O f f S I D EA Black Moss Press E- Magazine

December 2012

2 3

Contents:Robert Hilles on time lapse 4

A Frog in her Throat: Jenny Sampirisi on Croak 13 Top Shelf Rozalind Ewashina 20

Poetry and Prose Vanessa Shields 28 Braydon Beaulieu 29 Ava Homa 31

OffSIDE is:

Publisher: Marty Gervais

Managing Editor: Kate Hargreaves Editorial Intern: Jaclyn Klapowich Jared Pollen

Designer: Chris Andrechek

OffSIDE is an e-magazine operated by BLACK MOSS PRESS, a Canadian publishing house that has been in operation for more than 40 years. We publish poetry, fiction, non-fiction and photography. Many of our books have won national and international awards. Send submissions for OffSIDE to offsidezine@gmail.com

Black Moss Press2450 Byng RoadWindsor, Ontario, CanadaN8W 3E8

Produced by the Black Moss Press editorial team in conjunction with the English Department at the University of Windsor.

January 2012

Editor’s letter

Happy New Year offSIDE readers,

January weather may be miserable (at least in Southern Ontario, home of Black Moss Press), but it is the perfect weather to get cozy with some good literature. With offSIDE e-magazine, you don’t even have to leave the house! Grab a hot beverage and a blanket and find a comfy chair, and prepare to enjoy offSIDE’s first issue of 2012. For those of you who enjoyed our most recent issue, hopefully you were also able to enjoy Dawn Bryan’s reading at the University of Windsor in early November. Dawn, who we interviewed for our November issue, read

from her novel Gerbil Mother to a packed room. November was also busy for literary folk in Windsor with this year’s BookFest Windsor, which brought dozens of Canada’s top authors, in various genres, to the Art Gallery of Windsor for a weekend of great readings and panels. Black Moss’ reading, Girls’ Night Out, featured Mary Ann Mulhern, Terry Ann Carter, Rosemary Sullivan and offSIDE’s September issue feature writer Karen Mulhallen, who read to a standing-room-only crowd. This month, we bring you our usual variety of photography, poetry, and interviews with established and up-and-coming Canadian authors. We have a sneak preview of Governor General’s Award winning poet Robert Hilles’ new book time lapse, out in Spring 2012 with Black Moss. Our offSIDE intern Jaclyn Klapowich had a chance to interview Robert about his poetic practices and influences. It was a busy month for our interns, as this issue also features intern Jared Pollen’s conversation with writer and editor Jenny Sampirisi about her publishing work and her new book Croak, out now with Coach House Press. For lovers of fiction, we have an excerpt from celebrated writer Ava Homa’s upcoming novel Love and Peace, and of course a selection of fresh poetry, this time from Windsor writers Vanessa Shields and Braydon Beaulieu. Finally, our photography feature this month comes to us all the way from Vancouver, B.C. (where she is likely enjoying at least slightly warmer weather!) Emily Carr graduate Rozalind Ewashina’s photographs are moody, serene, while at once speaking to a sense of great isolation and even absurdity. We are very happy to feature her work in this issue. As always, we welcome submissions and feedback on our publication via email at offsidezine@gmail.com. Enjoy this issue and keep your eyes open in March as we already have some great work pouring in!

kate hargreavesManaging Editor, offSIDE

O f f S I D E

4 5

Robert Hilles on time lapse

by offSIDE intern Jaclyn Klapowich

Robert Hilles has published fourteen books of poetry and five books of prose. He has won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Writers Guild of Alberta George Bugnet Award for best novel, Stephan G. Stephansson Award for best book of poetry, and has been shortlisted for The Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Prize, The W.O. Mitchell/City of Calgary Prize, and the Howard O’Hagan Award.

offSIDE was able to interview Robert about his writing process, and his upcoming book of poetry, time lapse, due to be released in spring 2012 from Black Moss Press.

offSIDE: I’ve noticed that many of your poems are dedicated to or are about members of your family. How much of an inspiration are they to you? What else inspires you?

