“Never trust a man, Hina. They’re all scum.” I was nine years old when my mother first said this to me. She had failed yet again to secure a divorce from my father in Pakistan—her second attempt at doing so. The first time she tried, I was five and remember the day we came back
The sea gives back all it takes, you had told me once, as we stood on a large boulder, looking out into the twilight sea. It was our favourite spot, our boulder – a slate grey, oval piece of the ancient rocks, smoothed to perfection by centuries of weathering. I was sixteen and naïve. As
It’s a short drive to the park. Winter has made a whimsical return as if to poke fun at Spring. Snow powdered trees appear to float in rainwater lagoons. I throw my daydreams into placid pools and wish for sunlight. In the foreground, flakes fall, melting instantly on a glass stage. In the distance, they
Poured what remained of his dreams Into a cereal bowl – Well, it was actually a McDonald’s cup But it served the same function. Figured if he could eat it He could go on living it too Digesting it square by square, Calorie by calorie. Except it had lost its taste Or rather he’d lost
It’s 1995 and your first job. You spend so much time in these shoes your feet have sweated through the leather. It leaves white rings on the shoes, sweat or dried soda and popcorn dust. You stand at a podium in a black vest and bowtie and tear tickets. Enjoy the show. You direct people
My Human Identity I am a social construct. Word upon word like blood. Image upon image like flesh. A technicolour film Of places and stories I have lived through. I am walking, breathing memory. Frame by frame repository Of history’s collective thoughts In my seemingly separate cranium. I walk this Earth for a slice of
The year is 1977. That’s when I recall a certain WIT (writers-in-transition) meeting at one of our members’ homes. As we settled comfortably into our host’s living room waiting for the ‘official’ start to our evening of reading, Norma — a usually calm voice in the midst of writers’ babble — held up her arm
I first met Norma West Linder at Lambton College in Sarnia when I attended her evening Creative Writing class. I had never taken a writing class—I hadn’t even told anyone I wanted to be a writer. Just the thought of meeting someone who was a writer made me nervous. I had written a long poem
Norma and my late Mom, Peggy Fletcher, were best friends. I can remember many writers meetings hearing their voices carefully dissecting and critiquing with wisdom and grace. Their adventures, first starting in the seventies with her first partner, John Henry, were epic. From her kitchen wall, painted with a personalized Peanuts cartoon to the photos
shorts and sandals on a hot October day 30.1 degrees Celsius this is a riff on changing times on changing ways on changing days salmon are jumping and people are oohing the weir too high, they spawn and die the water runs swift like the beat of a riff cormorants soar while cascades roar susurrant,