Quilt Quilt
Quilt Publication | 2025
Queen’s University Queen’s University
Akadanakwig-Katarokwi
Akadanakwig-Katarokwi
Treaty 57, Turtle Island Treaty 57, Turtle Island
Quilt is written and published on the ancestral lands of the Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee people. The land that is now known as Canada was taken illegally and continues to be violently occupied by unwelcome guests. Quilt stands against all forms of global colonialism past and present. We acknowledge the privilege it is to be able to live and work in Kingston (Katarokwi) and the responsibility we have to the stewardship of the land and reconciliation. We will continue to provide a space to amplify Indigenous voices whenever possible.
Co-Editors-in-Chief
MadeleineChiappetta
CatherineParke
ManagingEditors
CoreyMartin
AvaJoa
Design
Head of Design
Catherine Parke
Editorial Board
SeniorEditors
ProseEditors
Bee Peitsch
Gwendolen Hickey
Design Coordinator
Mia Popelas
Illustrators
Alice Wu
Charlie Wong
Rosie Giesl-Butler
Emma Gardner
Iman Jafrani
October Hua
Anna Acosta
Lynna Cheng
Layout Designers
Anna Acosta
Lynna Cheng
Caleb Gao
Claire O’Neill
Jacqueline Wu
Jennifer Zhou
Olivia Marsden
Siobhan Mudrik
Alexia Troost
PoetryEditors
Hazel Robertson
Leah Pleasants
AcademicEditor
Nicole Strati
GradStudentAdvisors
Tori Payne
Eleanor Daley
Lauren Hisey BoardMembers
Abby Lomanto
Annabelle O’Malley
Atia Ahmed
Ava Salo
Chloe Nunes
Clare Wu
Corey Nagle
Ella Smith
Erfan Nasirinia
Jaime Clair
Meghan Neilson
Ruby Tucker
Suhana Jodhja
Tamara Carnevale
Tori Payne
Yasmin Nowlan
Copyediting
HeadofCopyediting
Ella Smith
Copyeditor
Charlie Wong
Corey Nagle
Gwendolen H
Elaine Chen
Emma Smyt
James Wesle
Norah Kieru
Paige Snowd
Zoey Morde
Events
HeadofEv
Jennifer Zho
EventsAd
Anna Sum
EventCoo
Ella Wan
hotographers
Ava Salo
Caleb Gao
Noah-James Bruce
Outreach
-Heads of Outreach
Sara Boustan
Sarah Bradle
Claire Ander
Aretha Liu
Siobhan Mu
Sara Cosman
Eve Raine
cial Media ordinators
Atia Ahmed e Gesl-Butler
ma McGeown
mma Smyth
cqueline Wu
ivia Marsden
Finance
Treasurer
Danika Denison
nancial Assistants
Noah-James Bruce
Aly Jamani
Fundraising Coordinators
Aly Jamani
Catherina Sit
Ella Wen
Sarah Bradley
Editors’ N
It is with bountiful gratitude that we introd Volume 6: Abundance. From our humble beginnings in 2020, Quilt has become the literary home to over 65 contributing members this year along with an expanding readership across Ontario. As the first year without founding members, we are excited to usher in a new era of growth as we continue weaving new patches of thought-provoking creative and academic work into the shared blanket that is our publication. We cannot wait to see how Quilt continues to prosper.
To our generous readers, this volume holds just a sample of undergraduate writing and illustration that populates the Queen’s community. As you pore over our relative supply within these pages, embrace the plentifulness that these works bring Allow yourself liberality as you decide what flows out of our bounty, the wealth of what surrounds you Lose yourself to all
Whether you have followed us from the start or just picked up a copy, we are grateful for your support and are excited to share our overflowing goblets with you.
Cheers, Madeleine Chiappetta and Cat Parke 2025-2026 Co-Editors-in-Chief
Nicole Strati
Rosie Giesl-Butler
Kaiya Mongrain
Ava Joa
Mongrain
Kailee Owens
Nicole Strati
Iulia Rus
Foreword
Abundance is overflowing, plentiful, superfluous, prosperous, and relative (OED). While abundance can provide an ample supply of goodness and prosperity, it can also overwhelm (OED). In the abundance of the 21st century, its ebb and flow permeate our daily lives and our very beings. At Quilt, we want to capture and make sense of this abundance as it pours into our environments, homes, relationships, minds, and bodies.