Robert Hilles: Since my very first book, Look The Animal Speak, I have written both poetry and prose that have centered on family. For me poetry is first and foremost about emotions and those are often strongest when they are wrapped up in family. Family is a very important influence on each of us, even those without a family are shaped by that absence, and [it] plays a larger role in defining us than education, religion, or politics. In my family poems I often explore the roots of love within a family. I have always been drawn to the endless psychological complexities within every family. However family is not the only inspiration or influence in my writing. In terms of my poetry, like most poets, I focus on the three core themes that every poem addresses either directly or indirectly: Love, Death, and Time. For that reason a good portion of my poetry also focuses on metaphysics. I often explore through poems my nebulous and ever changing notion of God. Lastly, I have written a number of love poems over the years. I strive to write love poems that are direct and honest and avoid sentimentality.

O: How do you do your writing? Do you have an office, go to a certain place, surround yourself with specific things?

RH: How and where I write has changed dramatically over the years. Now that my children are grown and I work mostly from home it is much easier to find the time to write. But I also take longer between drafts than in the past. Partly, that is because I demand more of each work and do many more drafts than in the past. As I have aged, I more keenly aware of the flaws in my writing so it takes longer to get each piece right. When my children were growing up and I worked fulltime, I wrote on weekends (mainly in the mornings). When they left home, I had more flexibility and wrote at various times of the day, and focused more on revisions than on first drafts. I used to love the first draft most as it came the easiest but now the first draft is more of a sketch and it is subsequent drafts that I prefer. My wife Pearl’s love of polishing a work has rubbed off on me. Sometimes I work an entire week

6 7

on just a few paragraphs. I find that a bit of separation helps me to be more objective and critical. I love the tightening process and recently I have been working as late as 3 or 4 in the morning—a routine I had in my twenties. I guess we go back to earlier patterns as the demands in our lives change. I have a small office I work in and am surrounded by my favourite books and every now and then peek in one for inspiration. I imagine most writers doing that.

O: You’ve written poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. What differs in the process for writing each of these? Which form is most difficult for you?

RH: Poetry, fiction and non-fiction each require very different processes. For example fiction, especially a novel, requires massive amounts of research because of the richness of detail needed. The Internet has made that easier but it still takes considerable time to get the details right. A novel also must have an original and engaging plot that appeals to modern readers most of whom are well versed with all plausible plot twists. I mull over plot alternatives a long time before settling on the right one. Fiction requires strong, believable, and memorable characters and dialogue. For that reason I find novels and short stories the most challenging. I foolishly thought in the beginning that a novel was merely extension of a long prose poem, but soon learned through valuable mentoring from Pearl that writing a novel requires significant honing and commitment to a worthwhile story.

Poetry I have written since I was a teenager and in all that time the process for my first drafts have not changed very much. I normally write a first draft in a single rush. Then I let the poem sit for six months or even a year without looking at it. Then I take the first draft and revise it repeatedly (sometimes literally nearly a hundred of times) until get it just right. I used to simply subtract from what was there until I had the essential core that made a poem. Now the first draft merely provides the inspiration or sketch for the final poem and I will add and subtract repeatedly until I find the best poem to match the original inspiration.

Writing non-fiction for me is closer to writing poetry than fiction so I find it somewhat easier because it is framed by real events while fictions requires copious details and much invention to make it appear real. In my novel A

Gradual Ruin (set partly in Germany and Russian during and after World War II), the historical facts merely formed a foundation over which the larger story had to be written.

O: How has your writing changed from Somewhere Between Obstacles and Pleasure to Partake?

RH: In my entire writing career to date the biggest change has occurred between those two books. Most of the changes I mentioned earlier occurred during that time. My children have grown up so I have more flexibility in how I work. Also, I now demand more of each piece of writing. But most of all my relationship with Pearl has resulted in significant changes in how I write. The most important things I have learned from her are discipline and precision. That means revising often to make each work as precise as possible in terms of language. In fiction it also means creating well-rounded characters, meaningful and interesting dialogue, and memorable plot points. Pearl has also taught me how to massage discrete, often disparate, fictional elements into the best and most cohesive story possible. In that same time frame, I’ve become much more rigorous and demanding when editing my poems. I strive for more precision and focus more on each word to ensure that only the most essential ones are left in and expunge as much excess as possible.

O: Did writing A Gradual Ruin and Calling the Wild change how you write poetry? Your writing process?

