Vallum Poem of the Week: “Abandoned Space: The Police Station” by Marguerite Doyle

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17:2, Abandoned Space: The Police Station, Marguerite Doyle, Poem of the Week, POTW

Abandoned Space: The Police Station

There is a riot beyond the chain-link fence
bedding is scattered wildly about
and the Sting, planned carefully
by Nettle is out of control.

Lassoing summer’s cold blue moon
a Climber has gained the perimeter—
wraps the barred windows about
with trumpeting billows.

They catch on hidden barbs like mouths,
warning shadows that leap and fall
of careless sprites around
the rockery and wall.

The Pond, who took no active part
reclines unmoved, but just now
her face caught a trick 
of the light.

It beats on the dark glass, chilling
smoky Woodbine curling up,
and Ivy turns to drink
her poisoned cup.

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Marguerite Doyle is from Dublin, Ireland and is interested in exploring her native city and its surroundings as the poetic space. She likes to bring imagination to her work and to see things from different perspectives. Marguerite graduated with an M.A. in Creative Writing from Dublin City University in 2020. As well as being published in Vallum: Contemporary Poetry, since graduation Marguerite’s work has appeared in Third Wednesday, Vita Brevis (Editor’s Choice Award), The New Welsh Review’s New Welsh Reader, Reliquiae Journal and Rue Scribe. Marguerite’s work was recently selected for inclusion in The Ireland Chair of Poetry Special Commemorative Anthology Hold Open the Door, which marks the 25^th anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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This poem was originally published in Vallum issue 17:2. To view other content published in this issue, look here.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE! Visit our website for details.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “I Find It Hard to Begin a Poem Sometimes” by Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto, I Find it Hard to Begin a Poem Sometimes, Poem of the Week, POTW

I Find it Hard to Begin a Poem Sometimes

 

Anything can be a flower if you are not paying attention. 
I should say something about our doormat.
I should be in my essays or interviews discussing this place.
When standing in front of a mirror, my body tells me how reversed I
………… have grown.
I see you through this poem, in every word I write and you read.
Sometimes like a smile crawls through my face, and I say, think what 
………… you may.
I believe the first step in anything is making a step.
Each time I walk myself out of the bed;
there is something else that walks out with me.
Say it’s my voice. The same as my neighbour’s
who tells me, no girl will ever love you.
Though in my dreams, I am not a ruin on every lip.
In my prayers, I ask for a metaphor, the kind not buried in the face.
It’s important that I let everything know that I truly want to be happy. 
But not happy like two strangers in a bed in search of true love.

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Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto is from Owerri-Nkworji in Nkwerre, Imo state, Nigeria and grew up between Germany and Nigeria. He has a Chapbook, The Teenager Who Became My Mother, via Sevhage Publishers. He became a runner-up in Etisalat Prize for Literature, Flash fiction, 2014. He won the Castello di Duino Poesia Prize for an unpublished poem, 2018 which took him to Italy. He was the recipient of New Hampshire Institute of Art’s 2018 Writing Award, and also the recipient of New Hampshire Institute of Art’s 2018 scholarship to MFA Program. In 2019, he was the winner of Sevhage/Angus Poetry Prize and second runner-up in 5th Singapore Poetry Contest. He won the First Prize in the Creators of Justice Literary Award, Poetry category, organized by International Human rights Art Festival, New York, USA, 2020. His works have appeared in Lunaris Review, AFREADA, Poet Lore, Rush Magazine, Frontier, Palette, Malahat review, Southword Magazine, Vallum, Mud Season Review, Salamander, Strange Horizons, One, Ake Review, Crannòg magazine, The Question Marker and elsewhere.

(@ChinuaEzenwa)

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This poem was originally published in Vallum issue 16:2 Fear. 

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE! Visit our website for details.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “Washed in the Blood” by Roberta Senechal de la Roche

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17:2, poem, Poem of the Week, POTW, Roberta Senechal de la Roche

Washed in the Blood

 

I would call you a wing,
but you might disappear into thin air,
when I am not ready, or cannot
say anything down to earth.

…………. Already you are twirling
…………. long dark hair behind your ear
…………. around your right index finger, looking
…………. outdoors at nothing in particular.

 

Thinking too much
where it starts and
where it finishes,
what it is for, or not,

When it is all in the moves,
what shakes, gets down
and dirty, but maybe
washed in the blood.

Can this really be bred in the bone,
what we put up with, taking
what is not ours, hands down
especially when no one is looking,

and what we do, or not, as though
we can’t bear it, the cut we want to make,
even of our own, leaving someone
else to stitch it all back together?

Small things must be at work here
inside, hidden, insensible
slow secret mouths whispering
the end of structure, unbalancing.

You once said you would die for the chance to,
then later said it was not that good;
one should know better
than to ask for more than others.

…………. A red bird flies from a lower branch.
…………. You turn and say the storm has torn
…………. all the ivy from the oak.

