Poetry

Cliff Jumping

Cliff Jumping

In the backseat of a mustang you looked so much like a movie. The sleeves of your shirt cut off and gas station glasses. Open beer and the wind forgiving nothing. I was almost myself, watching road signs disappear and leaning from the window, dress billowing. Three...

Mental Lacuna

Mental Lacuna

Where are the words I devoured The English hoard I treasured inside this body soon to be Where are the words I devoured The English hoard I treasured inside this body soon to be ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^and the mind In my youth I^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the synaesthesia of life...

I Can’t Be the Only One

I Can’t Be the Only One

who secretly thrilled to Ursula who shared her envy of that underwater voice and wanted nothing more than to throat it. To swallow. To use it however we liked. We, the ones who tried to belt some mournful song but heard just screechy child warbles, nothing sultry. Who...

Ruins of Pompeii, or Ancestry

Ruins of Pompeii, or Ancestry

Not whole, the way we know them now, but fragmentary hollow skeletals that seal the human or reveal what it once was. Breath stolen by volcanic gas and corpses dressed in ashes. An imprint of dust upon the body, or the body onto dust. Excavators filled the distance...

Sometimes We Sing Soft Kitty

Sometimes We Sing Soft Kitty

Our 2015 Poetry Contest Honourable Mention, judged by Jen Currin. snow again. no country for thin women. yes it was white this morning – where did it go? the only whites I see are houses   frame or aluminum-sided   among the awakening trees. a gulls’ coffee clatch in...

Translation of “Sappho, 31”

Translation of “Sappho, 31”

By all the gods I don’t know why the hell I come to these things passed defences farewell parties publications showers house- swarmings Room would like to apologize to Meaghan Rondeau, whose translation of “Sappho, 31” appeared in Room 38.1 without italics as she...

Disappearing on Paper

Disappearing on Paper

The pages you have yet to write are flagged and fluorescent, post-it pennants waving for another town’s fiesta. The pages you have yet to write are flagged and fluorescent, post-it pennants waving for another town’s fiesta. Massage the verbiage, the hiring manager...

change (medicine in academe)

change (medicine in academe)

they might have noticed the bear whose movement down the hallway resembled a private waltz they might have noticed the bear whose movement down the hallway resembled a private waltz or hard-won swagger that comes from knowing trails, from soft leaf language from the...

Travelling in South India

Travelling in South India

Palm trees flash past barred windows, and words waft over the train’s noisy pulse. Palm trees flash past barred windows, and words waft over the train’s noisy pulse. Something is different—conjugations of verbs, endings of nouns—but I still understand these pieces of...

translating ‘owl’

translating ‘owl’

uluka my Sanskrit owl vahana, vehicle of Laksmi sharing the name with a muni, sage uluka my Sanskrit owl vahana, vehicle of Laksmi sharing the name with a muni, sage that term from silence itself uluka a kind of grass sound in grass perhaps uluka the quiver i feel...

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ROOM 48.1 WITS END
In times of crisis, we laugh to offer tenderness, to ward off despair— so we can be brave. Gather round ROOM 48.1 WITS END and let humour be a mirror held up to the state of the world as we continue to resist.

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ROOM 47.4 FULL CIRCLE
Step back with Room into the past, to parents, to childhood homes, and to people once known and loved; dig into themes of grief and healing; and ultimately explore what it means to come full circle in literature.

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