Reminders
Translated by Willow Loveday Little from Jean-Guy Forget
my girlfriend and our friends
blossom into a choir of laughter
when I dare admit
I have no fucking idea
what a caper is
*
I discover ducharme and kundera
in cégep before being told
these are good reads for high-schoolers
in the future I’ll stay silent
on the subject of catching up
*
my best friend says that
my references aren’t well-researched enough
not enough for a discussion on class war
*
someone compares herself to me
our mothers our fathers our families
the void behind their gifts
how materialistic the culture
in disagreement I grit my teeth
we’ll likely never share the luxury
of being bored
by shallow bonds
*
all I’m missing
is some good therapy
to nip the problem in the bud
unbind my psyche across several months
years even but put a finger on
what’s bruised until the answer
traces itself
the evening proceeds
the people have fun get drunk and I don’t know
where or how to find the money
so I can afford to move on
The original poem in French, “Rappels,” appeared in Pleure pas, Cadillac published by Del Busso.
ABOUT THE CREATOrs
Photo Credit: Gustavo Salinas
Photo Credit: Gustavo Salinas
Willow Loveday Little’s work has appeared in places like The Dalhousie Review, yolk literary, Metatron, HA&L, The League of Canadian Poets chapbook series, Vallum, and On Spec. She published her debut poetry collection, (Vice) Viscera, with Cactus Press in 2022 and joined the team as an editor in 2024. Willow lives in Montreal.
Instagram: @willowloveday
Jean-Guy Forget was born in Montreal in 1994. He is the author of the novel After (Hamac, 2018) and the poetry collection Pleure pas, Cadillac (Del Busso, 2019), and the coauthor of Déménager au ciel. His work also appears in the anthologies Bad Boys (2019) and Pauvreté (2021), both by Éditions Triptyque.
Instagram:@jan.gui
Greetings, friends! We’re thrilled to bring you issue 51—an open-themed collection of thirty exceptional works spanning fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, photography, translation, and comics.
Creative non-fiction by Elisa Carlsen
Righty, from Surf Pines, was one of six free chickens my neighbor Rudi called to tell me about. He knew a guy who knew a guy and offered to give my partner and me a ride to get them.
Creative non-fiction by Marion Cline
The purpose of the complete breath is to acknowledge mortality. Just as it easily enters, it easily dissipates. The purpose is to hold the breath, let it swim for a little while in the lower pit, and to let it go.
Creative non-fiction by Alana Friend Lettner
I was eighteen and living in a small flat in Argenteuil, a forlorn-looking suburb of Paris that had, in a past life, been a favourite place of Monet and Renoir.
Creative non-fiction by Eve Krakow
Before leaving the house, she double-checks her bag: music binder, pencil, glasses, water bottle. There’s something comforting about the ritual of going to choir rehearsal, the same day and same time each week, year in and year out.
Comic by Kaya Davies
Kaya Davies (b. 2002) is an artist who seeks to understand what she does not through the process of creation.
Comic by Elias Doering
Elias Doering is a pen and ink artist from the East Coast of the United States. They primarily work in black and white to make comics about the sea.
Comic by Josie Levin
Josie Levin (she/him) is a visual artist and writer whose visual work has appeared in a variety publications
Comic by Jem Woolidge
Jem Woolidge is an emerging artist based in Tiohtià:ke (so-called Montreal).
Fiction by Rachel Mattingly
Misty is undoubtedly splattered somewhere outside the IHOP a few blocks down. Gives a whole new meaning to the house of pancakes.
Fiction by Erik Moyer
Jackie Flapjacks stacks eight plates on each side of the barbell and drizzles them with custom syrup-colored spring collars. Some new gym-goers peek out of the corners of their eyeballs.
Fiction by Amber Nuyens
The first time Jamie goes to a gay bar, she thinks of those viral videos of cows being released into fields for the first time in their lives.
Fiction by Jordan Thibault
The yo-yo they used was blue. It was not their favorite color—red like their frumpy hair—but of the remaining primary colors, blue would do.
Fiction by J.M. Young
I’m not supposed to be in the line of deep lifeguards. I’m a registered shallow guard who has miserably failed the deep guard test, not once but twice.
Photography by Phi Phi AN
These photos are part of a long-running visual archive series named “As far as half the way to the Gateway,” a flow created based on traditional analog photography techniques.
Photography by Austin Cullen
Our relationship to the natural world is inextricably tied to technology; and as technology changes, so does the way we represent the world around us.
Photography by Judy Thorn
This series was shot during an exquisite period before the pandemic. It came together only in retrospect. Each photo tells of a stalwart friend, lover, seer.
Poetry by D.M. Bradford
Slow and funny in the gut, our year of home ownership. Would love to tell itself it's going to be spent being written. Would love to tell itself its lack of poetry is already sidelined and collected.
Poetry by Katherine Chiemi
I like the fragile eggs, just the size to crack between molars.
I like the Rube Goldberg of it all, the little egg engines and the rattle of the dice tray: watch me
Poetry by Judith Lapadat
Its hulked form nosing into steel grey bay
the chop, its incessant slap, the cold salt
Poetry by Madi Haab
there: in the hollow
concrete medulla
of the city skeleton
Poetry by Alessandra Lynch
HERE IS—THE MESSAGE---TO THE RAIN---NOT A TELEGRAM---"I DON’T WANT TO--- STOP----TALKING TO YOU”---LIGHT
Poetry by Dawn Macdonald
without stiffening. a bump,
a rebound. a dampening
Poetry by Aaron Rabinowitz
She separates from the distance from the other moving forms across the canvas—you mean campus—like a sticker unpeeled from its backing
Poetry by Dominique Russell
Peut-être pas maintenant, mais bientôt et pour toujours
à tout jamais, éternellement
Poetry by Mazzy Sleep
The sun in the morning.
It was snowing so hard it seemed like
it had always been snowing, since Eden,
Poetry by Lily Thomson
After hearing about it for so long
I finally ate an orange
In the shower
Translated by Neil Smith from Jean-Christophe Réhel
i am
less and less
i say goodnight chair good night ventilator
Translated by Willow Loveday Little from Jean-Guy Forget
my girlfriend and our friends
blossom into a choir of laughter
Photography by Angeline Teoh Simon
My collage work is an examination into personal ancestry and immigrant history. As a second-generation Canadian, I have felt disconnected from my German and Malaysian-Chinese heritage, motivating me to focus on a collection of family photographs that were passed down to me.