 

 

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Roberta Senechal de la Roche is an historian, sociologist, and poet of Micmac and French-Canadian descent, and was born in western Maine. She now lives in the woods outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. Her poems have appeared in the Colorado Review; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Yemassee, and Cold Mountain Review, among others. She has two prize-winning chapbooks: Blind Flowers (Arcadia Press) and After Eden (Heartland Review Press, 2019).  A third chapbook, Winter Light, and her first book, Going Fast (2019) are published by David Robert Books.

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This poem was originally published in Vallum issue 17:2. To view other content published in this issue, look here.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE! Visit our website for details.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “Four on the Floor” By Amy Lerman

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17:2, Amy Lerman, Four on the Floor, Poem of the Week

Four on the Floor 

 

You tell me you like house music—
how the synthesized thumps traverse your veins,
hippocampus, so you are twenty again,
the exotic American, dancing
with strangers and pint glasses
at Le Beat Route.

Then there is the music of house—
the fridge’s decade-old respirations;
unsettled, foundation cracks;
the a/c’s throbbings, constant, desperate, unsyncopated;
they make me think of Jodie Foster lying
in a New Mexican array, that movie scene 
where concussive transmissions arouse her 
to finger her headphones, 
to reaffirm space.

I think about space, too,
all kinds: nebulas; mileage; 
caesuras; naked fingers; the gap 
my night brace never fixed; how you space
yourself when you tell a story, your space 
so close our shoulders fuse,
as you shift from heel to heel,
trying to meet my steady beat—

until you back into 
the blocks, the no loitering signs
between our houses, 
leaving me to listen 
to your absence and 
the spaces between my breaths.

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Amy Lerman was born and raised on Miami Beach, moved to the Midwest for many years, and now lives with her husband and very spoiled cats in the Arizona desert, where she is residential English
Faculty at Mesa Community College. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Slippery Elm, Smartish Pace, Common Ground Review, Prime Number, and other publications.

 

 

 

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This poem was originally published in Vallum issue 17:2. To view other content published in this issue, look here.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE! Visit our website for details.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “The Ruins” by Greg Santos

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17:2, greg santos, Poem of the Week, The Ruins

Vallum Poem of the Week: “aubade, an airport & the seas” by Marc Perez

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17:2, Aubuade an Airport & The Seas, Marc Perez, poem, Poem of the Week

aubade, an airport & the seas

I reach for you
as though for the mugicha 

we drank 
at a seashore 
teahouse in Kamakura

while you sit
on a metal bench 

losing your voice
in separate 

spaces with a brown hand
a border agent tugs 

the pen holder with a tarsier 
perched on a palm tree 
from your suitcase

didn’t you know
you’re not allowed

unaware
I bought it for you in Bohol 
on a low tide sandbar 

where we tasted salty sea 
urchins from spiny shells 

cracked in half 

by a sunned boy
who seemed to emerge 
straight from the sea

reminding you of a folktale 
about a young fisherman & a sea turtle 

as fractures mature us 

I wish for waves 
to come 

come

crashing at the airport
to submerge & claim us another 

border 

agent who could have been 
your sister tells us you need to leave 

that you have no right
to be here go back 

to the land of daybreak

across the seas
where we were born

without me

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Marc Perez is the author of the poetry chapbook Borderlands (Anstruther Press, 2020). His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Vallum, CV2, PRISM international, TAYO, and Ricepaper.

 

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This poem was originally published in Vallum issue 17:2. To view other content published in this issue, look here.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE! Visit our website for details.

2020 Year in Review: Part 2

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17:1, 17:2, 2020, 2021, Year in Review

To put it lightly, 2020 was a year of changes. We have all had to learn to adapt to this new way of living, yet despite physical isolation, we at Vallum feel so lucky to have been able to connect with you through the digital sphere. Thank you for helping us continue to share the art of poetry — we are truly humbled by the support of our community and send our sincere wishes of health and happiness to you and your loved ones for this year to come. 

Despite the many challenges and uncertainties of this year, we managed to launch Vallum: Contemporary Poetry issues 17:1 and 17:2, and publish four chapbooks: The Bannisters by Paul Muldoon, A Tilt in the Wondering by Nicole Brossard (re-release), It Was Treaty / It Was Me by Matthew James Weigel (1st Place in the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award) and DC Poems by Joe Neubert (2nd Place in the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award). Read about our new chapbooks here.

Judy Barlow won the 2020 Award for Poetry with “Walking Into East-end Toronto 2020” while Mary Trafford received second place with “Border crossings.” Honourable mentions went to Josh Feit with “Linger Factor,” Esther Johnson with “we lost ahmaud,” and Michael Trussler with “As Unnoticed as Possible.”

We also participated in virtual press fairs Word on the Street (Toronto) and Expozine (Montreal), and hosted outreach workshops with new facilitators and organizers. 

To reflect on the year, we asked this year’s contributors to share their thoughts on the books they read in 2020 and what’s in store for the year ahead.

Here’s what some of the writers published in our latest issues had to say:

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Aisha Hamid

Favorite Book of Poetry Discovered this Year
If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar. As a student of poetry, I found the deconstruction of form refreshing; it opened up endless possibilities for me.  

