poetry

By Chantelle Rideout

The gangly-legged childhood version of me wanted to be a figure skater. My parents, regrettably, acquiesced and, after getting me properly outfitted in a pair of Don Jacksons and some sparkles, sent me tottering off to the Sackville Arena. I spent hours rehearsing camel spins, Salchows, and Ina Bauers, went through endless pairs of flesh-coloured tights, but, in the end, I was always flutzing my Lutzes and gradually came to accept that I would never be an Olympian (let's face it, I was already older than Tara Lipinski. Also, I had better things to do after school than endure below-zero temperatures in the few months of t-shirt weather we got (and, those sequined dresses aren't cheap, you guys).

By Kayla Geitzler As the weather grows colder and academic deadlines collide with the hectic holiday season, the urge to procrastinate mounts. At some point I eventually give in and spend a few of these long, gray afternoons with the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad. Her intricate manoeuvring of abstraction, visceral imagery and dense metaphor remind me why, like her, “I respect poetry in the very same way religious people respect religion” (Collected Works).