RH: The shift from poetry to fiction also caused a complete change in the way I write poetry. A Gradual Ruin had a bigger impact simply because I wrote it first. That book took nearly seven years to complete and in that time I had to write numerous drafts in order to get all the historical details right and also to hone the plot and characters. In that process it became very clear to me that I wanted the same precision in my poetry.

In both Partake and Time Lapse, I stripped down and built up each poem in many layers much like I had done in those other two books. Although poems are considerably shorter and have a whole different set of principles,

8 9

the end product demands the same intense editorial scrutiny. Sometimes in both Partake and Time Lapse it would only be after exhaustive drafts that I would find just the right word to complete a given poem.

Although the new process I follow now is much more demanding and strenuous I find it energizing and rewarding. For example in the last line of the poem Tethered, in Time Lapse, the word ‘stalled’ did not occur to me until very late in the revision process. However, that single word completes the poem in the way no other word I tried before it did. Before A Gradual Ruin and certainly before Higher Ground and Somewhere Between Obstacles and Pleasure I might have considered the poem finished before it was truly finished. Now I realize patience and persistence is key to making the poem as precise as possible.

O: Your books have been published by many different publishers. What keeps you coming back to Black Moss Press so many times?

RH: That’s a very easy question to answer. First and foremost it is because of Marty Gervais and what he brings to the press. He runs Black Moss Press like New Directions in the U.S. in that he commits to his authors for the span of a career and not just for one or two books. Also, unlike many small presses in Canada, Black Moss Press always publishes on time and each book looks more gorgeous than the one before. The production quality is equal to any in this country or the US. Every time I hold Partake I feel indebted to Marty’s high commitment to quality in all the books he publishes. Most important of all I keep publishing with Black Moss Press because of Marty’s commitment to great writing and his willingness to not interfere with a writer’s voice. At the same time, he also recognizes when a writer needs guidance. All my dealings with Black Moss Press have been extremely positive. Marty believes in his writers and he lets them know it. That is rare in the world of publishing, especially during this watershed moment in publishing.

OS: What can readers expect to see in your forthcoming book Time Lapse?

RH: Time Lapse shares some settings with Partake because some of the poems were written in Chiang Mai in Thailand where Pearl and I spend winters and that setting and culture factor into many of the poems. There are also some

familiar family poems but beyond that Time Lapse is also quite different from any book of poetry I have written before.

In this book, I have used different line breaks than in earlier books. Also there are more poems that play with language and explore new themes and styles. As the title suggests the one overarching theme in these poems is a keen awareness of time and more specifically of how impossible it is to be inside and outside of time simultaneously and yet we are.

As I have aged I have become acutely aware of the powerful influence time plays in all our lives. It is fairly common for older poets to lament as their mortality looms but I try in this book to avoid those sorts of sentiments and instead celebrate time’s unstoppable will and how it is moves life’s gears. In these poems I rejoice rather despair over that fact. I hope the poems in this new book take the reader out of themselves in ways I’ve never done before. Some poems are more playful and use repetition and music that is new for me. They also span a wider array of subjects than most of my other books. Still in the end, I like think of many of the poems as love poems.

10 11

Intent

Children pressed faces to frosted glass as a moose ran alongside the train later in bright moonlighta girl galloped a horse parallel to a cedar fence

I was one of the boys on that train, my father said after drinking half a case of Old Vienna and rolling a cigarette using Old Chum tobacco the horse stopped abruptlythe girl sailed head-first and didn’t get up

The train kept going he said and moistened the sticky rolling paper edge with a quick lick and sealed it with a pinchof thumb and forefinger lit the cigarette with a wooden match struck against his pant leg

Years later I visited him in the hospital in Winnipeg as he received chemo-therapy after a while he turned the TV a bit louder the actors having more to say

I thought of that girl and how I’d never know her fate when my father fell asleep I went to the window watched a quarter moon make its nightly progress the certainty of that not what I neededI closed the blinds returned to my chair sat in the same electronic glow that outlined my father

Vim

My uncle had a glass eyethat he polished on Sundays before church he’d take it out and hold it up to the light palm it open his fist show it to me like a chestnut he’d gathered

