(parenthetical) issue 17: January 2017

(m

)

parenthetical seventeen

january two thousand and seventeen

m m m m m m m m m m m m m m with work from

Hana Alharastani

Steve Bourdeau

Nadia K. Brown

Ruth Daniell

Douglas Dumais

Laboni Islam

MW Jaeggle

Emily Kellogg

Annick MacAskill Lisa Richter

plus

non-fiction

Michael Russell Alex Tevlin

by Nicole Brewer

ISSN 2368-0199 fifteen dollars cdn

(parenthetical) issue seventeen january two thousand and seventeen

(parenthetical) issue #17 © 2017 all copyrights remain with respective contributors ISSN 2368-0199 (Print) ISSN 2368-0202 (Online) fonts used include Kingthings Trypewriter 2 © Kevin King 2010 FFF TUSJ © Magnus Cedarholm 2009

www.wordsonpagespress.com words(on)pages is: william kemp, co-founder and poetry editor nicole brewer, co-founder and fiction editor michael brewer, director of business operations

contents - issue seventeen Note from the Editors Weigela

fiction by Nadia K. Brown

Northland

poetry by Laboni Islam

Gloves

fiction by Emily Kellogg

poetry by Alex Tevlin

I. vi from Medulla (Ill Meat)

poetry by Annick MacAskill

I Meant What I Said When I Told You I Could Buy Six Falafel Sandwiches for a Hundred Liras

fiction by Hana Alharastani

Half-Shark

poetry by Ruth Daniell

Snippets of Benjamin

poetry by Michael Russell

piĂŠta

poetry by Douglas Dumais

volitionlessness

poetry by Steve Bourdeau

When the Mystery Writes Itself

poetry by Lisa Richter

Forest from the Trees

poetry by MW Jaeggle

be cd

new year news Happy new year, dear readers! We hope you had some time off to eat too much and surround yourself with people (or pets) who love you. We come to you this issue with some big, bittersweet news: this summer, we will be putting (parenthetical) on hiatus for at least a few months. Issue 18, coming out in March, will be the last issue before the hiatus with content from submissions; we are excited to be preparing an editors’ choice issue for our three-year anniversary in May. And these last two contributorbased issues are going to be amazing, so dig in!

It’s important to us to continue contributing to the CanLit community, and words(on)pages will continue doing everything else we do: our second annual Blodwyn Memorial Prize will open for submissions in February, we have a full list of 2017 spring and fall chapbooks coming out, and words(on)stages is booked through to July, with the support of the Toronto Arts Council. We’ve prepared a longer piece on how we arrived at this decision which you can find at the end of this issue, if you’re curious. Here is a short excerpt, which—while not entirely complete—covers a few of the key reasons we need some time to refocus and reorganize: “Behind the scenes, (parenthetical) has been getting harder and harder to run. As with any new project in this digital age, the need to produce more, the need to continue to be new, is overwhelming— somewhere along the line, it felt like those perceived needs to be new, to be more, were starting to get in the way of what we wanted the magazine to be. We want it to be a place for truly new writers to see their work in print, to be able to add a publication to their bio, to feel the long-awaited vindication of getting published. We have a core set of ideals for (parenthetical) that we don’t want to let go of: there is value in print; writers must be paid; merit is not in a name; books (for better or for worse) will be judged by their covers.”

While we’re sad to step away, we’re excited to see how this break will bring us back even stronger, for words(on) pages as well as for all of you: our wonderful readers, our talented writers, and every single person who makes what we do possible and worthwhile.

See you in March! And in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the stellar cast of issue 17.

Nicole & William

Weigela

b It wasn’t so much the bridge that troubled him, but the flowering Weigela that grew alongside it. It was June, and the air was thick with the Weigela’s citrus scent. Overloaded with clusters of white and crimson, its branches dipped toward the swollen river. Delicate petals spilled across the wrought-iron rail. They tumbled, unconcerned, into the water below.

Wistfully, he watched from his spot on the bench, firmly wedged within the torpor of regret. Every Spring, as he returned for his vigil, he witnessed the bridge transform. Its wooden boards disappeared behind swaths of green, and blossoms—pale at first—filled the lattice rail before igniting in the sun.

