soliloquies 16.1

sA oliloquiesnthology

16.1

oliloquiesSAnthology

Volume 16.1

Soliloquies Anthology

editorial committee

soliloquiesEditor-in-ChiefLizy Mostowski

Executive EditorPaula Haley Wilson

Creative DirectorCandice Maddy

Fiction editorsDave Crosby

Rebecca MacPheeEmma Robertson

Poetry EditorsAshley Opheim

Diandre PrendimanoColleen Romaniuk

Online EditorsRobin GrahamDylan Riley

Copy Dave Crosby

Production & Editorial AssistantAlexandra Oliva Albert

Volume Sixteen - 3 -

editor’s note

We’re not on a diet. We don’t believe in diets. We’ve just !gured out what we like. Sure, we’re getting slimmer and slimmer, and you may be rolling your eyes at us, thinking, Are they going to the gym? Or is it that hot yoga? No, we’ve just come to terms with ourselves.

This year, for the !rst time in a long time, we’re publishing biannually. We’ll launch both anthologies !rst in online editions, then compile everything together in a limited print edition this winter to release in May.

We’re proud to be showcasing talent from our own department here at Concordia, as well as talent from Montreal and Toronto. We are publishing prose poems from a Kurt Vonnegut fan from Ontario, Matt LeGroulx, who now lives in Montreal, and a lyric and a found poem from eccentric Concordia Creative Writing student Ali Pinkney. We have short imagistic poems from a student at Concordia on exchange from Wales, Matt Prout, and a short story by Torontonian Aga Maksimowska, which is an adaption from the !rst chapter of her novel, forthcoming this spring from Pedlar Press. Our writers have nothing in com-mon but an understanding of form, experimentation, and a peculiar sense of language.

We’d once again like to thank ASFA and CASE for funding our project. Thank you to Jon Paul Fiorentino and Simon Dardick for their guidance, knowledge and encouragement. Thanks to Sina Queyras for emphasizing the importance of the push to online publication. Thank you to our !rst-time-ever Creative Director, Candice Maddy, for all of her work and her keen understanding towards aesthetics and meaning both in art and in writing. Thank you to everyone in the community for their continuing support and interest in our small publication.

Lizy Mostowski, Editor-in-Chief


MATTHEW DUNLEAVY began taking photos when he was al-

lowed the use of his Dad’s Praktica SLR that he had eyed since

childhood. Due to the camera being broken he was forced to

learn the tools of the trade in the most difficult way. Mat-

thew’s interest in drawing and painting influences the way he

captures images; his subjects differ as much as his style from

balanced, traditional scenes to abstract light paintings.

CHRISTOPHER HONEYWELL is a Montreal based photogra-pher shooting exclusively in film with an emphasis on natural and improvised lighting techniques. Mixing street and landscape photography with portraiture, Christopher works to expose connections between human artifacts and the natural world. Christopher practices both traditional darkroom anddigital transfer processes. He recently graduated from Concordia University with a BA in English Literature.

MATT LEGROULX(b. 1982) grew up in Glengarry County in east-ern Ontario. Books were a rarity in his household and he learned the English and French languages from Bible stories read to him by his parents, the slang perfected by his aunts and uncles, TV sitcom Perfect Strangers and Ken Burns’ Baseball. Chance encounters with the work of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Ogden Nash and Walt Whitman put him on the path to prose and poetics. He now lives in Montreal with his wife.

AGA MAKSIMOWSKA lives in Toronto. She is currently Head

of English at an independent day school for boys. She holds

an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, a

Bachelor of Education from the University of Toronto and a

Bachelor of Journalism from Ryerson University. Her work has

appeared online and in print in Canada and Australia. Her first

novel, Giant, is being published in May 2012 by Pedlar Press.

Contributors


KIMBERLEY MOK is a writer, designer and illustrator based

in Montreal. She has a bachelor of architecture from Cor-

nell University, and writes about green design and architecture

for environmental blog TreeHugger, named one of TIME’s top

blogs in 2009. Her website can be found at

http:.//www.collectivepsyche.com.

ALI PINKNEY is a writer and performer who currently studies

creative writing at Concordia University in Montreal. In the fall,

her work emerged in Synapse Reading Series and The Void Maga-

zine. She was born to Northern, then proceeded to Southern

Ontario before she moved to Montreal. Both Ontarian towns

Ali lived in were popular test market zones.

My name is MATT PROUT. I come from Wales. I am here in

Montreal for 8 months studying at Concordia University on

an exchange program. I admire the music of Charley Mingus

and the poetry of Frank O’Hara. I support Liverpool F.C.