Later Dad would drive my mother to church but wait out in the car with my brother and mehe’d fiddle with the radio even though there was only one stationif a good song came on he’d turn up the volume hum alonghear that boysthat’s what you call musicyou get a ukulele or banjo and learn to play and that’s all I’m going to say on that subject then he’d light a cigarette blow smoke at the windshield

Whenever my uncle emerged from churchhis glass eye was in its proper placehe once claimed driving home that soon God would line us uplook us each in the eye not say a word just move on to the next one when he got to the end he’d just keep going

12 13

Windblown

Count rhododendron blossoms nested in all that celebratory green Count Scotch broom along rock-terraced hillsides Count flies winter drunkslipping from cracks Count quarter-sized daisies on the front lawn white daubs the eye notices first Count windblown Douglas fir branches forming needled humps over scruffy grass Count the buds on the fig tree contorted hazelnut the Oregon grape seasoned with red inedible berries that rise in nubs on each careful branch

Count dried stems of winter kill plants whose roots shrivel and give in the uneven ground Count gradual mountainspressing green against clouded horizon

Count deer that visit the yard at nightfall and sniff bunched grass sample first sprouts of annuals Count fist-sized clumps of moss blown from the roof

This afternoon you stand in shadows shoulders straight and watch a car pull into the driveway you should turn and go inbut wait for a man to get out kick aside moss and start to speak Count to ten the earth heaves

A Frog in her Throat: Jenny Sampirisi on Croakby offSIDE intern Jared Pollen

bio: Jenny Sampirisi is the author of the novel is/was from Insomniac Press. She is the Managing Editor of BookThug where she also edits the Department of Narrative Studies imprint, which focuses on innovative prose. She is co-director of the Toronto New School of Writing, a series of reading and writing workshops designed and facilitated by working writers. She teaches English Literature and Composition at Ryerson University. Croak is her first poetry collection.

Earlier this fall, author Jenny Sampirisi published a poetry collection entitled Croak with Coach House Books (2011). Jenny is also the author

14 15

of the novel is/was (Insomniac Press, 2008) as well as the Managing Editor of BookThug, a publishing house involved in the promotion and publication of experimental literature in Canada. In addition to this, Jenny also co-founded the Toronto New School of Writing, which runs creative writing workshops for aspiring writers outside of school. Jenny graduated from the masters programs for creative writing at the University of Windsor and has since had several years experience in the Canadian literary community. I had an opportunity to ask Jenny a few questions about her experiences as a writer, her new book as well as the future of the Toronto New School of Writing.

offSIDE: Hemingway once said, “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit.” What is your work ethic when it comes to writing? Do you make a point to write every day, even if you think that most of it will never see the light of day?

Jenny Sampirisi: I spend every day immersed in some aspect of the process, but that doesn’t always look like writing. No quill in hand. I read. I think. I talk to other writers and friends with good minds. I teach. I edit. All those activities flow into my writing and are absolutely necessary to the work I produce. When I do sit down to write, it’s the result of a lot of good thinking. When I sit down to edit, that’s when the shit gets inspected. My writing process is collaborative in many ways. I perform the work and edit based on audience feedback. I listen to advice from friends and editors. I encounter more texts that influence my thinking and I revise or write from that space. It does take a village to raise a book.

O: I read an excerpt of Croak on Coach Books’ website. Even from the little text I read, I felt echoes of Beckett’s How It Is not just in form, but in perspective (in the sense that many of Beckett’s stories seemed to be told from the view of a lowly creature). What is particularly

compelling to you about frogs, and do you think that the lives of these creatures in the mud in some way inform the human experience?

JS: Yes, the mud, the muck, the titillating but abject journey through a narrative, these things really excited me. I knew I wanted to write about “love” / about human relationships. Frogs compelled me because of their literary and cultural history (Kermit, The Frog Prince, Michigan J, Flip, Aristophanes’ squawking hoards). In The Frog Prince the girl is meant to kiss the frog to get her husband. In the original though, before she kisses him, she must repay him for helping her find her golden ball by compromising her personal space and her body for him: “Take me to drink, to dinner, to pillow.” Ultimately, she becomes so distraught and angry at him that throws him at the wall, nearly killing him before he reveals himself a prince. So you see, the relationship that I wanted to talk about between the Girls and the Frogs has a lot to do with the compromises made in love, and the sometimes unpleasurable bits of love, those parts where we must assert or lose our identity in love. Having the Girls interact with creatures not of the same species meant the compromise was made more acute. They begin to confuse their own identities with those of the frogs, whose experience of the world is very different.

