Meet Toast Wong! Toast’s poems, “triptych to the dynamics of failure, 2nd ed.” and “for ml”, will be featured in our upcoming poetry special issue, vol. 12.

How Toast describes these poems in 12 words or less:
“two eulogies: for a friend and a future”

Toast Wong is an activist, engineer and butch idiot living in Toronto, Ontario. Growing up on the Credit River, she writes about diaspora and gender, divorce and science with a lack of regard for her physical integrity. Sometimes, late at night, you can see her drive like an asshole in the west end.

Meet Fran Westwood! Fran’s poems, “Pacing,” “What I think and think of, drawing me to the edge,” and “On Forgiveness,” will be featured in our upcoming poetry special issue, vol. 12. 

How Fran describes “Pacing” in 12 words or less:
“I speak the language / but have not arrived at healing. I no longer think that we arrive”

How Fran describes “What I think and think of, drawing me to the edge” in 12 words or less:
“That we will never find a house. A plot to fill the edges in. To root in. Real ground.”

How Fran describes “On Forgiveness” in 12 words or less:
“the endless muscle of water holding worlds / of hurt—I’ve always wanted to be held like this”

Fran Westwood is an emerging Canadian poet whose work was shortlisted for the Room 2020 poetry prize, nominated for a 2021 Best of the Net award, and has been published or is forthcoming in various journals. Fran writes, grows vegetables and works in mental health and addictions in Guelph, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. You can find her on Instagram at @fran.westwood.

Meet Matthew Walsh! Matthew’s poem, “Sobriety For Me is Like San Francisco,” will be featured in our upcoming poetry special issue, vol. 12!

How Matthew describes this poem in 12 words or less:
“I lost my Weldon Kees”

Matthew Walsh is a poet from Nova Scotia. Their first poetry book, These are not the potatoes of my youth, came out in 2019, followed by a chapbook from Anstruther Press in 2021. They are @croonjuice on Twitter.