Ancestral-Wing by Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a collection of poems that provides elegiac pathways to Kanta’s encounters with grief, memory, loss, and family. Her poems fill me with lament and longing for lost lineages and introduce me to parts of myself that I’ve either disconnected with or forgotten. In, “Un-Elegy, Or Written Fifty Six Steps Above Montmartre,” Kanta’s poem for her mother reminds me that I want to break stereotypes too and that I want to do that not just for myself and for future generations but also for my ancestors who never got the chance to do so. These poems are a generous gift. By mining her own personal experiences and using them for her poetry, we, her lucky readers, find portals that gently lead us back to our own ancestral wings.
— Nancy Hui Sulaiman is a Chinese-Canadian writer living in Ontario. She writes short stories, CNF, and is working on a novel. Her work was shortlisted for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize and was a runner-up in the 2020 Little Bird Contest.
You can read Nancy Hui Sulaiman's story "The Impact of a Father’s Terminal Cancer Diagnosis" in Issue 304 (Summer Creative Nonfiction 2025). Order the issue now:
Order Issue 304 - Summer Creative Nonfiction 2025 (Canadian Addresses)
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