O: One of my professors once said that there are two refuges for the modern poet, university and rock n’ roll. Today, selling two hundred copies of a collection constitutes commercially successful poetry. Do you believe that poetry is an obsolete and/or dying form, and do you find it difficult to write poetry in the face of this?

JS: Obsolete or dying? No. But I suppose if I believed that I wouldn’t do it. Poetry has a very vibrant community around it. Not just nationally, but internationally. I recently sat on a multidisciplinary arts council jury and what I saw were many forms of art including

16 17

poetry, visual art, installation, music, dance, etc. being considered on the same plain. We were looking at artists and their art, and poetry is art. Perhaps because books are commodity-centered we have a hard time looking at them in terms of art. We see them in a best seller vs. obscure death binary. Everyone would love a best seller and no one wants their work ignored, but there is so much going on right now, so much great work being produced and such fascinating conversations happening around it. These aspects of poetry aren’t generally measured in sales. So, in regards to your initial statement, I’d say I’m more rock n’ roll.

O: Interning for Black Moss has taught me a lot about how being a critical editor improves the clarity of your own ideas in the process of writing. How have your experiences at BookThug informed both the composition and conception of your own work?

JS: It keeps me reading and it keeps me tuned into what other writers are working on. It also gives me perspective on craft that are outside of my own practice. I love learning how other writers work. I also just really genuinely love the books we put out at BookThug.

Croak is available in bookstores now.

Frogs

This is odd. (Pause. Huff.) There are too many limbs. Why limbs? Why toes on limbs? Why limbs at all? Why fear of limbs? This isn’t defor- mity. Where are legs? Two legs. Where are elbows? Why nose? Why this instead of houses? Why boxes? Why not explain? Why mention? Why invite invent intent a cause for all these effects? (Huff.) There’s not a whole lot to push about here. (Pause. Louder.) This is odd. There are objects everywhere. Object. Object. Object. Did it break? Did it grow handles? Did the word splinter? Did the tooth chip? I know a good dentist. I know a good etymologist. An optometrist. I know the reconstructive surgeon. Fuzzy script. Mossy skin. (Frustrated.) What music is playing exactly? How big was the arm? Who notices?

18 19

Girls

this is dd (zzz uff ) there are tt many limbs why limbs why ts nn limbs why limbs at all why fear ff limbs this isn’t ww where are legs ww legs where are ws why nn why ns instead of hh why xx why tt explain why nn why intent a cause rr all these effects (uff ) there’s tt a tt muscle tt (zzz zzz eff ) this is dd there are everywhere (.) (.) (.) did it break did it grow handles did the n splinter did the tt chip I know a dd dentist I know a dd etymologist I ww the (.) nn fuzzy ss skin what sic is exactly asbigasht hthttm

The Narrators

The Girls are not all rightThe Frogs are notallright

20 21

ShelfRozalind Ewashina

Rozalind Ewashina is a recent Emily Carr photography graduate. She is currently a photographer based out of Kamloops and Vancouver, B.C.

For as long as I can remember I have looked at the world and visualized photographs waiting to materialize. I would close my eyes, trying desperately to capture the exact moment and the exact feeling as a fragmented, perfect piece of my memory and soul.

Whether I am a block from home, or exploring a far away land, I find that my surrounding environment never ceases to inspire me. I am constantly overwhelmed with the creative possibilities of certain settings and I love introducing people in to these situations. I am driven by my intuition in the moment and I revel in the energy of how I am feeling. I do not think that you can learn how to take a photograph that resonates with who you are — it must come from within and expose itself as an extension of the true energy that you possess. My work is successful when it is produced with the reality that not everything in life is perfect. I believe that there is no life without pain, no happiness without sadness and no art without emotion. I work and react with the notion that everything happens for a reason: hearts get broken, people tell lies, and death is inevitable; conversely, love can prevail, karma is perfectly sweet and there is beauty to be found everywhere. Our lives are constantly on the edge of the wonderful and the disastrous, and the only thing we can do it use both of these states to our advantage, soaking up the hurt and bursting through the happiness. My work stems from sadness but offers hope in the arbitrary and mundane, being able to produce in these circumstances is the only solution for moving forward.

