Issues

No. 215 Summer 2021

Buy Issue 215: Print Edition

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Cover · Contents · Book Reviews · Contributor Notes

Issue 215 cover art by Jason McLean

Contents:

Winners:
2021
Long Poem Prize

Poetry
  • Elena Bentley, "Learning to Bead"
  • Jamella Hagen, "Looking for Bison" and "Perfect Weather"
  • Patricia Caspers, "Making Love in the Time of Pandemic"
  • Leah Callen, "At Ease"
  • Christina Shah, "The reincarnators [scrapyard]," "Mike," "gel nails," "Blasting Accident," and "pep!tization"
  • Saeed Tavanaee Marvi, "A manifesto of the seasons" and "Solitude," translated from the Farsi by Khashayar Mohammadi
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
  • Paul Dhillon, "Principles of Brown Mathematics"
Reviews
Cover
  • Jason McLean, Thinking About the Sun, 2020
    Ink on paper
  • 44 in. x 30.5 in.
  • Courtesy of the artist and Michael Gibson Gallery
Contributor Notes

    ELENA BENTLEY is a disabled poet and editor from Saskatchewan. She is of Métis and mixed ancestry. She holds an MA in English from the University of Toronto. Her poetry has been recently published in Arc Poetry Magazine and spring magazine. Elena is the newly appointed Poetry Editor for untethered magazine.

    CARLEE BOUILLON is an island‐based poetry and fiction writer. She edits the Canadian Caver magazine and feels her best self in trees, caves, small planes and bookstores.

    MARILYN BOWERING is a poet and novelist in Victoria, BC. Her most recent book is What Is Long Past Occurs in Full Light. She is the librettist for Marilyn Forever (Gavin Bryars), and the author of essays in Green Matters: Ecocultural Functions of Literature (2019) and Prairie Fire (Winter 2021).

    CEDAR BOWERS’s fiction can be found in Joyland and Taddle Creek. Her debut novel, ASTRA, is out June 2021. She lives with her husband, novelist Michael Christie, and their two children.

    LEAH CALLEN is a Regina poet and University of Victoria alumna whose verse has appeared in The Malahat Review, Vallum Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Scrivener Creative Review, Kissing Dynamite, and Barren Magazine. Her poem "At Ease" was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.

    PATRICIA CASPERS is an award‐winning poet, journalist, and columnist. She is the author of two full‐length poetry collections: In the Belly of the Albatross (Glass Lyre Press) and Some Flawed Magic (Kelsay Press, forthcoming December 2021). She is the founding editor of West Trestle Review.

    PAUL DHILLON is a high school English literature teacher and lives in Vancouver, BC. In the fall, he will be studying in the MFA creative writing program at UBC. This is his first published piece.

    JAMELLA HAGEN is the author of Kerosene (Nightwood Editions in 2011). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals across North America including The Alaska Quarterly Review and Ploughshares. She lives in Whitehorse, Yukon and teaches creative writing at Yukon University.

    PHILIP HUYNH’s collection of short stories, The Forbidden Purple City, was published in 2019 (Goose Lane Editions) and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. He lives in Richmond, BC, with his wife and twin daughters.

    MICHAEL KENYON writes reviews and poetry and fiction from Victoria. His latest books are Travellers May Still Return (stories) and Lamb (poetry).

    CONOR KERR is a Métis/Ukrainian educator, writer and harvester. He is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, part of the Edmonton Indigenous community and is descended from the Lac Ste. Anne & Fort Des Prairies Metis communities and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His first books, a poetry collection An Explosion of Feathers and a short story collection Avenue of Champions will be published in 2021.

    GEOFFREY LINE is a Canadian‐American who’s lived and worked in Japan, and, for two years, as a high school teacher aboard a Norwegian tall ship.

    SAEED TAVANAEE MARVI is a poet born in the city of Mashhad, Iran, in 1983. His books include The Woman With Chlorophyllic Eyes.

    CAROL MATTHEWS’ writing appeared in a number of educational and literary publications. She is the author of a collection of short fiction and four memoirs.

    JASON MCLEAN has exhibited worldwide, including shows at the MoMA New York, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Alberta, MoCA Toronto, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, Modern Art Museum in Henningsvær, Norway, Berry Campbell Gallery in New York, and Bravin Lee Programs in New York.

    KHASHAYAR MOHAMMADI is an Iranian‐born, Toronto‐based poet and translator. His debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is out with Gordon Hill Press.

    SEAN SAM is a Navajo writer now living in Maryland. He is an editor of Ligeia Magazine. His writing has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Salt Hill, The Westchester Review, and Potomac Review, among other places. Find him online at www.seansam.com.

    CHRISTINA SHAH was born in Ottawa and lives in Vancouver, where she works in heavy industry. Her poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Vallum, Arc, Grain, PRISM international and EVENT, with work forthcoming in The Antigonish Review. Brace yourself for her first full‐length collection, if: prey, then: huntress.

    SPENSER SMITH is a Regina‐born poet and essayist who lives in Vancouver. His work appears in Prairie Fire, Contemporary Verse 2, Poetry Is Dead, The Puritan, and The Capilano Review.

    JENNIFER STILL explores intersections of language and material forms in her home in Treaty 1 territory (now known as Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). She is the author of several handmade chapbooks and three poetry books including her latest, Comma (Book*hug 2017), winner of the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Still’s pierced poems have been projected inside The Star Factory Planetarium (University of Manitoba) and installed at The Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and Aceart Inc. (Illuminations, Mentoring Artists for Women in the Arts, 2018). “Legs” is from her current project, an illuminated long‐poem manuscript composed with pinholes, a light table, electric typewriter, and carbon sheets.

    SUSAN WASSERMAN is Emeritus Instructor of English at New Westminster's Douglas College. For nearly three decades she was Reviews Editor for EVENT magazine and continues her editorial work on a freelance basis. Susan lives in Vancouver and is thrilled to be a first-time contributor to The Malahat Review.

    PAUL WATKINS is Professor of English at Vancouver Island University. His creative and academic work focuses on intersections between improvisation, poetry, and sound.