Passersby strolled across the bridge; indifferent to the grief that doused the air, their movements light and laden with ease. He sat, silently dissolving in the echoes of their steps.

When he arrived in May, the Weigela was bleak and hidden in its winter carcass. And now, reluctantly, he watched it triumph again. Such relentless beauty in the spot where he died.

b Nadia K. Brown

6

Northland Ours to discover, at 90km/h. Barrie. Gravenhurst.

Bracebridge. Huntsville. North Bay. A break scheduled for 2:30pm—the bus driver repeats this word: scheduled. Tim Hortons will quench us, as we wheel through Shield country. Snow flurries the ridgeline. A row back, the grad student and the girl snack loudly. Thus begins a dissertation on Frito Lays, their taste, their texture, the degree of satisfaction in the caloric crunch. He’ll prove himself like a thesis. At each station we accrue more passengers, the bus expanding like a definition challenged by new discoveries. Couples begin the slow walk down the aisle, searching for double seats. This is not what the driver would call a scheduled break, but smokers see a glint in the granite, alight and inhale nicotine.

Breath clouds as it hits the dew point. -17⁰C. Earth, at its perihelion, closer to the Sun than in summer.

Earphones leak one-hit wonders and one-hit wonders to be, syncopate hospital calls about loved ones faring better. Ten rows up, the kid who flashed her ticket with Olympic pride, parrots some profanity she’s learned at home.

In the rear-view mirror, her mom’s face, a mood ring shifting. Outside, trees demonstrate their yearly resilience against Winter. Not all conifers are evergreen.

Tamaracks dress likes pines but shed like aspens, sun siphoning chlorophyll till needles turn golden, fall. One can’t fault this, really.

Everything wanting to appear stronger than it is.

Laboni Islam

Gloves He checked the time. He was late. He paced the living room. She would be angry. He thought about the pleading look in her eyes, the slump of her spine, the sucking noise she made biting dead skin off of her lips. The room was warm. He shuddered.

He scraped well-kept nails over the red bumps of his eczema. Flakes of skin fell to the floor, settling into the off-white carpet. He watched with disgust before pulling himself into the kitchen. He had to stop scratching. He couldn’t stop itching.

He inspected the kitchen wallpaper through square-cut spectacles, observing the dust that paled the red of the roses and the green of the stems. He stretched his hand towards the wall, catching himself before making contact. He really should remove the layer of grime from the shabby kitchen. He longed for the Swiffer in the closet.

He checked the time. He was late.

He reached for the dish soap and squeezed a dab of the slimy pink stuff on his fingers. He washed away the last hour’s filth, starting at the fingertips and working a soapy lather up to his wrists. His skin was raw and the soap stung. He turned off the water and dabbed at his hands with a wad of paper towels. He glanced at the white dishtowel hanging over the sink, shuddered, and flicked off the lights.

The beds were made. His sister wouldn’t be home this weekend, so there was no chance of her mussing the perfectly tucked sheets. There were no dishes in the sink, but his parents would be home soon. He should leave before his father turned on the lights and drank a glass of water before rinsing out its insides for dust.

He hesitated in front of the back door. The houses on this block were identical, distinguished only by cheerful numbers painted on each mailbox in forest green. In the dark, he sometimes worried he would stumble into the wrong house, that he would blindly fumble through a kitchen and up carpeted stairs only to discover a stranger drooling on unfamiliar sheets.

He pulled on his black pea coat. One of the buttons was loose. He hoped he didn’t lose it.

This was a nice coat. He wrapped a light grey scarf around his neck. In the dim, he couldn’t see the spot where she’d stained it with red lipstick. The memory left him uneasy.

He pulled on a pair of black leather gloves. It was cold outside, and the trip to her apartment would take at least an hour. A seam was ripping, and the tan lining was visible through black stitching. His eczema chafed against the fabric.

He pulled open the back door. He rocked back and forth on the stoop.

He checked the time. He was late. She would be angry. He thought about her fingers twisting into each other, knuckles cracking. Sometimes she chewed on her tobacco-stained nails. He shook the image out of his head.

He stepped into the cool November night. He locked the door behind him. He checked the lock.

