Photo by Lois Nantais
Uproar invites writers of all genres to submit their works written in consideration of our seasonal theme. Three times annually, moderators will select the best submissions and publish them here. Each spring, we will hold the Carmen Ziolkowski Poetry Prize (click here for details Carmen Ziolkowski Poetry Prize). See “About Us” for general submission criteria About
“There is no place like home.”
In 1948, the UN declared that having access to housing was a human right based on
the principle of dignity and the value of human potential. Our basic needs include a
place to rest and to feel safe. Collectively we also need a sense of community that
provides care in order to grow and thrive as human beings.
Fleeing war, abuse, facing eviction or forced removal, or being abandoned in times of
profound need are all traumatic ways to lose our sense of belonging. Facing the loss of
our home can also mean losing our very sense of self: our sense of family, our mental
health, our livelihood, our sobriety. A sense of homelessness can also include
experiencing dehumanization or ignorance at all we’ve known in our lives.
“Home is where the heart is.”
The pieces we’ve selected in this Home themed edition of the journal all express a heart
for the ways we belong to ourselves and each other. The collection shows us that there
are many ways to lose a sense of being at home and how home is much more than a
roof over our heads.
We hope you enjoy the collection of prose and poetry, each touching on the value of
having a place to call home. We wanted to express, through this collection, how
important it is to belong to ourselves and with each other.
“What you got there, ol’ man?” He raised his head and met the bloodshot eyes of the skinny guy on the neighbouring cot who had just spoken. Another junkie. Or tweaker. Or crackhead. Same difference. Like all the young ones in the shelter. He looked back down at the tattered newspaper clippings he had spilled
Parched He looks around uncertainly, focuses on what has changed. His glasses are gone, hearing aid too; no socks, loose slippers, he’s wearing someone else’s shirt. The tv’s a long way off and muted. So many faces he can’t place. There are screams and sobs; bodies sleep or rock in wipe clean wing chairs. In
The Most Humble Love is nestled deep In the hearts of the most humble They are the lost The forsaken we only speak of As if this makes us care Our thoughts, only echos Bouncing off their dreams Small change, petty offerings Pools of pity at their feet This is not love Love hides In
A Short History of Epiphany And what might the difference have been if Three Queens came bearing gifts. “An evolutionary epiphany,” they declare. Imagine if the Queens came first, even if superseded by three patriarchs bearing gold (the capitalists); frankincense (down a long church history of swinging censors); sticky myrrh (more often used in embalming.)
Edna’s Mouth Edna and her mouth. They are never separate. Electric pink gums that are slowly receding from the ocher-rimmed peg teeth. “People with mouths like that go nowhere in life,” your mother said as she was spending a wad on the orthodontics that would take over your face for two years. It’s true. Who
Bellum. When the war came for us, we locked the remnants of our dreams inside our gap tooth & sprinted for fear that it would swallow us like it did our homes. When the war walked into our city during the sky’s siesta, we thrashed a mother’s lips with these cracked feets, in search of
homeless: greenway note: the black sheep brothers sleep on the biking greenway, the path from here to eternity or bella vista, missouri anyway. sisters too, splayed, displayed on the asphalt, passed out, eyes shut, cans and bottles, mouths open, ragtag shirts, skirts, shoes, toiletries heaped on the rage of wet grass. and this: four thousand
THE MANSION [ EXCERPT ] ______________________ June 2006: It felt good to be in the old neighbourhood– Travelling to a vegan potluck at a house On Sutter Street on foot gave me A chance to see my first home in the city again. In between a Solid brick Black Protestant church & Expensive luxury condominiums
The old house, built in 1895, was the best of weathered antiques having hugged North Rogers Street from days of horses to days of horse-powered engines, and now to electric cars. As the story goes, Grandad purchased the old house shortly after returning from WWI by merely signing his name on a blank piece of