Since the early twentieth century, in the broader spheres of literature, science, and culture, Enlightenment humanists have tackled the “crisis of abundance…as it confronts the problem of too much in addition to the problem of not enough” (Schleifer xi). In our contemporary world, we are too often caught up in the crisis of abundance; we take on too much, yet never seem to have enough. Trying to make sense of and represent abundance amidst the constant explosions of knowledge, experience, and our social realms is an ongoing crisis that continues to shape our world (Schleifer xii). For Kafka, these overwhelming preoccupations with knowledge, wealth, and time are meaningless abundances; however, through an exploration of “our world, our past, and our inheritances…we might “redeem” the past and transform to some degree the empty fullness…into a legacy for those who come after us and a fulfilment for those who preceded us ” (Schleifer xii-xiii).
As artists, we at Quilt hope to represent meaningful abundances through our meditations and reflections on our own environments, relationships, and inheritances. We hope our plentiful, overflowing pieces equip our dear readers and ourselves with the capacity and understanding to transform the emptiness around us into a meaningful legacy born of a fulfilling past.
Works Cited
“Abundance, N. & Adv.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, September 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1773907809.
Schleifer, Ronald. Modernism and Time : The Logic of Abundance in Literature, Science, and Culture, 1880-1930. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Brushstroke
Written by Kaiya Mongrain | Illustrated by Anna Acosta
Who brushed horizons open, Spilled dawn into river’s mouth, Draped blue ’cross mountain’s shoulders?
Who folded hush into thunder’s pause, Wove hoarfrost across the ribs of stone,
Taught roots to listen ‘neath loam’s dark pulse?
I step barefoot into its breath, No stranger and no intruder I’m only the wind stitched to my lungs,
Only my skin recalls leaf-light’s touch.
Maple veins burn red within me, Aspen eyes stretch over my bones
Cricket-song rattles my marrow, In my blood glowflies kindle lanterns.
The world doesn’t paint itself around me.
I am a brushstroke, pigment, shadow;
Not separate, but scattered, A glimmer of seeping light
Spilled on the vast canvas, Still wet with becoming
Love Language
Written by Ava Joa
Illustrated by Emma Gardner
Lessons taught between breaths
Our lazy voices thick with sleep.
Tones that roll like grassy hills,
Fields where I am determined to till familiarity Though I am burdened by my tripping tongue.
A corner of your mind reserved for dreaming, Though your reaching arms still seem to find me
Mumbling in the syllables of your childhood - Soup and Shoe and Sweet and Hot -
We trace the palm-line paths on the page As you teach me to draw the ocean from your name
Birdlike mimicry, broken only when your lips touch mine. Though unsure if it is praise or a ploy to stop my clumsy repetitons
Blue light wreaths your face In kaleidoscopic beauty.
You dissolve into fractals, composed of ever shrinking beams
As your glow traces patterns on my skin
Gentle as kisses
Shadows of light spread by some far off sun
Lukewarm Coffee Lukewarm Coffee
Written by Kailee Owens
Illustrated by Lynna Cheng
There is lukewarm coffee on the table. The couch is old and worn. There are imprints where countless people have sat, ghosts of the time before the storm. Back when people had names and faces had features. Rain batters against the windows. It slides down the frayed edges of the house, down the cliffside, until it rejoins the ocean. Outside this haven, the storm rages on. Outside, it is cold and wild and deadly. The world outside will eat you alive like every fairy tale that has been clawing at your mind since infancy.
A boy sits on his dented couch—was it ever really his? It gets hard to remember these things, especially with nobody to remind you.
And he hasn’t been reminded in a very long time. He stares ahead, unflinching at the sounds coming from around him. It is a strange nothingness, filled only by the pounding of rain and the silence of his past and present fighting. They’re somewhere in the next room, though he cannot remember the house having more than one. His future is gone, tossed out to be torn apart by the storm. They never let him speak; his voice had been shattered long ago.
The edges of the house are fraying, slipping, sliding into that oblivion that comes from torrential weather and something he can’t exactly name. His meaning of home has changed so much and so often that the foundation has cracked. The cliff is collapsing, the house dying, the ocean is rising. It’s all an apocalypse in its own right, despite the fact that it will never be witnessed by the world.
He recognizes that he is standing at the precipice of what is and what could have been this space that feels like God’s palm on a stick shift or a martyr's mouth on a cigarette.
He fiddles at the fraying edges of a Nova Scotian fisherman’s sweater, pretending that his thoughts are his own. They whisper that he put himself here; they whisper that everything he has done is worthless. Every inch of himself, given for the sweet remorse of aloneness, will fray away like the edges of this house and the fisherman’s sweater. He has spent so long, so much for this aloneness. It is all he has done for as long as he can remember. Shatter, lose, rebuild, repeat. Shatter, lose, rebuild, repeat. Shatter lose rebuild repeat. Shatterloserebuildrepeatshatterloserebuildrepeat. Shatter.
Lose.