He hesitated. He checked the lock again. He turned and walked down his street, counting identical bay windows. He only once turned back to make sure the door was locked and all of the lights were out.

He passed trash cans neatly lined against the curb and windows framing flickering TVs. He walked faster. He passed unruly lawns, swing-sets, and a broken basketball hoop. He turned the corner and propelled past boarded-up storefronts, a deli, and a gleaming McDonald’s.

He paused at the entrance to the subway.

He descended the stairs. He felt uneasy. His nose itched. He couldn’t scratch it, so he scrunched it up several times in a quick succession. He stared at the glistening metal of the subway turnstiles. He swiped his Metropass and thought of everything the turnstile had ever touched. He shuddered.

The train slid into the station, and he was overwhelmed by a hot breeze carrying the scent of burnt plastic and oil. He edged past the crowd of commuters, grateful for the wiry limbs that allowed him to tower over the hot, wet breaths of the crowd.

He ducked into the car and studied the ads coating the walls. He gazed longingly at the image of a beautiful redhead cradling a baby. She looked so peaceful and so kind. Her breasts looked so supple and so warm. She implored him to turn to Jesus in times of crisis. She told him only the Light of Christ would ease his pain.

I’m sorry, he thought, shaking his head. I’m agnostic.

He looked down at the grime smeared across the floor by countless feet. Behind him someone sneezed, and he leapt forward. The train came to an abrupt stop, and he lost his balance mid-jump.

He hurtled downwards, his gloved hands extended. And then he was on the ground, with only his forearms to protect his face from the grit. He looked around at bare hands with peeling cuticles and dirt-encrusted shoes. He smelled ripe sweat and stale smoke. His pulse was in his ears, in his hands, in his shoulders. His skin felt sticky and hot. Paralyzed, he suddenly couldn’t remember if he’d locked the door on the way out, or if he’d washed the dishes, or if he’d made the beds.

He was so late. Would she be angry? Would she be all right? Was he all right? He coughed every night, falling asleep just before sunrise, and he was tired and his body shook, and he didn’t eat, because he couldn’t eat. And his lower back ached, and he had to move out of his parents’ house soon, but he had no job, and she loved him so much. And he would die soon, he knew, because he was tired, so tired, but he could never, ever sleep. And he needed health insurance, and the beds were always unmade, and the Swiffer needed replacing, and his mother had a cold, and she, well, he was late, and she was angry.

And there they all were, coughing and sneezing all around him when all he’d wanted was to stay in his room and watch dust fall before vacuuming it back up again.

She never wore gloves, and she never took the vitamins he’d given her, and she didn’t even own a vacuum. And maybe he was wrong, and maybe she was right and maybe it made no difference if the bed was unmade, but if that were true, how would he ever feel safe enough to fall asleep before dawn?

The train started moving again and someone offered him a hand. He ignored it and scrambled to his feet, his breath laboured. His skin itched, and he was struck with the desire to rip off every inch of it that had ever been touched. He imagined himself in his clean shower, the water scalding hot, burning away the dirt. And he thought about the fun times he’d had cruising in Tim’s car, and the laughs he’d had in that bar last night with Jake. He liked to laugh, maybe he could laugh now. He should laugh now.

He’d fallen. It was funny. And so he tried. He tried very hard to laugh. A barking cough came out of his mouth instead. He shuddered.

He emerged from the subway into the cold air. Downtown was so dirty. The air was rife with the honks of horns, screams of streetcar brakes, and howls of laughter. He was getting closer. He passed crumbling student housing and quiet smokers with glowing eyes. He passed dingy pizza shops and convenience stores with dusty displays.

He was at her building. The door was unlocked.

He walked inside and marched up the stairs. He skirted a narrow hallway, dodging spider webs and peeling paint, getting closer and closer to his prize.

In high school they’d called him a bubble boy. They taunted him until he cried, telling him that he could never be touched. But he knew better now. He knew now that he shouldn’t be touched. Because he was better, cleaner, purer. Nothing would touch him. He would keep himself safe and warm. He would keep his chafed hands clean and his body free of toxins.

He knocked on her door, his chest swelling with pride.

