Vallum Chapbook Award 2021 Finalist: Emma Rhodes | Queer/Joy

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Chapbook Contest, Finalist, Queer/Joy, Vallum Chapbook Award 2021

Tapas

 

The first time I thought I was queer
was after kissing my best friend in 7th grade.

Or maybe
…………………….. it was when I ate an apple.
……………………………………… The curve of the core and
……………………………………… seed so hidden and
……………………………………… poisonous.

Maybe
…………………….. it was drinking tea
……………………………………… with another friend and playing chess.
……………………………………… The way their lips gripped the glass, the ambiguous
……………………………………… power of the queen. The wetness, maybe

…………………….. the heat of the tea.
……………………………………… That gentle warmth blanketing
……………………………………… my face from the harsh winter air or
……………………………………… fogging my sight. Maybe

…………………….. it was the nachos
……………………………………… when I dated men, the game nights,
……………………………………… the crunch, cuts on the roof of my mouth, trying
……………………………………… not to chew too loudly. Didn’t want

…………………………………………………………………….to be annoying, maybe
…………………………………………………………………….it was the muffins. The freedom
…………………………………………………………………….to throw whatever ingredient in and
…………………………………………………………………….be happy with the taste, still.

……………………………………………………………………………………… Maybe I was queer when
……………………………………………………………………………………… I stopped focusing
……………………………………………………………………………………… on who

……………………………………………………………………………………… what or how I consumed
……………………………………………………………………………………… maybe I was always

……………………………………………………………………………………… hungry

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Emma Rhodes is an award-winning queer writer and alumna of St. Thomas University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in places such as Prism International, Riddle Fence, Qwerty, Plenitude, and elsewhere. In 2021 she was the recipient of the Robert Clayton Casto Poetry Prize. She is currently living on the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendatg people, where she will complete a Master of Arts in English Literature at Queen’s University.

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Emma Rhodes is one of the finalists for the 2021 Vallum Chapbook Award for her chapbook Queer/Joy.

Queer/Joy attempts to define a queerness inextricably attached to sexual trauma, female and queer friendships, body insecurity and more. While it does not arrive at a definition, the collection follows the author’s journey healing from a history of abuse and coming to accept her queer which is fluid and changing.

 

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.”

Featured Interview: Joe Neubert, 2nd Place Winner of the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award

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Chapbook Contest, DC Poems, interview, Joe Neubert

Interview by Leigh Kotsilidis

Joe Neubert was born in Georgia and is currently living in Washington, DC.

In DC Poems, the sublime is all around. Joe Neubert’s new chapbook is a collection of snapshots from everyday life, where the poet is the observer, watching and wondering from a distance. With sparse language and precise images, Neubert records the seconds of the day before they’re gone: “early March the sun / the streetlights the people / the afternoon men / playing checkers on a trashcan.” Time and space are reconfigured – we are in D.C., but also Siberia, and also rural Spain, and also the southern pole. Neubert charts these moments in a circular relation to each other. “Does the view from the roof on a monday in march / stir the cells of their unknowable individual / private universes,” he asks.