Hang on to those who he thought could stay. Those who he believed he could be alone with. The ones that were supposed to understand him. Friends? Maybe. Lovers? Probably not. He was not a boy built to lie in the shadow of somebody else’s silhouette. They all left, anyway. He held them so tight they slipped from his grasp like grains of sand and found themselves preferring the rain. Lose again, he supposes.
He sits on his couch, staring forward, though what he is looking for does not exist. His present and past have given up on voiceless words and have resorted to throwing things.
He took the mirrors down; did he mention that already? If he did, he might as well say it again. He took them down because he did not the reflection in them. Something disgusted him about the wrinkles around his lips and the sparkle in his eyes and the sorrow in his brows. He did not like the map it gave the world.
How can you rebuild a map from wrinkles when all the mirrors are gone and the house around you is collapsing and it’s raining inside and the past and present are fighting and God’s shifted to fifth gear?
He takes a sip of the lukewarm coffee. It goes down like a saint to the pyre.
Full Eavestrough Full Eavestrough Full Eavestrough
Written by Iulia Rus
Noah-James Bruce
Photography and illustration by
Sidewalk leaves blown in miniature tornados, Swirling, swishing ballerinas paired in the tango. Time and growth demonized, autumn decay romanticized Not so satisfying, once it’s muddy, wet and full of sticks. It doesn’t itch, it doesn’t crunch, it’s stuck in the eavestrough
Why am I like this? Why am I like this? Why am I like this?
Limbs, twigs, turned featherlight, Caught in the winds howling through a tunnel
Vision clogged by tears
Caught between a rock and a hard constant.
Why am I stuttering? Why am I stuttering? Why am I stuttering?
I think I need cleaning. I think I need cleaning. I think I need cleaning.
They all promise me, “You will be okay.”
They all comfort me, “You will not drown.”
They all soothe me, “Eaves will pool with leaves, And gutters will swim with clutter.”
Winter promises a long respite. Snow promises a soft blanket, Fog promises a silent night. Frost promises a tender touch,
I am who I am meant to be.
Nothing and Everything
Written by Nicole Strati | Illustrated by October Hua
Marcelle Strati left Cairo at 18 years old with nothing, and everything. She arrived in Montreal empty-handed, apart from the hand that held hers; the hand that belonged to Elie, the love of her life. A decade and two beautifully bright boys later, she and her beloved family moved to a mundane Floridian suburb to chase their dreams. While Marcelle and Elie’s dreams may have escaped from their grasp, Marcelle did not allow anything else to. For the rest of her life, Marcelle held on tightly to everything and everyone she cherished. She longed for nothing, because she had everything. And I mean everything. my not-so-humble , and everything. I could ever want or
The everlasting taste of cigar dared to enter. Every square in piles upon piles of junk. crumbling chairs, a barrel cho entire department store’s wo and a stack of what appeared Japanese take-out conta atrocities that made everything— y
Now it was up t members of the Strati family, to clean up her nothing. I made to begin with the barrel of mouldy match my brother, I lifted the barrel up and out inferno. As I began to discard the matche that every matchbox was identical. They were all decorated with an illustration of a potted fern alongside the words: Th
By midday, the waste pile was humongous. I watched as my mom began to collect the stack of empty Japanese take-out containers for the waste pile, when I was struck with a sense of familiarity. I saw an image of my mom carrying identical take-out containers, but this time, they were filled with a colourful assortment of sushi. I saw my family, gathered around the table with Marcelle at the head. I recall that she insisted on keeping the take-out containers, while my mom retaliated with the fact that they were meant for the trash. Nevertheless, Marcelle, insistent as always, washed the garbage, packed it into her suitcase, and brought it all the way home to Florida, just for it to sit in her garage. It was apparent that these take-out containers were not kept for her use; Marcelle had kept them as a memento of her trip to Toronto, where she had a delicious meal with her beloved family.
Relative Abundance Relative Abundance
Written by Tia Dias
The cosmos leans on repetition–stars scattered, light returning again and again until the night becomes whole.
Illustrated by Iman Jafrani
Life here moves the same way. Days blur together–lectures and deadlines, highlighters bleeding into the night, coffee cups orbiting laptops. At first, it all feels ordinary,
It is the rarer instants that suggest the frequency lingering with friends in the stairwell, pretending class can wait, three of you squeezed too tightly into the frame of a blurry photo, late-night food runs that tastes like freedom, hearing your sibling’s laugh echo through the phone.
Abundance isn’t excess. It’s the balance of enough time barely stretched to fit it all, laughter that lingers past exhaustion, the sweetness of knowing you are stitched into something larger.
Afterword
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
From Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi Nation). First edition. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