She smiled and embraced him, groping at the buttons of his pea coat and untying his grey scarf with trembling fingers. She pressed her chapped lips against his, tickling him with the tip of her tongue. She reached her naked hands into his curly hair, drawing him closer, drawing him in.

He looked past her to the sink full of dirty dishes and shuddered.

g

Emily Kellogg

you have not yet closed your fingers around it. the sound of air and the cars that cut through it slowly passing through a fleshy barrier the stretching ’til the snap and eddies curled around after behind it. the slope of metal and the feel of air like water over leaves which are a new bright green still bending with the vigour and viscosity of youth, skin and shell far from cracking still months from the final drying.

b

the shape and space that housed you the slow built geometry of bone and skin the tapping of teeth as if that would settle it— would establish right of residence— a sublingual echolocation.

b Alex Tevlin

b

I. vi1 from Medulla (Ill Meat) Annick MacAskill

My sweet harpy

waste my body cast my fury to the Styx and blast my heart on stone.

In seasons the kid mocks us, wicked, throws his ball at our window: “O, lovers,

I obsess you voracious; you I bait.

Pray your exile hour, rasp and croon. You will wait for death.”

1. XXIX (l. 14) – XXXV (l. 1).

I Meant What I Said When I Told You I Could Buy Six Falafel Sandwiches for a Hundred Liras You just had to be smart about it. First you go to Amawi road, next to that old mosque with the white marble floors and flocks of pigeons circling above. Go to Abu Ammar’s hole in the wall shop in the haara just a block away. If he says marhaba and doesn’t move from his stool, he’s not Abu Ammar. Ask for Abu Ammar.

When he comes, he’ll say ya hala and lean against the massive counter, readjusting international call cards and moving boxes of chocolate as if to make room for you.

He’ll ask you if you want foulle or hummus. Ask for falafel. He’ll smile and say ala ainy and disappear into the back room. Leave the shop and walk two blocks down to Hamza and Abbas. You can’t miss the big blue sign with the yellow lettering. Stand and enjoy the air conditioning and the smell of pastries. Wait at the counter until a flour-puffed young boy greets you. Ask for three sugar buns. Threaten to seek them elsewhere if he tries to give them to you in any state other than taaza. He’ll ask for fifty liras. Tell him you know Abu Ammar. Pay twenty-five. Head down the street to pick up pickles and pickled turnips. Tell the vendor you want to have a taste. He’ll hand you a small jar with an assortment and wave you off. Slide over twenty-five liras as a thank you, but he’ll tell you to keep it. Leave it anyway. Go back to Abu Ammar’s. He’ll greet you as warmly as before, this time sliding over a white bag with grease stains blotting the bottom. Nus dizzineh, he’ll say, opening the bag to show you the six patties lined in a ring around a small tub of garlic yogurt sauce. The smell will captivate you. Abu Ammar knows this, which is why he’ll take one from his personal batch, dip it in yogurt, and hand it to you, on the house. The crunchy exterior made savory by the sauce has you all but drooling. Pay him fifty liras that he’ll be insistent not to take. He’ll tell you to send his salaams to your father. You know he doesn’t know your father, but you’ll do it anyway. When you arrive home, split the buns in half, slice them open, and then fill with falafel, yogurt, pickles, and samma’a. Your mother will definitely have it in her spice cabinet; it’s sour and red, you can’t miss it. Invite your family to eat. Tell them about Abu Ammar. Tell them about how you bought six falafel sandwiches for a hundred liras.

Hana Alharastani

Half-Shark

g Ruth Daniell

I wonder if you ever think of the man who shoulder-checked me in the street last Christmas; you wanted him to apologize and he sneered back at you to control your woman. You’re better than that but still your hands clenched into fists.

It’s too easy to think you’re Superman: Kal-El came from another planet to fight for those he came to love: you and I have been on Earth our whole lives, eating extra slices of our grandmother’s famous chocolate cake. Filling up years with teddy bears, Barbies and Hot Wheels, Krystal Princess fairies and Biker Mice from Mars.

We created a combined world of My Little Ponies and Street Sharks and grew used to happiness.

