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Poetry Features

"11/11/19" An Excerpt From Sam Cheuk's Poetry Selection

11/11/19 by Sam Cheuk


Necessity is the mother of invention
but the city is running out of material.
Tho the young keep impressing,
behind a secret of umbrellas
the frontline dreams a catapult
from scaffold of bamboo stalks.

A friend, when in Romania, gushed on
about pep rallies students held
to sever blood debt, same two words
scrawled across the walls here,
minus the romance among
the Montagues & Capulets.

Meet the Editors of the BIPOC Solidarities Issue - Shannon Webb-Campbell

As we receieve submissions for the upcoming BIPOC Solidarities special issue, we'll be featuring our wonderful team of editors who are working to bring the issue together. 

This special issue is meant as an opening, extending the invitation to BIPOC writers to transform the content and spirit of The Fiddlehead far beyond a single issue; this issue is a commitment to transformation and accountability.

Meet the Editors of the BIPOC Solidarities Issue - Rebecca Salazar

As we receieve submissions for the upcoming BIPOC Solidarities special issue, we'll be featuring our wonderful team of editors who are working to bring the issue together. 

This special issue is meant as an opening, extending the invitation to BIPOC writers to transform the content and spirit of The Fiddlehead far beyond a single issue; this issue is a commitment to transformation and accountability.

Rebecca Salazar - BIPOC Solidarities Special Issue Editor:

Meet the Editors of the BIPOC Solidarities Issue - Phoebe Wang

As we receieve submissions for the upcoming BIPOC Solidarities special issue, we'll be featuring our wonderful team of editors who are working to bring the issue together. 

This special issue is meant as an opening, extending the invitation to BIPOC writers to transform the content and spirit of The Fiddlehead far beyond a single issue; this issue is a commitment to transformation and accountability.

BIPOC Solidarities Special Issue - Call For Submissions!

Submissions are now open for our BIPOC Solidarities Special Issue! What conversations would you have in a room filled with fellow BIPOC writers? What stories would you write for one another that you have held back from publishing in a pervasively white literary industry? The Fiddlehead invites submissions of poetry, fiction, creative-nonfiction, and cross-genre innovations by racialized writers residing in the area known as Canada (citizenship not required). This includes writers who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of colour, and racialized writers who wish to push back against the BIPOC acronym.

Congratulations to Poetry Contest Winner Emma Miao!

We're excited to announce that Emma Miao, a poet from Vancouver, BC, is the winner of the 2020 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize! Her poem “Rabbits on the Balcony” will appear in the Spring 2021 issue of The Fiddlehead. Born in 2004, she was commended in the 2019 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, won the 2021 Frog Hollow Press Chapbook Contest, and has been published in numerous literary journals. Check out editorial assistant Eliza Ives' interview with Emma about her prize-winning poem!

Thank you again to our judges Canisia Lubrin, Jenna Albert and Adèle Barclay and to all who entered the poetry contest! 

"These Weeds" by Rose Maloukis

Rose Maloukis

These Weeds

Spasms trouble a tired body, little flesh, no hunger. 
Leaves cycle, vanish, more and more empty sky.

Dishes fallen to the floor. A mouthful of beaten rice — I cannot swallow! 

A purple balloon buffeted by slow circulation, no direct draft.
Surface highlights, rotations wobble, roll then lull, they are imbalanced.
Are you alive if your breath — the balloon, under the blouse, senseless —
         vacant.

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