Top

22 23

24 25

26 27

28 29

Vanessa Shields Shawarmas for everyone! Vanessa Shields has a degree in Communication Studies (Hon) with a minor in English from the University of Windsor. She lives, writes and works in Windsor, Ontario with her true love Nick, and their children Jett and Miller. As a freelance writer, her words have been published in various local and national publications. Her first book, Laughing Through A Second Pregnancy - A Memoir was published by Black Moss Press in April 2011. She teaches creative writing classes and workshops, and she organizes writing retreats as often as she can. She is passionate about literary arts and creative expression.

The Last Bite of My Chicken Shawarma

You’re like the last bit of my chicken shawarma

Wet and dripping with saucePushing through soft spaceRefusing to be held

Barely able to fit you inI put my self around youSavoring your soupy taste

I laugh as your juiceCrawls between my fingersSlips down my chin

I’m stuffedBut I eat you all upYou’ll be on my skin

Deep in my tongueFor hoursPeople will tell me I reek of you

Braydon Beaulieu is a graduate student in English at the University of Windsor. His work has appeared in Broken Pencil, echolocation, and Steel Bananas, and is forthcoming in the Windsor ReView. Follow him on Twitter: @BraydonBeaulieu Lionel’s Family Pecan Pie

Serves eight.Ingredients: Basic pie dough for a one-crust pie, one cup packed natural raw cane dark muscovado sugar, two-thirds cup light corn syrup, two tablespoons Haitian rum, one-quarter cup unsalted butter (softened), three large eggs, three-quarter cup powdered ants, one teaspoon pure vanilla extract, one-quarter teaspoon salt, two cups broken pecan meats, one cup mixed chocolate covered junebugs and butterflies, slightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and woodlice (for serving).

1. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a large circle about an eighth of an inch thick. Fit it, without stretching, into a buttered nine-inch pie pan. Trim off the excess dough, leaving a border of about three-quarters of an inch.2. Fold under the edge of the dough, pressing along the rim or the pan and forming a high, fluted border.3. Preheat the oven to three-hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit, with a rack in the lower third.4. Chill the pie shell until needed. In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, ants, corn syrup, rum, and butter. Bring to a boil over medium heat.5. Boil for about a minute, stirring constantly and scraping back any foam or stray legs that cling to the sides of the pan.6. Eat the salted junebugs and butterflies.7. Remove the pan from the heat; set aside to cool, at least fifteen minutes.8. Preen feathers.9. In a small bowl, beat the eggs until creamy. Beat the eggs into the cool syrup; stir in the vanilla, salt, and pecans. Regurgitate the junebugs and butterflies, stir those in too. Pour the filling into the pie shell. Bake until the filling is set but still slightly wobbly in the center, about fifty minutes or one flight around town, if you cut across the trailer park. Cool the pie completely on a wire rack. Garnish with woodlice when cool.10. Serve the pie at room temperature with plenty of slightly sweetened whipped cream, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for each pie slice.

30 31

table manners

would you please pass. yes. salt mines, he scratches stone in the salt mines. under his fingernails. elbow skin. get under my. please. thank you. thanks. thx. under here. i made you say. now please pass. use your indicators. connect your referents. use your napkin. wipe your please. eat them. and wipe with your napkin. serviette. whatever. whatev. wtv. elbows. keep them off dammit. did you grow up in a salt mine. he works them. in them. he works there and he spends whole days in the dark scratching away at the rock and looking for salt deposits. then the salt gets put in silos. cones though. you’ve seen them. chew with it closed please. please. yes. these peas are amazing. did you make these. stop it. the salt gets stored in these. put in them. deposited. salt in a constant state of depository. always in. rock. trucks. silos. shakers and food stomachs. yes. it’s very yes. these peas are honestly. how did you get them so. mmmm. pass them. i could eat these all. no you stop that right now. i’m not kidding around. but these peas. amzg. mmmm. did you use Windsor salt. such a rich taste.

