Spring 2023

Issue 2.1

What is memory? It is found through our intimacy with the everyday objects we come to know and hold dear. Memories are found through the actions we take to re-create and forbid them. We find memories within the people, places, and things that are no longer there. Our submissions remind us of finding the meaning in the minutiae.

Our poetry selections hold memory through, perhaps more aptly, herstory: a poem about the writing and rewriting of sapphic literature and lesbian love; a poem about the marginalization of motherhood in the financial world; and a granddaughter reconciling her colonialist heritage through everyday objects.

Our fiction submissions see memory take the form of action. In one story, a group of fruit grapple with their dreams and a predetermined fate. Another presents danger and solidarity amongst sex workers, built from experience and bestowed for safety’s sake. Yet another story asks us what we really remember after we die.

Our non-fiction works are, in ways, anguished: a piece about a beautiful world but whose narrator cannot see the beauty in herself, a piece about a house plant in mourning, and a remembrance piece about a childhood car and the memories that left with it.

We would like to thank our wonderful contributors—Kaitlyn Langendoen, Lily Yu, Jaymi-Lynn Butler, Abigail Banda, Yoshita Sahdev, Lauren Russell, and Amely Su—for sharing their works with us. We hope you enjoy this issue.

—Written by Jonell Ebreo

Edited by Lisa Grieve, EiC

Issue 2.1 picture

Baby-Girl’s Shoes

A story about a young woman as she begins a new job. She faces uncomfortable situations and finds help from someone she might least expect it from.

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Op Zondag

Op Zondag is about reflecting on privilege from colonization as the speaker grapples with their own history as a descendant from Holland. The poem makes use of Denglisch, which is the interspersing of German and Dutch words throughout English, as these languages and cultures pervade this poem.

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Sapphic Triptych Tryst

Sapphic Triptych Tryst is inspired by triptych artwork and the poem is organized into three columns. It criticizes historical depictions of sapphic literature as the speaker artfully guides readers in the ways in which sapphic love has previously been hidden and erased from mainstream society, and how it is being repainted and rewritten.

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S-I-G-N H-E-R-E

S-I-G-N H-E-R-E is organized like a financial document, split between two columns. The speaker discloses their experiences of being framed negatively without an attempt to understand her. It speaks to the ways in which single women with children are stereotyped by society.

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When We Had a Car

The narrator recalls the car from their childhood, using it as an instrument to reflect on their most bittersweet memories.

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Still Life

A story about the adventures of sentient fruits. Apple is not like other fruits; confined to its
existence inside various crates, it has never seen the outside world. Newly purchased and not
ready to meet its fate, Apple plots its escape into the world before it can be eaten.

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The Afterlife

A story about a boy who finds himself in a transparent situation, literally. Alex is confused to
discover that he unexpectedly dies in an accident involving his best friend and is in the afterlife. There, he encounters old acquaintances and ultimately discovers the secrets of life.

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Land Acknowledgement

We would like to begin by acknowledging the Indigenous Peoples of all the lands that we are on today. While we meet today on a virtual platform, we would like to take a moment to acknowledge the importance of the lands, on which we each call home. We do this to reaffirm our commitment and responsibility in improving relationships between nations and to improve our own understanding of local Indigenous peoples and their cultures. 

York University’s land acknowledgement may not represent the territory that you are currently on, and we would ask that if this is the case, you take responsibility to acknowledge the traditional territory that you are on and its current treaty holders. 

York University acknowledges its presence on the traditional territory of many Indigenous Nations. The area known as Tkaronto has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat. It is now home to many First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities. 

We acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region.

From coast to coast to coast, we acknowledge the ancestral and unceded territory of all the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations people that call this land home. Please join us in a moment of reflection to acknowledge the effect of residential schools and colonialism on Indigenous families and communities and to consider how it is our collective responsibility to recognize colonial and arrivant histories and present-day implications in order to honour, protect, and sustain this land. 

In recognizing that these spaces occupy colonized First Nations territories and out of respect for the rights of the Indigenous people, please look for, in your own way, to engage in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.