Vancouver.

 

these words by Nailah King were inspired by the work of Shanna Strauss

“The North Star” – Shagufe Hossain

The Universe_hires

We wake up
and walk streets
comforted
in fit-in-or-leave boxes
disillusioned into belonging
but You
my dear
were born to wage wars
simply by virtue
of your existence
on all cages with bars
made of traditions, rituals, and values
none.
You
are like the North Star
shining light on the path of the misguided
navigator
looking to find his way
back to values.
You
burn in passion
and desire
and love that conquers all
so the rest of us
can see light
head home.
So on days
when you feel lost
and losing
sight of north and south
east and west
right and wrong
remember
you are the compass
that burns brightly
in the nightly skies
to shine light
to guide home
the rest, lost
and the North Star
knows no direction
for she does not need one.
Remember my dear
you shall be your own
compass,
light,
guide,
so the rest of us
can find home.

 

these words by Shagufe Hossain were inspired by the work of Shanna Strauss

“An Ode to My Vibrator” – Fiona Williams

Lethe for Word and Colour magazine 2017

Blue may be the warmest colour, but Purple is what makes me cum.

Many have come and gone and it is only you, my love, which remains constant.

You are
            my confidant—never have I known a greater intimacy

You are
            my paramour—you listen to direction well and never disappoint me.

I am Thankful (to all the gods I don’t believe in) that the stars led me to you, my love.

It has been a journey of self-exploration and

You have taught me the importance of learning to love myself.

 

these words by Fiona Williams were inspired by the work of Sylwia Kowalczyk

“Displaced” – Jess Goldson

Sylwia Kowalczyk Chicas Blue wall

Golf balls
Clamour away in my stomach
Creating a burdensome, sinking feeling.
A stillness
Brings the collision of emotion to a halt.
What’s forward
But terrifying uncertainty
The impossibility of backward motion haunts me 
A cry for help:
Find me
Hold me
Release me

 

these words by Jess Goldson were inspired by the work of Sylwia Kowalczyk

New Poetry by Annie Rubin: “You tasted safe”

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Someone once told me not to make homes out of human beings but with you I
couldn’t help it—
your body cradled perfectly against mine,
as if we were built to rest with our limbs intertwined.

We forged space for each other where there was none to be made.
I’d feel your heart as you held my head to your chest
I wanted to merge your body with mine.
But you were indestructibly you.

You lingered in the air, irresistible.
Exquisite, as you lay back, stretching out
beneath the sunlight of your bedroom window that splayed sparkles upon your cheeks.
As you unequivocally made yourself a part of my world.

 

these words by Annie Rubin were inspired by the work of Angela Pilgrim

New Poetry by Nahomi Amberber: “When It Hurts to Stand Next to Him”

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Forgive me

For not coming any closer.

You remind me too much of my father,

And the type of men

Who destroy

Women like me.

 

these words by Nahomi Amberber were inspired by the work of James Gilleard

Taisha Cayard in Dialogue with Audre Lorde, “But What Can I Learn From You”

poem

This poem by Taisha Cayard was inspired by Audre Lorde’s “But What Can You Teach My Daughter,” published in Lorde’s 1978 collection, The Black Unicorn.  

“Water Snakes or Medusa,” by Keah Hansen

sonia-alins-miguel_4

The views expressed in the texts do not necessarily represent the views of the artist.

 

She asked, “Why is it that women are always drowning?”

And Kate Chopin replied, “The voice of the sea speaks to [her] soul.”

And this soul seemed to wash out over the sidewalks like leafs held by puddles. They were singularly beautiful and flickered in the mid-afternoon sun and then almost jumped like fish in a koi pond. I thought of that good Lady of Shalott as a leaf, perhaps oak, swirling in a soapy green dress then resting amongst the reeds and silt. A body proffered to the sublime. The “dark continent.” The flumes of smoke that rest on eyelids or the foams that fork the beach into bits that yield and bits that take. The water admitted her hunger, spit it out with opal teeth, and the subconscious grasped another victim. But who, I wondered, had first moulded water into a woman?

I walked home and broke eggs in a pan. They sung and floated merrily in butter. I asked aloud, “Who would have the audacity to decide on a woman’s body or soul?”

And these words sizzled like life itself on the floorboards. They scratched the ears of my cat mindlessly and drew quizzical circles of soapy water on the moon-shaped plate in the sink. This soul seemed to hide inside the crinkles of the tissues. Or the steam from a lavender-scented bath. It even nestled in the roots of the houseplant when fed droplets from the dripping tap. But I was ravenous so I ate and thought and moved my body through the kitchen, falling into the news headlines and letting the water recede to wreak havoc in the basement.

Then a nasally voice bleated, “Storm warning in effect.” It was Clorox, which smartened up the murky underpinnings of each woman in her home, breaking eggs into pans and thinking. At this point, I used my tissues and waded into a bath soaked with the sounds of violin and imagined myself a muse then invoked all the saints of this city. The secular and sacred vied for me and I wondered which institution would best house my eyes and swaddle my soul in warm linen, made to look like silk.

I glanced outside and saw teardrops clawing at the windowpane and gathering strength in the rivets thrush against the vines. Then I heard the strength of a voice, and another, break through this window and worm into my submerged ears. It was the distinct sound of soul, not misty nor desperate but full as wildflowers bunched with string. I hunched my shoulders and raised myself, steaming, from that bath and pressed my forehead to the window. The tears had morphed back to rain, and there were women, not woman, moving through the streets with volition. The puddles remained but the leafs were trodden upon and the moving mouths were buttresses for all types of watery symbols.

I dried my legs and arms in time and gently pressed a towel against my wide eyes. Then I donned some clothes and linked with someone’s hand, though my hair still gleamed with wetness.

 

these words by Keah Hansen were inspired by the art of Sonia Alins Miguel