Plenitude Magazine

My left pinky was first. During the icebreaker at my college dorm’s first floor meeting, when I was asked to give three interesting facts about myself, I lifted my pinky-less hand. The first fact was: I grew up on a farm about four hours away. The second fact was: I lost my left pinky finger after I moved in.... And the third fact was: There’s nothing else about me that’s interesting. -from John Elizabeth Stintzi's new short story, "Moving Parts"! The cool artwork was also created by them! John Elizabeth Stintzi is the recipient of the 2019 Writers' Trust of Canada RBC Bronwen Wallace Award and the Sator New Works Award. Their writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Malahat Review, The Kenyon Review, Best Canadian Poetry Series, and others. They are the author of the novels My Volcano (2022) and Vanishing Monuments (Arsenal Pulp Press), as well as the poetry collection Junebat (House of Anansi Press). https://plenitudemagazine.ca/moving-parts/

"Today my mother sent me a framed picture of her heart, ladybug stickers in each corner. A chest preparing for new growth." -from Ashley-Elizabeth Best's new poem, "the best thing about today"! Head over to our website and give it read.... Ashley-Elizabeth Best is a disabled poet and essayist from Kingston, Ontario. Her work can be found in New Welsh Review, CV2 magazine, Grain Magazine - the Journal of Eclectic Writing, Ambit Magazine, Literary Review of Canada, and Glasgow Review of Books, among others. She was a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and her debut collection of poetry, SLOW STATES OF COLLAPSE, was published with ECW Press. Best’s chapbook, ALIGNMENT, will be published with Rahila's Ghost Press in summer 2021. https://plenitudemagazine.ca/the-best-thing-about-today/

"As the collection’s first poem, 'a home I can only leave once' situates the collection within conversations of labour and politics, but the poems that follow also present different understandings of the Black body: the Black body as garden, as a space of Black joy, and as a self-aware source of 'unassuming magic...'" Jillian Christmas' poetry collection, THE GOSPEL OF BREAKING, published in 2020 with Arsenal Pulp Press, was shortlisted for The League of Canadian Poets' Pat L...owther Memorial Award and Gerald Lampert Memorial Award this year. Read about her debut poetry collection on our website, as reviewed by Amy LeBlanc! https://plenitudemagazine.ca/words-have-no-place-in-a-cage/

Can't find our website? We're down for maintenance! Check again in a day or two, we'll have a new review of Jillian Christmas' THE GOSPEL OF BREAKING (Arsenal Pulp Press) when we're back online. In the meantime, here's Boromir doing what he does best

"It is on the shore, in a sculptor’s gallery, where I admire the great gyzym fountain. It is on the shore, in the boat of August Blue, where I fish for two little deaths."... Genesis Ansong is a Ghanian-American poet, writer, and zinester from a northwestern suburb of Chicago, Illinois. She is currently completing a BA in Psychology and Creative Writing. Her work has been published in Body Without Organs and Same Faces Collective. She can be found on Tumblr @gumbug. https://plenitudemagazine.ca/two-boys-on-the-shore/