I remember my favourite pony with the ribbony, mother-of-pearl mane and heart tattoo on her rump who neighed her distress until you stormed in with your half-human, half-great-white-shark on rollerblades to save her from the mutated rat and his tank of bubbling green poison: we cobbled together narratives so we were always on the same side. Today I’d never liken myself to that princess pony awaiting rescue but there’s truth in the way you still want to help, like a benevolent beast. You are not an alien who arrived on Earth with innate superpowers: you’re something stranger created by experiments of loyalty and pain. You’re fearsome and good, horrible as you grit your great white teeth against the currents of the city’s sidewalks.

Snippets of Benjamin I. Benjamin Experiences a Little Bit of Wonder Tonight, before bed, you crawl through the jungle of the carpet, machete the long strands of grass with your fingertips. You swiftly pass a stuffed tiger then stop gargle your words and spit them out— Hewwo Tigger.

If you could you would curl the small beast of your body and find a home in the wild stripes of his architecture. This is the language you speak—nature—that primal animal of grunt and groan.

II. Benjamin has a Temper Tantrum From beneath your foot you crush a village of plastic men, pick up their tattered bodies and throw them against the wall. They snap like crayons. So much hurricane in your fists, so much anger. You crouch into a rosebud and scream.

The veins in your neck like tiny roots pull you into the ground and you bloom carelessly— hands whirling in the wind, feet thrashing against the floor.

III. Benjamin Sleeps

b b

b cb

You are heavy as a sack of potatoes.

I have spun a home for you in my arms, spiderling, your drool pools on my shoulder, sticky as webbing.

I look to you then at me then at us in the mirror and think what a blessing it is to hold you precious, to sail you across the ocean of the carpet, to feel the roughness of the water gently move you into a deeper sleep.

Michael Russell

there’s a kind of unknowability to lovers i imagine looks something like this an impenetrable enigma a veil surrounding us from outside we look like sculptures surrounded in glass cases that i could see in my reflection while standing fathom far from piéta as i held jesus who gently caressed my robes my tears materialized into marble i watched what looked like columns solemnly drift by at selfie-stick-length apart but just close enough to instagram jesus whispers to me they’ll save themselves but i’m mary i’m just like fuck jesus you scared me i thought you were dead

9

piéta

Douglas Dumais

9

volitionlessness 1.

On the porch

of Danyboy’s house I stare at Micky—I see: his hair, the faded green tips down to his shoulders like verdigris—the poisonous result of some chemistry metallic.

Or no, better: his hair is the color of weekday traffic on the highway; the color and shape of the five o’clock Metropolitan on a gray, overcast day.

Can you see it?

And this afternoon offers little hope

of improvement— it is in that sense very much like Micky’s hair: Some kind of traffic

of density of entropy of entrapment.

2.

Danyboy says we should go fishing under the train bridge

across Grande Côte barefoot in the cool water… …cast and reel… cast and reel like we imagine other small-town youths do on hot, lazy afternoons.

Maybe catch a snake, maybe find

a dead body.

And that, even if none of us owns any fishing gear—even if none of us ever went fishing before, even when we were ten

and still had father figures.

Steve Bourdeau

Where the Mystery Writes Itself for Maurice Sendak

1.

Summer of ’35. The monsters in your Brooklyn closet go, Look at him, not a little pischer anymore, he’s grown so big! Uncle Schmuel kisses you

“Please don’t go. We’ll eat you up. We love you so.”

though you’re eight-and-three-quarters already. Auntie Rosie’s bosom is a bosom, beige silk sleeveless blouses salt-stained beneath whitefish biceps, onion sweat and perfume of moist cleavage she pulls

—Where the Wild Things Are

b

your face into. Marbled yellowing teeth threaten to tear into your flesh and devour you with groans of guttural Yiddish.

2.

On the way home from the deli, the Horowitz boys corner you in the alley, call you a faigele, and though you don’t know what this means, you know it is something you shouldn’t be: mocking you with flopping wrists, spritzing lisp-spray through their teeth and into your eyes. They straddle your chest, mash your face with meaty fists.

b

You don’t know yet that someday, far in the future, in Greenwich Village, you’ll find other boys, the ones who will spoon you on lumpy mattresses in coldwater flats, smoking and drinking coffee from a single hot-plate after love, the ones whose bodies you will devour with groans of guttural Yiddish.