Ava Homa is author of Echoes from the Other Land, which was nominated for the the world’s largest short story award: 2011 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Echoes from the Other Land was also placed 6th in the top ten winners of the CBC Reader’s Choice Contest for Giller Prize. Ava is a Kurdish-Canadian writer-in-exile, with two Masters’ degrees one in English and Creative Writing, another in English Language and Literature. Ava’s writings have appeared in various journals, The Toronto Quarterly, Windsor Review, the Toronto Star and the Kurdistan Tribune. She was a writer in Iran, and university faculty member. In Toronto, Ava writes and teaches Creative Writing and English in George Brown College.

An Excerpt from Love and Peace

Whiplashes have scarred Baba’s back and neck. He steps out of the shower and walks to his room, a towel covering his lower body. Seeing the whiplash traces causes a stabbing pain in my back. You and I stare into each other’s eyes but we don’t say anything. Baba returns to the living room in his baggy Kurdish pants and a dark-brown shirt. His face and movements are stern, as usual; he is angry with the whole world. My nostrils are filled with the chamomile soap that hides his otherwise strong smell. Placing a pillow under his head, he lies down on the handmade Kurdish rug, his dead mother’s handiwork and his only souvenir. Stout and solid in structure, the rug is made of symmetrical knotting upon a woollen foundation. Baba covers his eyes with his hairy right arm and his veins stand out. It’s nap time and we know we are not supposed to make noise.

I run to the front yard and you follow me. The skinny cherry trees are fruitful nowadays. You and I try to get to the fruit before the birds and worms. We eat the cherries without washing them and giggle at our little secret.

“Let’s water the trees so they give us more cherries,” I come up with the brilliant idea and you obediently run to fetch me the water hose. Your chubby legs, arms and cheeks shake when you’re running. I agree with everyone, “You are biteable.”

“Biting’s baaaaad,” you frown, interpreting my loving gesture as a threat. I laugh and reward your cuteness by telling you a story. “Once upon a time, there was a King

who said to his son: ‘You should go kill your sister. She is a bad girl.’ ”“She is a bad girl?” you ask. “The Vizier told the girl ‘You have to lie with me or I will come up with a plan that will make

your father cut your head off.’ ” “Why?” you ask.“Well, the girl was beautiful and the Vizier wanted her.”“Why didn’t she lie with him?” “Because she was a pure girl, idiot.” I reply.Your hazelnut eyes look puzzled but you don’t ask more questions. I am too lazy to tell all the

details of the story and I don’t want the girl of my story to go through so much before she can prove her innocence, but I want her to meet the Prince, too.

“Hmmmm, let’s see . . . .” I hold onto the fragile cherry tree and turn around it. “So, the daughter told her father, ‘I will let you kill me, but you should listen to me before I die.’ And then in ... something like a courtroom she defeated the Vizier bravely and the Prince who was present as a journalist fell in love with her.” I stop hanging from the tree, look at your confused eyes and start laughing at your face and at the idea of a Prince as a journalist. You laugh your sweet laugh. I run around the yard and you run after me. This continues for a long time and every time I look back at you, we burst into laughter again.

You and I go to the same daycare. You are in a different room, but every chance I get, I peek

32 33

into your classroom to make sure you’re happy and that no one bugs you. If they do, I’ll hit them. They all know this.

Last night, nobody came to pick us up. Those mean kids stuck their tongues out at us when their parents picked them up and we were sitting in the yard, all dressed and waiting, holding each other’s hands and looking down at the asphalt to avoid people’s looks. We stayed at school until late.

“Weird! No home phone number, the address here seems out of date. The emergency phone number doesn’t answer either,” I heard the teachers saying.

The janitor finally decided to drop us off himself. He knew Baba and claimed he knew approximately where we lived. He was a short, skinny, middle-aged man. His big, black moustache was pretty much the only thing you’d see when you looked at his small face. He was strong for his tiny stature, so he easily lifted us up and put us in the back of his pick-up truck. He asked us to let him know when he was close to anywhere we recognized as our neighbourhood. That night, I felt everywhere we went was somewhere I had never seen before. I wondered what would happen if we never found our shabby nest when we had not yet learned how to fly. I held your hand in mine and told you some made-up stories of a girl who could wish for anything and her wishes would come true immediately.

