Issues

No. 228 Fall 2024

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Cover · Contents · Book Reviews · Contributor Notes

Issue 228 cover art by Eli Bornowsky

Contents:

Cover
  • Eli Bornowsky
    Penrose_5 Complete Aphex Twin 1 (detail), 2024
    egg tempera, gesso on wood, aluminum
    110cm x 79.9cm
    Courtesy of King's Leap Fine Arts, New York

Winner:
2024
Far Horizons Award for Poetry

Poetry
  • Marilyn Bowering, "Buffalo Gaze" and "Night Shift"
  • Rob Macaisa Colgate, "On Sex"
    Read an interview with Rob Macaisa Colgate on his poem.
  • Klara du Plessis, "Face with one eyebrow raised"
  • Guy Elston, "Treasure" and "The Stake"
  • Eva Haas, "Forgiveness"
  • Glenn Hayes, "It Is Not Heart to Essay"
  • Jim Johnstone, "The Unmade Bed" and "Aubade on Consecrated Ground"
  • Meghan Kemp-Gee, "I present my forged immigration paperwork at the borders of the Boötes Void, seven hundred million lightyears away"
  • H. R. Link, "Pre-phylloxera," "Agon," and "I am in the flooded metro"
  • D. A. Lockhart, "Nëwisahkixwsi"
  • Annie MacKillican, "Revolution headquarters"
    Read an interview with Annie MacKillican on Annie's poem.
  • Jessica Lee McMillan, "Orinoco" and "Last Supper"
  • Mezi, "Wildfire" and "Whispers on the hill"
  • A. F. Moritz, "Quibble with Hegel"
  • Jesse Norman, "A Week of Work at the Weed King’s Cabin in the Woods"

Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Reviews
  • Poetry

  • Kazim Ali, Sukun
    (Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Jade Wallace)

    Michael Ondaatje, A Year of Last Things
    (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024)
    (Reviewed by Jay Ruzesky)

    Amy Mattes, Late September
    (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2024)
    (Reviewed by Justina Elias)

    Sara Power, Art of Camouflage
    (Calgary: Freehand Books, 2024)
    (Reviewed by Amanda Earl)

    Nonfiction

  • Maxim Samson, Invisible Lines: Boundaries and Belts That Define the World
    (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2024)
    and
    Katherine Leyton, Motherlike
    (Toronto: Second Story Press, 2024)
    (Both reviewed by Micaela Maftei)

  • Tim Lilburn, Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change
    (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 2023)
    (Reviewed by Eric Miller)

  • Mentionables

  • Ellen Anderson Penno, Counting Bones: Anatomy of Love Lost and Found
    (Edmonton: NeWest, 2024)

  • Eimear Laffan, [about]ness
    (Montreal: McGill-Queen's, 2023)

  • Joy Kogawa, From the Lost and Found Department
    (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024)

  • (All reviewed by Book Reviews Editor Jay Ruzesky)

Contributor Notes
    ROB BENVIE’s next novel, Book of the Flock, is forthcoming in 2025. Born and raised in Nova Scotia, he currently lives in Toronto. website: robbenvie.com

    ELI BORNOWSKY is a painter, writer, and curator living in Vancouver and Brooklyn. His work has been widely exhibited, including at the National Gallery of Canada. Instagram: @elibbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

    MARILYN BOWERING, winner of the 2023 Ruth and David Lampe Prize for poetry, is a poet and novelist living in Victoria, BC. Her most recent book is a literary investigation/memoir, More Richly in Earth, A Poet’s Search for Mary MacLeod (2024). Twitter/X: @hutchisoncove website: marilynbowering.com

    ALISON BRAID-FERNANDEZ, author of the chapbook Little Hunches (2020), has recent work in Massachusetts Review, West Branch, and PRISM International. Her poems have been in Best Canadian Poetry 2024 and 2025 and featured on The Slowdown. website: alisonbraidfernandez.com

    CASSANDRA CAVERHILL, author of the chapbook Mayflies (2020), is a graduate of Bowling Green State University’s MFA program in poetry. website: cassandracaverhill.com

    ROB MACAISA COLGATE is the author of the poetry collection Hardly Creatures (2025) and the verse drama My Love is Water (2025), and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta and poet-in-residence at Tangled Art + Disability. Instagram: @swing.sets Twitter/X: @robcolgate website: robmacaisacolgate.com

    MARLENE COOKSHAW is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Mowing (2019), and a former editor and vegetable farmer. She lives in Sidney, BC.