3.

Some nights, as you fall asleep in your childhood bed to the sound of clanging pipes, the card game your father plays with his friends in the kitchen, you close your eyes and sail into

Dizzy, open-mouthed, you land in the tangled forest where the wild ones grunt and dance the world into creation, scoop you up into shaggy embrace, and you hope to God they never let go.

b

the hairy-starred night, your breath a silver diaphanous shroud in chilled onyx air, and the sea sways like armies of arms holding up a bridegroom’s chair to the bleating notes of Klezmer clarinets.

b

Lisa Richter

Forest from the Trees

To an English Naturalist I left the exhausted day, pulled into the forest.

Tucked in beside by my new acquaintance, I— I say, is this the treatment from Evening, the barbed welcome of bracts, the bough’s advances, jocular, the rain’s titter tatter keeping me from my new companion?

MW Jaeggle

On our impending (parenthetical) hiatus*

b

b

nonf iction b We started words(on)pages on a whim, essentially—a “fuck it, why not?” kind of naiveté that admittedly got us pretty far. Within seven months of discovering that “micropresses” were a real thing in Toronto, we researched, planned, and lucked our way into creating one. Some of our good luck came from amazingly generous supporters of our early launches, shows, and issues: established members of the community graciously sharing our news, or donating their time and talent for a tiny honorarium. Their generosity generated a lot of our first several words(on)stages audiences, and drove submission numbers up. And every single person who sent us their work for the first issue of (parenthetical)—it still astonishes me, to be honest.

Sixteen issues later, and I am still blown away and honoured by how many talented writers want their writing to find a home in our pages.

“

It’s too easy for me to talk about all the elements of words(on)pages at once, because they are so inextricably entwined for me, but I want to be clear: words(on)pages is continuing, full force, with a second annual Blodwyn Memorial Prize, a complete 2017 lineup of chapbooks, and words(on)stages programming through to July, as of now. Currently our plan is just to pause production on this and only this, (parenthetical).

So why pause? Behind the scenes, (parenthetical) has been getting harder and harder to run. As with any new project in this digital age, the need to produce more, the need to continue to be new, is overwhelming—somewhere along the line, it felt like those perceived needs to be new, to be more, were starting to get in the way of what we wanted the magazine to be. We wanted it to be a place for truly new writers to see their work in print, to be able to add a publication to their bio, to feel the long-awaited vindication of getting published. We have a core set of ideals for (parenthetical) that we don’t want to let go of: there is value in print; writers must be paid; merit is not in a name; books (for better or for worse) will be judged by their covers.

Maybe this predestined us to remain small and to barely break even forever, I don’t know—but what we weren’t expecting was for print sales to dwindle despite rising views online and rapidly increasing submission numbers. When I say our sales dwindled, I don’t mean we went from selling out print runs of 100 issues to selling only 40 or 50 copies. No, we mean we went from selling 12 or 15 copies—from launch sales and online sales combined—to selling 8, maybe 10. Looking at one set of figures—site visits, online readership, social media followings, submissions statistics, etc.—might lead you to believe we really were growing (parenthetical). Looking at another set of figures—our bank account, our launch sales, our online sales—might lead you to propose a hiatus or to stop altogether.

So there’s the business end of the truth. We want to be a magazine that pays our writers—we refuse to be a magazine that doesn’t—and we’ve been eating the cost of a $15 payment (or $5 and an issue) per contributor for just about three years. When we dreamed this up in early 2014, we hoped we’d be able to increase that amount by now—even just by $5 or $10. But the reality we face is that the grants, donations, sponsorship, or crowdfunding needed to increase any aspect of the magazine take more time than we can manage right now, running We have a core set of ideals an entire micropress in the spare time around for (parenthetical) that we jobs, social lives, our own writerly ambitions, don’t want to let go of. and being partners outside of this whole micropress thing. One purpose of this hiatus is to look more calmly into grants, sponsorship, and so on, so we can come back stronger than ever for us and for the writers who make our magazine possible.

Sixteen issues later, and I am still blown away and honoured by how many talented writers want their writing to find a home in our pages.

