Spools of odd and even numbers knot tightly around my fingers. Fractions like hieroglyphs people the tethered pages of my grade school days. At the hub of our long-winded kitchen, turquoise table on a checkerboard floor. Mother slices red apples on a pine wood board:...
this metropolis is hurly-burly— you’re striving with deadlines crosstown, half-drowned in long lists—consume that, buy this chase what’s brash and new— your strained schedule bursting with some added task always left to do while nearby, along cool paths sun sips...
The honourable mention in Room's 2010 poetry contest, judged by Jennica Harper. The first word took root quietly, self-sufficient oocyte into morula, split and grew new words, a semiosis in the dark liquid primordia of vowels. Punctuated by consonantal vertebrae: the...
Dusty, corralled by clear walls of plexiglass, they smell of age, the violent polish of pain. Red, mismatched, many, owned by the women who wore them, sophisticated, matching lipstick to dress, never imagining that by the quiet end of one day they would be nameless....
Every time she breathes the muscle hisses, a sharpness of tissue refusing its shape. No position is comfortable, all hold the weight pressing her shoulder onto the bed. Still she lies there, counting on her breath to draw her into the present, fluttering up to the...
Show them which goal is theirs and which goal they’re supposed to score in Show them which goal is theirs and which goal they’re supposed to score in show them the ball and how to kick it tie their cleats when the laces come undone let them stop in the middle of the...
subsumed: 1 + 1 = 1 she had no socks so she wore his that left him short of socks so she bought him more subsumed: 1 + 1 = 1 she had no socks so she wore his that left him short of socks so she bought him more equated: 1 + (1 + 1 - 1) = 2 the young woman snared an...
The honourable mention in our 2009 poetry contest, judged by Sachiko Murakami. Walk down the street getting wet from the rain washes sheets onto clothes stuck to skin. Take clothes off; walk down the street naked and alone. It is night time; the sky is dark. There is...
At first the idea of the hat might have been a cover-up, a need to move through the world without being seen. But down deep, I know that wanting led to it and not the other way around. The hat became a strange kind of mask, like some feathered piece, a shaman’s tool,...
Teresa lifted a stone from the beach and it spoke to her saying: “I am God.” “There was one thing which at first I was ignorant: I did not know that God was in all things, and, when He seemed to me to be very present, I thought it impossible. I could not cease...
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.
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.
Seeking members who love literature, events, merchandise, and supporting marginalized creators.
Wits End | 48.1
$10.00 – $20.00
Full Circle | 47.4
$15.00 – $25.00
Bodies | 47.3
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Seedpod | 47.2
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Utopia | 47.1
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Sponsor a Contributor
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Sponsor a Writer
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Sponsor a Poet
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Fever Dream | 46.4
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Fever Dream Tote Bag — Limited Edition