    SOPHIE CROCKER’s writing has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2023, PRISM International, Room, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, brat, appeared in 2022. Instagram: @goblinpuck Twitter/X: @goblinpuck website: sophiecrocker.com

    KLARA DU PLESSIS, currently a postdoctoral fellow at UBC Okanagan, is a poet, artist-scholar, and literary curator. Her debut, Ekke, won the 2019 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Her four other collections include Post-Mortem of the Event (2024). website: klaraduplessis.com

    AMANDA EARL is a writer, editor, visual poet, publisher, reviewer, and literary events organizer, living on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples (Ottawa, ON). Her latest book is Beast Body Epic (2023). website: amandaearl.com

    JUSTINA ELIAS has published in Room, Prairie Fire, and The Ex-Puritan. She won The Malahat Review’s 2021 Creative Nonfiction Prize, was nominated for a 2022 Canadian National Magazine Award, and twice longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. Instagram: @justinaelmeria

    GUY ELSTON’s poems have appeared in the Literary Review of Canada, EVENT, Vallum, Antigonish Review, and elsewhere. His first chapbook is Automatic Sleep Mode (2023). Twitter/X: @guy_elston

    EVA HAAS is a queer poet and artist originally from St. John’s, NL (Ktaqmkuk). She currently serves as the City of Victoria’s Youth Poet Laureate.

    GLENN HAYES’s poetry has appeared in magazines such as ARC Poetry, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The New Quarterly, and Prairie Fire. He lives in Newmarket, ON.

    JIM JOHNSTONE is a Toronto-based poet, editor, and critic. His seven books of poetry include The King of Terrors (2023) and Infinity Network (2022).

    MEGHAN KEMP-GEE, author of The Animal in the Room (2023) and four poetry chapbooks and co-creator of the graphic novel One More Year, lives in North Vancouver. Twitter/X: @MadMollGreen

    MARC LABRIOLA’s first novel, Dying Behaviour of Cats, won the 2017 Ken Klonsky Award and was shortlisted for a ReLit Award. His short fiction has appeared in World Literature Today. He lives in Toronto.

    JOYCE LI was born in Toronto, grew up in Waterloo, ON, and lives in Chicago.

    H. R. LINK is a Canadian-American writer in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke and a founding editor at Ekphrasis. Her poems have appeared in Stirring: A Literary Collection. Twitter/X: @lareinedauphine

    D. A. LOCKHART, author of multiple collections of poetry and short fiction, has been shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, Raymond Souster Award, Indiana Author’s Awards, and First Nations Communities READ Award. Pùkuwànkoamimëns of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation (Eelūnaapèewii Lahkèewiit), he currently resides at Waawiiyaatanong, where he is the publisher at Urban Farmhouse Press. website: wazhashkpoetry.com

    ANNIE MACKILLICAN is a writer and policy researcher based in Tkaronto and a member of the Mattawa-North Bay Algonquin First Nation. Annie’s writing has been published in Grain, The Ex-Puritan, The Salterrae, and elsewhere. Instagram: @anniemackillican website: anniemackillican.com

    MICAELA MAFTEI lives in Victoria, where she teaches at Camosun College.

    JESSICA LEE MCMILLAN’s work can be found in Humber Literary Review, Funicular Magazine, and Crab Creek Review, among others. She lives on the land of the Halkomelem-speaking Peoples (New Westminster, BC). Instagram: @jessica_lee_mcmillan Twitter/X: @JessicaLeeMcM website: jessicaleemcmillan.com

    MEZI is a Canadian-based poet, photographer, philanthropist, and Zen student. Born in the Middle East, he writes primarily in English, dabbling in French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Mezi’s work has appeared in Sidereal Magazine and Plenitude Magazine. His most recent collection, Medellín, was published as a fundraiser for refugees. Instagram: @mezi.ig website: mezi.site

    ERIC MILLER’s work has appeared in Spolia, 3QuarksDaily, and Dalhousie Review. Fiction and essays are forthcoming both in Lumen and in book form.

    A. F. MORITZ’s most recent books of poems include The Sparrow: Selected Poems (2018) and The Garden (2021). He is a three-time finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Instagram: @afmoritz Twitter/X: @afmoritz

    JESSE NORMAN, born in Comox, on the unceded territory of the K’ómoks First Nation, has published poetry in CV2 and was the 2022 recipient of the Philip Pickering Award in Poetry.

    CRAIG FRANCIS POWER is an artist and writer from St. John’s, NL (Ktaqmkuk). Instagram: @frankee_pee @poppycfp

    JAY RUZESKY, Book Reviews Editor at The Malahat Review, teaches at Vancouver Island University. After Antarctica, a work of creative nonfiction, is forthcoming. Instagram: @wolsenburg

    SANCHARI SUR, a PhD candidate in English at Wilfrid Laurier University, is Editor-in-Chief of The Ex-Puritan. Their writing appears in Al Jazeera, Toronto Star, The Margins, and Electric Literature. Their honours include a Lambda Literary Fellowship. Instagram: @sanchari_sur website: sursanchari.wordpress.com/writing

    COLLEEN SUTTON writes creative nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry, and is a diplomat for the Government of Canada currently stationed in Hong Kong.

    JADE WALLACE is a writer, critic, and cofounder of the collaborative MA|DE. Their debut poetry collection was Love Is a Place But You Cannot Live There (2023), and their debut novel, ANOMIA, is out now. websites: jadewallace.ca + ma-de.ca