JONATHAN WOODS is currently completing his BFA in pho-

tography at Concordia University. He is interested in the sub-

tle scripts and institutionalized rituals that serve to frame

our everyday reality as something that is “solid,” “meaningful,”

and “worthy of seriousness.” While he mainly works in photog-

raphy, he also produces a comic, Barton Flats, and dabbles in

poetry when inspiration hits.

.

oetryP


Vegetable Taxonomy Matt Prout

A half moon onion andmy recumbent toasted sandwichrecumbing. Teawash and crumbit,mulching serenely inhalfpastfourlight. Teaswill and swigmulch. Grapeskin whiskey pooling!sh slippers. Night time laptop, dim monument –obscene maltstainplacemat. Ashtray reservoir, radio wordmulchhalfpastfourmulch. No time for this gurgitatingsink offal. Frying pan mollusc pilfersburnt pages ofdustpan chakchouka. Sweet lemslip.


hot n heavyAli Pinkney

from the heavy wooden top bunkin the black-walled: nails-out last roomof the family cottage, window overhung meshowing off the green maple leaves onthe property border “"aunting it” at their sun across the border,the neighbours with their retriever puppywho wouldn’t play tug-o-war with meagainst his religion (for real)probably bathing in the spreading weedsthey refused to dig regatta trophy collection overheadlog rolled, canoe paddled wins,gathering cobwebs with the wallswhere the walls give the roof roomto breathe the roof with the “carrot or screw”Rorschach water stain, I was !guring“which” past her blurry cheeks,past her blurry brunette mushroom cap,from the layer of yellow shitty-foamon the top bunk headcrown pressed against the headboard,against the scratched out bubblegum packetstickers that forged product names intolaughables, collectables, “crackola crayons”or “head and boulders shampoo” mork and mindy stickers on the outside,nano-nano, my sister on top of me,kissing, breath bad, heavy bunk breath,mushroom cut breath, wet, girl on top,i was “the boy”, with long hair andtiny cereal box “fun pack” breath.


in very mountainous countryAli Pinkney


LegendJonathan Woods

i saw a group of people todaywandering since ancient timeswandering through a legend, i thinkand they smiled as they wandered by


LegendJonathan Woods

i saw a group of people todaywandering since ancient timeswandering through a legend, i thinkand they smiled as they wandered by

Yellow TongueJonathan Woods

and the suggestion of companionship "uttering among the supports of the apparentmaybe of our situationa yellow tongue growing freckles of wisdom under a litany of ill-conceived expressions of sour intentarrived at through the ambivalence of this, but not unnoticed by the judgment of the winds on their endless search for rest in the fantasy of thatthat which begs occasional reinterpretation upon the shifting constellation of fading voices scattered among the balconies of thought


Shrewdness and a Vanishing SailMatt LeGroulx

The lazy gossips, as simple folk, knew I could not sleep. Evil serpent eggs clustered ‘round a scarcely-believable palm-tree and merrily rang the highest bells. Mighty nuts "oated tackle to the breakers, the lustre lost. I drove a ripple eternal summer deep into my shipwrecked doubts. A golden lizard reared up hollering scarlet shafts of moonlight. A beech tree yawned at the worm-eaten, hollowed-out brawling seamen. A hardly human mumbling rang the harbour, dulled the voyage, split and left. I swam rivulets deep with rain, burst away and mumbling like an idiot, tried to gleam through drizzle cups thick and rosy like a dull September afternoon. It turned, softly reigning a solitary home. I tranced, thought a harsh swoon appropriate, and broke a feather miles past the harbour. A limp seamen knew her, a horseman wanted her as often as needed. Then came a change. I lay recovering over a large barley haven dotted with peacock altars. A helpless, lucky, and bold !sherman thrice swept downstream like a dinged-up knife, turned and faced me. He loved a beggar. Active, I too cut across the bay to my children, the masters of ships land bound. Two masts un-set, three clenched tight in a lion formation. I bartered a death scaffold, named the day, and packed nature as neat and close as the grace of God. Sailor fashion, Mesmer passion, shrewdness and a vanishing sail.