”

“

”

There is one obvious solution to the business end of this truth: reduce our costs by moving to online only. This is logical and relatively straightforward, but removes a huge part of who we are, not just aesthetically, but idealistically: we want emerging writers to be able to see and hold their writing in print, because many of Canada’s print journals are so established and so popular that the competition for space is fierce. Changing our format so drastically feels like too severe a compromise, for us and for the writers we want to support. Rather than strip ourselves down too quickly, we want to take this break to slow down for a second, and really consider what the future of (parenthetical) looks like—literally.

“

I like what words(on)pages allows us to do for amazing young writers out there, and I like how that makes me feel.

”

The amount of work, although a lot, isn’t really a factor in wanting to step away from the magazine.

Because the work is always worth it—it will never not be worth it to put in our 30+ hours of work to have someone’s poem or story in a beautiful publication and share it with even just a handful of attentive readers. Occasionally people will ask us how we’ve kept going this long—often other young writers and publishers who are looking to start their own projects—and it’s taken me a while to land on an answer. I think, mostly, it’s because I’m selfish: I don’t want to stop reading the hundreds of amazing submissions we get; I like the little high that comes from being someone’s first publication; watching people’s hands delicately trace the binding will never not be flattering. I like what words(on)pages allows us to do for amazing young writers out there, and I like how that makes me feel.

But it’s difficult not to let the financial reality of a project interfere with your enjoyment of it. With our own shrinking finances, we started to feel a lot of bitterness, plain and simple: instead of being able to look around Toronto’s literary scene in excited solidarity, we found ourselves starting to compare ourselves to people and groups we had no business comparing ourselves to. Just like I should not compare myself to Holly Holm just because I box recreationally twice a week, a three-year-old micropress should not compare itself to Canada’s most revered literary Just like I should not compare magazines. In addition to being ridiculous, myself to Holly Holm just this new outlook just felt bad—it was in direct because I box recreationally opposition to why we started words(on)pages. twice a week, a three-year-old Community and encouragement are supposed micropress should not compare to be at the heart of what we do, and here we itself to Canada’s most revered were, simmering jealously instead. This break literary magazines. is as much for our hearts as it is for our bank account. We drifted too far away from being

“

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able to enjoy CanLit for what it is, instead of what it is in relation to us. Does CanLit have Does CanLit have problems? It problems? It sure does. Loads of them. But it sure does. Loads of them. But also has heaps of talented writers, dedicated it also has heaps of talented publishers, and attentive readers, and we want writers, dedicated publishers, to take some time to focus on them. and attentive readers, and we When I first pitched this hiatus to Will want to take some time to focus last fall, I didn’t pitch a hiatus. I wanted to on them. close down (parenthetical). I was stressed, I was tight on money, I was tired as hell. The very real, very uncomfortable financial pressure of running a literary magazine like this was going to my head, and I put on a business hat I didn’t like having to wear. It made my hair look stupid. It started running into the parts of the work I really loved. And we hashed it out for weeks, debating and agreeing and backpedalling and conceding, until we arrived at this, our hiatus. Because there are solutions, and because we love this little magazine, and because a handful of other people love it too. So (parenthetical) pauses. We’ll still be doing all the other things we do. We’ll still be on the lookout for amazing writing from new writers, new publishers, other micropresses and small publishers, but we’re taking some time and distance to appreciate it in a new way—or, maybe, to relearn how to appreciate it in the way that made us want to start a micropress in the first place.

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by Nicole Brewer

*This was intended to be a working title for this piece, but when I typed it out in my Word document I liked how wrong it looked—I use all uppercase in Word for titles, so it looked like this: “ON OUR IMPENDING (parenthetical) HIATUS.” Isn’t that just perfect? If there is any magazine suited to pause, wouldn’t you choose one whose name inherently demands an aside?

contributors Hana Alharastani hails from Michigan and is currently an MFA candidate studying fiction at the University of Central Florida. When she’s not trying to save the world, she works as the assistant fiction editor and social media coordinator for The Florida Review.