“She wished her young brother would be very tall and all of a sudden he became super-tall and strong. Another time, she saw a wolf wanting to attack her brother from behind. ‘Die bastard,’ she cried. When she and her brother went to look at the wolf ’s corpse, they saw their father was lying on his stomach, under the wolf.”

“No!” you shouted.“His back had traces of the wolf ’s paws on it and . . . .”“Oh!”“The father was unconscious and the wolf ’s blood was dripping on his profile, running down

his nose and open mouth, and . . . .” “Raha! Raha!”“What?”“Don’t kill Baba, Raha!” you pleaded.“I didn’t kill him, idiot. I saved your ass,” I said and looked at the dark, vacant streets. That was

when I heard the call for night prayer from a mosque and wished the truck would drive towards the voice. I liked the calls for prayer. I liked that the mosque reminded us, five times a day, that Allah-o-Akbar, God is the greatest, God is the greatest, greater than Baba and Mama, or me and you, or the teacher and the janitor. God looked like a smiling moon who loved you and me. The truck followed my wish and I soon saw the sky-scraping, elaborate blue dome across from our house. I banged on the window behind the driver’s head.

***“Of course, nobody’s home,” the janitor kicked the gate. “You’d be better off in an orphanage

house.”I wanted him to just go. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “Don’t go anywhere, all right? Wait at the door. Your parents should be back soon.” I put my bag under me and sat down. “If ever...” I heard him say as he was walking away. We

were both really hungry and a bit cold. “What happens after?” you kept bugging me. I was sitting still, hugging myself and staring at the pebbles on the ground. My stomach was

making weird noises. “I have a donkey in my stomach.” We giggled. “Save Baba. Please.”“Oh, you’re such a fool.”You were quiet for a while and then you asked, “Will you save me next time the wolf attacks?”

“I killed it already.” We looked at each other and laughed. “Okay, no more made-up stories. I’ll tell you some stories of Rumi.” I knew you loved them. We both did.

You were falling asleep, your head on my shoulder, and I had difficulty keeping my eyes open. I told you I had killed the wolf but what about the thieves? What if my wishes wouldn’t come true and I couldn’t defeat anyone?

When Mama finally showed up, my eyes were closed, my head was resting on yours. She had been to a party and had thought Baba would pick us up. Baba was drunk at home and had not heard the bell ring when the janitor dropped us off. Mama hugged you and carried you to your bed. I passed out in my school clothes as soon as I reached my bed. Too tired to wake up in the morning, we stayed home today.

“Don’t soak those poor trees, you idiots!” Baba yells at me when he passes the yard. I dare not say anything. “We’re watering the trees for them to be more fruitful,” you explain.“You’re choking them.” Baba turns off the tap in the middle of the yard where the hose was

installed.“At least we don’t forget about them,” I wanted to say, but my fear stopped me.You stare at me, expecting an explanation. Baba leaves and I jump on my bicycle, ride it

around the yard at the highest speed I can manage and scream for no reason. Hundreds of times, I bike around that little erected water faucet in the middle of the small yard and you bike after me.

“You are the police and I am the thief,” I say. You and I do not feel nausea, do not need to take a rest in the afternoon, have no schedule, no

debt, no grudges. You come close to arresting me a few times. I do not let you. You are the sweating and out-

of-breath police; I am the older, uncatchable criminal. Your beautiful hazelnut eyes – because of which everybody calls you Chawshin and loves you more than me – turn dewy when you give up on me in the evening. That is when you go inside the house, turn on the heater, and put your forehead near it. I find some yoghurt in the fridge and mix it with sugar to stop my nagging stomach. Baba is never back earlier than 10:00 at night and Mama is back around 8:00 from work.

“Chawshin gian!” she hugs you.“Farzad’s fever is fake,” I say. She blames me for the drops of yoghurt on the kitchen floor. I tell her you do not have a fever.

She touches your forehead and says I am the reason you have a fever, that I am a bad sister and cannot take care of you, that she cannot trust me with anything. I am still hungry. Mama is tired, she sleeps. We go to the fridge, it is empty.

34

ISSN: 1923-0370 OffsideNo. 9