Toledo Moustaches (Celestial Rewards) Matt LeGroulx

Mother enumerated the many years of my father’s con!dence in a frightful, querulous accent. “We are the cars, I should think. He’s going to college for celestial rewards.” Schenectady’s got intimate alpenstock, artless and historic. He ornamented his sedan with distinctly sociable intentions. Nothing but hotels, charming and tranquil. She had known him like ever so many New York winters, bundled in hay and smoking her clear uniform to the stitching. As the sun rose more gentlemen friends poured in, seventeen diners and all the pretty ones to boot. My father frantically placed his clutching arm carefully next to some wine by feeling the assassin’s hand by supreme agitation. He tied his shoe with no sensation and placed himself near the dark entrance with other world-stained legends but he stopped before he saw the long, intricate tin spoons, carved of pyramids with brown bowls soaked in a hot mixture. Moss-like encrustations delivered attacks of long forgotten teeth, their Toledo moustaches swaying in unison. Parched and huddled, my mother gazed at the assassin. She "oundered at his feet, conscious, mouth open. He never understood the traditions of her class.

llustration Iphotography

!


Farine Five Roses = Farine Five RosesKimberley Mok


Moebius Carpet = Moebius Carpet (intersection of Parc Avenue and Villeneuve)Kimberley Mok


Tree has eyes = TransmissionKimberley Mok


TransmissionChristopher Honeywell


Paper SpecterChristopher Honeywell

LandlockedChristopher Honeywell


Paper SpecterChristopher Honeywell


KerouacMatthew Dunleavy


Gale Ferris, Jr.Matthew Dunleavy

Fiction


Why Yesterday I Keyed My Father’s Car is a revised standalone excerpt from the novel Giant (May 2012, Pedlar Press) published with with permission of Pedlar Press.


Why Yesterday I Keyed My Father’s Car Aga Maksimowska

I was born eleven years ago, on the Assumption—August 15—a Catholic feast devoted to the Mother of God. When she was still here, Mama explained to me that unlike Jesus, who during his ascension into heaven had used his own powers to get up there, his mother had to be hoisted up, or assumed, by the muscle of God. “I,” Mama said then with her hand on her chest, “don’t need anyone to give me a boost.”

My grandmother, Babcia, peered from under her wild eyebrow and landed her !st in the middle of a ball of dough. It de"ated. She was making my favourite plum-butter doughnuts, p#czki, the same ones she always makes for Fat Tues-day. Because I was born on the Assumption, my name should be Maria, but my mama doesn’t pay attention to rules she considers petty and dogmatic.

“Religion is the opiate of the masses,” she said.

Babcia said, “Where did you learn that?”

Mama just stared her down while Babcia said to me, “We’re lucky to be able to celebrate the Assumption.”

.


I was confused. Dziadek, my grandfather, is a Communist, and he goes to church. Yes, he has to wear a wide-brimmed hat and stand outside in the church-yard during most services. But he participates, waving assorted tree branches on Palm Sunday and blessing hard-boiled eggs on Easter Saturday, allowing black dust to be deposited on his bald spot on Ash Wednesday, and seeing Jesus born at Midnight Mass. But he doesn’t do Catholic parades—no Corpus Christi marches in June or Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.

“Will the Communists forbid birthday parties $oo?” I asked no one in particu-lar.

“They can forbid things all they want,” Babcia said. “They can murder priests and $errorize people, but Poles will still be faithful $o their Father.” She $ossed the dough in$o a ceramic bowl and covered it with a $ea $owel. “It needs more time,” she said. “Everyone out of the ki$chen. It’s $oo bloody hot in here.”

It was bloody hot the summer Ta$a still lived here, $oo. My grandparents avoided our place when Ta$a was home, and I didn’t go $o their apartment for sleepovers then because Ta$a could look af$er me while Mama $aught priva$e English lessons for extra cash. He spent the summer days wa$ching European track and !eld competitions on the new $elevision he brought home from Taiwan. Mama worked in the spare room. My best friend, Doro$a Kowalska, said it was a ridiculous TV and that her black and whi$e Zenith made movies look much more romantic than our nouveau riche behemoth. But she’s just jealous because our $a$a is a machinist, whereas hers is only a cook who can’t hide things in the belly of the ship. Smuggling things on$o the boat from ports abroad can get people in trouble. One time, two guys with guns forced their way in$o our apartment. I wasn’t home. Mama had a gun stuck $o her head by goons who Dziadek says were looking for the drugs that Ta$a smuggles home. He only says that because he ha$es Ta$a for divorcing Mama, but it $akes two $o $ango. Maybe that’s why Mama can be so brave and go $o Canada all by herself.

I liked seeing the differently coloured uniforms and competing country "ags on the new TV. Plus the behemoth made Ta$a happy. He $alked in funny voic-es and let me have sips of his cold beer. When a beer bottle was empty, Ta$a would blow in$o it and make loud foghorn noises. “That’s what our ship sounds like when it approaches Taiwan,” he’d say. When I’d try, I’d only spit on myself and Ta$a would laugh. Mama would march in$o the living room. “I have a student in there,” she’d say, frowning, her belly growing fat$er and fat$er each day. Ta$a would get up and turn the TV down and I’d hide the beer bottle behind my back.