Steve Bourdeau teaches English culture and literature at a small college deep in the suburbs on the outskirts of Montréal, where he lives with his better/saner half and their three children. Some of his short stories, essays, and excerpts from his novel-in-progress have appeared in Carte Blanche, The Portland Review, The Toronto Star, Full-Stop, and Five 2 One Magazine, among others.

Nadia K. Brown lives with her three children and a multitude of pets. She is a physician and a writer who seeks inspiration in the mundane angles of everyday life. Previous work has appeared in the Yellow Chair Review, and more is forthcoming in Mulberry Fork Review, Lost Documents, Corner Club Press, and Into the Void.

Ruth Daniell is a writer and the editor of Boobs: Women Explore What It Means to Have Breasts (Caitlin Press, 2016). Her work has appeared in Arc, CV2, Event, Grain, Room, and previously in (parenthetical). Recent honours include the receipt of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, and first prize in the 2016 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest with The New Quarterly. She lives with her family in Kelowna, BC. Douglas Dumais is a poet and artist living in Ottawa. He is an editor at In/ Words Magazine and Press. If you look long enough at this bio, and then at a blank surface, a negative image of Douglas Dumais will appear.

Laboni Islam is a Toronto-based arts educator and poet. She currently works at the Art Gallery of Ontario, animating the gap between art and young audiences.

She teaches for the moment when discovery flips a light-switch on in a learner.

Laboni is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program. Her poetry has appeared in FreeFall and WILDNESS, is forthcoming from spiral orb, and she was the recipient of the Janice Colbert Poetry Award (2014) and Marina Nemat Award (2016).

MW Jaeggle is a graduate student at McGill University. Previous work has appeared in The Liar, ditch, The Claremont Review, and on his mother’s fridge. He splits his time between Vancouver and Montreal.

Emily Kellogg is a Toronto-based writer and amateur tap dancer. Her writing has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Monterey County Weekly, Shameless, and The Huffington Post. She is the founding editor of the feminist witch zine, The Grimoire.

Annick MacAskill’s poetry has appeared in Room, The Puritan, The Fiddlehead, Arc, and Lemon Hound, among others. Her work has been longlisted for the CBC’s Canada Writes Poetry Prize and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of the chapbook Brotherly Love: Poems of Sappho and Charaxos (Frog Hollow Press, 2016), and currently lives and writes in Kitchener, Ontario.

Lisa Richter is a Toronto-based poet, writer, and English as a Second Language teacher. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Puritan, The Malahat Review, The Minola Review, Canthius, The Toronto Quarterly, and Crab Creek Review, among other journals, as well as two anthologies, Jack Layton: Art in Action, published by Quattro Books, and Voices for Diversity and Social Justice: A Literary Education Anthology. In 2010, she published a chapbook, Intertextual, with Pooka Press. Her debut full-length collection of poetry, Closer to Where We Began, is forthcoming with Tightrope Books this spring.

Michael Russell is a 26-year-old queer poet who is piecing together his first chapbook. He lives in Toronto. In his spare time he likes to read and write and participate in random nonsense. His work has appeared in cahoodaloodaling, The Quilliad, untethered, and QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology.

Alex Tevlin is a longtime Torontonian and sometimes chemist. Her writing is a ploy to keep the science at bay. She has previously been published in the Carleton Humanities literary journal, North.

colophon

This publication—issue seventeen of the literary magazine (parenthetical)— was published by words(on)pages in the month of January in the year two thousand and seventeen.

It was designed, printed, and bound in Toronto, Ontario, by words(on) pages co-founders William Kemp and Nicole Brewer, who used Adobe InDesign for layout, and was typeset and designed using Kingthings Trypewriter 2, Adobe Garamond Pro, and FFF TUSJ. It was bound by hand with paper, thread, needle, and patience.

Front and back covers were printed by Sebastian and Brendan Frye at Swimmers Group in Toronto. (parenthetical) could not be produced without the support of Michael Brewer, words(on)pages Director of Business Operations.

For this issue, we were unable to pay a proofreader, and don’t like asking for free work—please forgive any inconsequential errors.

is that a word? yeah,it means kind of off to the side; part of the whole, but ultimately inessential.

so like poetry? yes - adds colour.

so like art.

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with thanks to siblings & friends writers & readers coffee & tea moms & dads