National Poetry Month : Helen Robertson,

 

 

Ampules of Spring
       for Allison

Soon a holy buzz will fill the air
As parasites crack open
And drink themselves royal
On the nectar of your blood.

I can not bring myself to shatter
These delicate ornaments
Though thieves they may be.

Instead, like to you, I will bear myself
To them — an offering
As every bit of me is possessed
By each piece of you.

 

 

 

 

Witch, bitch, and full-time disaster Helen Robertson is a transsexual, bisexual, genderqueer dyke moving through the lifelong process of accepting how lucky they've been; using poetry to excise her ire and sorrow — hopefully turning it into something worthwhile. Their work has appeared in Canadian and American journals including This Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Poet Lore, and new words {press}. She was long listed for the 2019 Vallum Award for Poetry and her first chapbook (body of stone) was published via The Blasted Tree. They are a member of the poetry collective VII.

National Poetry Month : rob mclennan,

 

from dream logic

 

003 : “[untitled]”

This monster, a perfect rectangle. Howls of predictive text. The mammoth, is the only one. The centaur. A cloud, translated. As if suspicion. Townspeople, meanwhile. Unthinkable ethos. They walk up the hill, to the gates. In this letter, this serious thing. A consonant. A perfect circle. Let it begin with an unknown. Our findings, inconclusive. Anything you can grab by the heart. On the shores of Okanagan Lake. If you’re cold, they’re cold. Vixen, harridan. Bring them in. Is this how beasts. Neither bear nor moose. When you swim in the what. On the shores of Kenora, Lake of the Woods. On the shores of Loch Ness. It is time to come in. In the river’s slowness. It is time. Stretched along lakebed, a lie.

 

 

 

 

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025) and the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

National Poetry Month : Benjamin Niesdpodziany,

 

Lessons
            after Montana James Thomas

 

 

The strongman swam laps around the body in the puddle.

His brain weighed the same as a toaster.

All his cassettes suggested a melting from a fire.

No other witnesses kissed that night.

The private eye fell asleep and woke in a tree.

His brain weighed the same as a bag of onions.

Nothing mattered.

 

Everything was so quick to be revealed.

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Niespodziany is a writer whose work has appeared in Fence, Booth, Conduit, Puerto del Sol, Bennington Review, & elsewhere. His writing has been featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 and he has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, and Best of the Net. The host of a bi-monthly reading series in Chicago (Neon Night Mic), he also recently launched his own indie press known as Piżama Press. You can find more at www.neonpajamas.com.

National Poetry Month : Jacqueline Valencia,

 

 

 

in the streetcar
I saw man reading a book
he stood, held a pole with this right hand
held a book on the other
his mittened hands had strings attached
string attached

now this was a full grown man
not a boy, wrinkles on his face
behind his eye glasses, he’s going to work, I think,
his blonde hair peppered with white
a contrast I can see due to his expertly trimmed beard
which was very yellow
against his pale and freckled skin

Forty
Fifty
somewhere in between with mittened hands
strings attached
keeping him from losing his
blue mittens somewhere between
thick and knitted by someone
not a something or an army
of little hands
without consent

This was love in his hands
either a lover, mother, sister,
father, who knows made them
but it makes me think of
my mother

she creates clothing, food, and
spaces where I feel safe, in between
as if I lived in her heart

the mittened hands
somewhere between
strings attached
and comfort

rebelling
loving
grew/grows.

 

 

 

Jacqueline Valencia is a Toronto-based writer.. She is the author of various essays and poetry books, including There Is No Escape Out of Time (Insomniac Press, 2016) and Lilith (Desert Pets Press, 2018). You can find her at jacquelinevalencia.ca.