“And s$op giving her beer,” Mama said, her back $o us.

“Beer is bet$er for her than cigaret$es are for the baby,” Ta$a said af$er her.

She responded with a slam of the door.

To me, Ta$a said, “Make her quit smoking, Gosia. She smokes like a shipyard worker, like your grandmother.”

Babcia doesn’t work at the Lenin Shipyard. She’s the provisions manager for all the grocery s$ores in Gda%sk; that’s why we have more food than food s$amps allow. As my !fth birthday approached, the empty beer bottles were a $ower in the ki$chen, and the cigaret$e butts piled up in Mama’s maple leaf ashtray in the spare room where she slept. Ta$a s$ayed in the living room where my parents used $o sleep $ogether. On August 14, 1982, the day before my !fth birthday, Mama s$ood in the middle of the square hall at the centre of our apartment, her feet pale and sickly against the wooden "oor. Ta$a s$ood in the door $o the living room and wore leather slippers. Their voices had turned my at$ention away from the new mu-ral I was drawing in my room. Mama had ripped the sports-themed wallpaper Ta$a had moun$ed months before off one wall of my room and then pain$ed it whi$e. The wall was for me $o draw on, which meant I was forbidden from walk-ing around the apartment with my crayoned hand trailing behind me like a leaky hose, marking my $erri$ory in red or green. (Yes$erday I used the same motion $o key the side of Ta$a’s brand new Audi.) I now s$ood on the threshold of my room, digging my !ngernails in$o a warm red crayon. Mama looked as if she was possessed. I could have sworn she swayed from side $o side, a weeping willow. Her pregnant belly jut$ed out like a pro$ective shield.

“But you bought the TV for this apartment,” she said, her eyes darting from Ta$a $o the $elevision behind him. “For us.” She drew her hand $o her lips and chewed on a !ngernail. She hardly had any nails $o begin with. Ta$a disappeared in$o the living room and said from within, “I’ll have everything out by $omorrow.” Sports trophies and pho$o albums were landing in sui$cases like bricks.


“But $omorrow is my birthday party,” I said, placing the shrunken crayon in my other hand and wiping the $oxic colour on$o my shorts. Mama was the only one who heard me.

“There’ll still be a party,” she said, looking at the spot where Ta$a had s$ood. “There’ll still be a party.”

There was no party. Mama never !nished baking my cake. The bat$er s$ood on the ki$chen $able, abandoned in half whisk, the red gelatin for the $op layer setting in the fridge. When I woke in the middle of the night it was raining, the !rst reprieve from a record-breaking heat wave. The rain came down so hard that the clamour of it on the corruga$ed windowsills made it di&cult $o sleep. Mama was calling my name. Ta$a was gone. She was sitting on $op of the $oilet lid with her legs spread, blood the colour of my wax crayon spilled haphazardly on the tiny black and whi$e tiles. “Gosia,” Mama said. “Call the ambulance. The baby is coming early.”

I knew $o call 999. I’d witnessed the ambulance being called many times when neighbours knocked on our door in the middle of the night. Mama resen$ed “the Communist clowns” but liked helping people. Dziadek’s Party favours came in handy.

The ambulance $ook Mama away. Babcia s$ayed the rest of the night with me. She cleaned up the WC while I slept, and Dziadek came over the next morn-ing with milk and the newspaper. He wished me S$o Lat and kissed me on the eye ins$ead of the forehead. We went for a walk but didn’t visit Mama in the hospi$al because only the husband is allowed $o visit.

Mama brought home my premature sis$er the next day. The baby’s skin was as translucent as communion wafers and her head was as "at on one side. She hardly moved or made any noise. She was hardly a baby at all.

Ta$a picked up the last load of his belongings a few days af$er Mama’s re-turn from the hospi$al. He brought me a small, red plastic umbrella with whi$e polka dots on it. It looked like the Smurfs’ mushroom house. It was packaged in cellophane that smelled like all the Made-in-Taiwan things he brought home from his trips, except for the TV, which came in styrofoam and cardboard. “Happy birthday, big girl,” he said, and rubbed my hair. He showed me how $o open and close the umbrella. It broke on his third try. “I’ll bring you a new one next time,” he said, and chucked the broken mushroom umbrella. I didn’t want a new one be-cause it was ridiculously small for a !ve-year-old of my size, but I nodded anyway.

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