What’s on your reading list for 2021?
Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar, Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed, Are you Enjoying? by Mira Sethi, If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha.

Best Writerly Advice. 
Notice the ordinary and the everyday – that’s where poetry is. And read books by womxn of color.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “Caesura” by Kelly Norah Drukker

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17:2, Caesura, Kelly Norah Drukker, Poem of the Week

2020 Year in Review: Part 1

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17:1, 17:2, 2020, Year in Review

To put it lightly, 2020 was a year of changes. We have all had to learn to adapt to this new way of living, yet despite physical isolation, we at Vallum feel so lucky to have been able to connect with you through the digital sphere. Thank you for helping us continue to share the art of poetry — we are truly humbled by the support of our community and send our sincere wishes of health and happiness to you and your loved ones for this year to come. 

Despite the many challenges and uncertainties of this year, we managed to launch Vallum: Contemporary Poetry issues 17:1 and 17:2, and publish four chapbooks: The Bannisters by Paul Muldoon, A Tilt in the Wondering by Nicole Brossard (re-release), It Was Treaty / It Was Me by Matthew James Weigel (1st Place in the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award) and DC Poems by Joe Neubert (2nd Place in the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award). Read about our new chapbooks here.

Judy Barlow won the 2020 Award for Poetry with “Walking Into East-end Toronto 2020” while Mary Trafford received second place with “Border crossings.” Honourable mentions went to Josh Feit with “Linger Factor,” Esther Johnson with “we lost ahmaud,” and Michael Trussler with “As Unnoticed as Possible.”

We also participated in virtual press fairs Word on the Street (Toronto) and Expozine (Montreal), and hosted outreach workshops with new facilitators and organizers. 

To reflect on the year, we asked this year’s contributors to share their thoughts on the books they read in 2020 and what’s in store for the year ahead.

Here’s what some of the writers published in our latest issues had to say:

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Archana Sridhar

Favorite Book of Poetry Discovered this Year
Cluster by Souvankham Thammavongsa

What’s on your 2021 reading list?
Luster by Raven Leilani and Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine

Best Writerly Advice
Always carry a notebook or a piece of paper and a pen – in case inspiration strikes in a meeting or on a walk or even at family dinner… I am always surprised when a poem comes, and reminded of the importance to make space to welcome it.

 

 

Roxanna Bennett

Favorite Book of Poetry Discovered this Year
Side Effects May Include Strangers by Dominik Parisien (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) is a collection that means the world to me. It’s an intimate and insightful examination of pain written with exquisite vulnerability.

What’s on your reading list for 2021?   
Poetry-wise, I am super stoked for Khashayar Mohammadi’s Me, You, Then Snow (Gordon Hill, 2021) and for Kevin Heslop’s the correct fury of your why is a mountain (Gordon Hill Press, 2021). 

In terms of cultivating mindfulness in challenging times, I highly recommend these books to all beings:
Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain and Body (Avery, 2018) Daniel Goleman, Richard J. Davidson,
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying (Penguin Press, 2018) by Michael Pollan,
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (Riverhead Books, 2009) by His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala, 2007) by Pema Chödrön, 
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation (Simon and Schuster, 2017) by Robert Wright. 

I also recommend reading nothing to develop a relationship with inner silence.

Best Writerly Advice. 
You don’t need advice, writerly or otherwise, you already know exactly what to do and have everything you need inside of you. 

Featured Interview: Matthew James Weigel, Winner of the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award

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Chapbook Contest, interview, It Was Treaty / It Was Me, Matthew James Weigel

Interview by Leigh Kotsilidis

Matthew James Weigel (he/him) is a Dene and Métis poet and artist pursuing an MA in English at the University of Alberta. His words and art have been published by people like Book*Hug and The Mamawi Project, while his first self-published chapbook “…whether they took treaty or not, they were subject to the laws of the Dominion” is held in Bruce Peel Special Collections.

It Was Treaty / It Was Me feels almost like a collage. Drawing on government records, archival images and his own family history, Matthew James Weigel blends prose and poetry to look how John A. Macdonald and his government used treaties to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands. Weigel juxtaposes the machinations of the Canadian government with other versions of the story; official history bumps up against memories recorded in the body, exposing corruption and violence. “I wake up at 6am to a weight on my chest. / I massage it until it says the word treaty,” Weigel writes. This body memory is inextricable from land and water. “Did you know that when you wrote this down the river would remember it?” In recounting these histories, Weigel re-situates them. Under a picture of Queen Victoria’s throne, he writes: “I have acquired and used this photograph without permission. It has been digitally altered to suit my needs.” Another photo, though, remains beyond his grasp – an image of his family, held at the archives of the University of Alberta. These are not just questions of what happened, but who gets to tell the story of a past that bleeds into present. Sometimes, the most important act is to bear witness. “Dreamt I was a river again,” Weigel writes in the final poem, “2020: witness (continued).” “A thread of a glacier unwinding itself in slow motion, / slow enough to dip hands in and drink.”