VOL XIII
WELCOME TO F WORD acknowledges that Montreal is on traditional Kanien'kehà:ka land, but simple land acknowledgments are not enough. We encourage everyone to become informed, to actively resist (neo)colonialism in the many forms it takes, and to support Indigenous communities in any way you are capable. If you are a member of any decolonial project, please know that we are happy to support you in any way we can, whether through collaboration or promotion. Welcome to VOLUME XIII of F WORD, a feminist collective based in Montreal, QC. Through our publication, we aim to provide a platform for the marginalized feminist voices that are underrepresented in our community. Our notion of feminism is not limited to gender politics, but rather extends to all anti-oppresive perspectives. We want our content to reflect these goals and to be a space where people feel safe in sharing their experiences. As well as being a platform for our contributors, we hope F WORD will evolve as a community resource in Montreal and stand as a meeting place for feminists. We are currently working to partner with other groups and organizations that share our anti-oppressive values and interests. If you or a group you are involved in would like to collaborate with F WORD, please e-mail us at fwordmtl@gmail.com. As always, we have the greatest appreciation for all of the support that we receive from our contributors, allies, and readers. We recognize that this has been an overwhelming year for many and hope that you can all take some form of solace in these pages. Lots of love from the collective!
F WORD seeks to explore feminism in its present-day cultural context as a unifying, anti-oppressive, intersectional force. We seek to provide an accessible community resource through inclusive, constructive multi-media content. Through our collective's nonhierarchical structure, we aim to challenge and move away from existing systems of oppression.
BIENVENUE À F WORD reconnaît que Montréal se situe sur le territoire traditionnel des Kanien'kehà:ka, mais de simples reconnaissances de territoire ne suffisent pas. On encourage tout le monde à s’informer, à activement résister (néo)colonialisme sous les nombreuses formes qu’il prend, et de supporter communautés autochtones de toutes les manières que vous pouvez. Si vous êtes membre d'un projet de décolonisation, sachez que nous sommes heureux de vous soutenir de toutes les manières possibles, que ce soit en collaborant ou en promouvant vos projets. Bienvenue au VOLUME XIII de F WORD, une collective féministe basé à Montréal, QC. Par le biais de notre zine, nous visons à offrir une plateforme aux voix féministes marginalisées et sous-représentées dans notre communauté. Notre notion de féminisme ne se limite pas à la politique de genre, mais s'étend plutôt à toutes les perspectives anti-oppressives. Nous voulons que notre contenu reflète ces objectifs et soit un espace où les gens se sentent en sécurité pour partager leurs expériences. En plus d'être une plateforme pour nos contributeurs, nous espérons que F WORD évoluera en tant que ressource communautaire à Montréal, un point de rencontre pour les féministes. Actuellement, nous cherchons à collaborer avec d'autres organisations qui partagent les mêmes valeurs et intérêts anti-oppressifs que nous. Si vous ou un groupe dans lequel vous êtes impliqué souhaite collaborer avec F WORD, envoyez-nous un e-mail à fwordmtl@gmail.com. Comme toujours, nous apprécions profondement le soutien que nous recevons de nos contributeurs, alliés et lecteurs. Cette année a été une année marquante pour beaucoup et nous espérons que vous pourrez tous trouver une forme de réconfort dans ces pages. Avec tout l'amour de la collective!
F WORD cherche à explorer le féminisme dans son contexte culturel actuel en temps que force unifiante, anti-oppressive et intersectionnelle. Nous cherchons à fournir une ressource communautaire accessible grâce à un contenu multimédia inclusif et constructif. Grâce à la structure non hiérarchique de notre collective, nous cherchons à remettre en question et à nous éloigner des systèmes d'oppression existants.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Stand by Frida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Title Page For Everyone by Laura Tobon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Sweet by Kirsten Wesselow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Content Warning: Sexual Assault Asteraceae Sorcière by Christina Rosché . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..7 Old Woman River by Erica Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Epreskert by Gwyn Peters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Nutshell by m.l.c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10-11 Content Warning: Body Dysmorphia Untitled by Amanda Kovanen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 La Maladie D'Amour by Gwyn Peters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Primary Girl by Carmin Sherlock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Like Me by Laura Bertrand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Portrait of a Woman on Prozac by Judy Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Nude I by Judy Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Nude II by Judy Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Deadtooth by Erica Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Content Warning: Injury Muse by Gwyn Peters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 What happened this summer? by E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Content Warning: Blood/Gore Pass Me My Bath Bomb by Judy Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Love Bite by Erica Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Susanna and the Cat by Erica Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Alice in the Blue by Erica Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Notes from Our Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-27 Self Portrait with Zucchini by Christina Rosché . . . . Back Cover
Laura Tobon
Content Warning: Sexual Assault
Sweet
Kirsten Wesselow
I remember once we read a poem Submitted by a friend
You said fruit imagery was overdone and I jump I sway I bend Yes the thought of cherry juice-stained lips Is bitter and inane When you just know the world so well The rest is too mundane Yes the thought of apple blossoms On my eyelids as they fluttered In exhalation in exaltation Was flame begging to be smothered Yes the thought of mango nectar So sticky and so sweet Just as well may be a rotting corpse Hardly a sun-kissed treat But I realize now what I did not then – When only your opinion was true – That a feeling as bountiful as summer fruit Is one that escapes you Your goal seems to be to contrive the barren To bear no fruit on your tree For if no one can find something sweet in you Then you do not have to be Well I tried for years to coax a bud A blossom a branch a leaf Only to have you carve out my core And spit it from your teeth To quietly conjure a spool unspun To tell me you think sweetness is overdone Well now, can you not see you’ve won? Look how sour I’ve become.
Asteraceae Sorcière
Christina Rosché
Old Woman River Erica Brown I drive by Old Woman River and feel very young And can’t help but dwell on the things I have done That have led me here, to this road, on the run And I think of all I have lost and have won Of the stories I’ve lived and the songs I have sung And the passions I’ve expelled from my heart like a lung In my futile attempts to float along unstung And I know I’ve not escaped life's heavy thumb As I try to coax away the future with liquor and rum But it’s impossible to ignore the worlds steady hum And it looks at me and asks, “child are you dumb?” “Don’t scorn your own fears and try to go numb, Embrace indecision and leap forward, full flung” So I laugh with my youth, and don’t shy from the gun Of reckless free acts that could get me hung Because in the face of the old world, my worries, they are none And I rue the day my wild youth is done And wonder what is beyond, and who I’ll become
Gwyn Peters
EPRESKERT
Content Warning: Body Dysmorphia
Nutshell
m. l. c.
At least ten grand for a nicer nose: slight and sloped down the middle After nightfall, before I find refuge in sleep, I trace the angles of my face The miniscule curve constituting my upper lip The trail of my jawline As my fingertips brush over each feature, they begin their game of make-pretend Ten Michaelangelos carving away at a dull lump of clay Refining every jagged bone, removing all the excess fat I draw a dotted-line with my index finger as I tap on everything I wish to disappear Before dawn, I am resculpted Lying still: a sleeping statue of Aphrodite. On a Friday at a Five Guys, I watched a pack of boys waste peanuts Their cruddy diner table piled high with Cracked shells, containing nothing. My mother told me, years ago, to never change my body My body was not a gift from her God; my body was a gift for her God To be returned in the same, pristine condition as when it first fell into my possession Avoid the ink, avoid the knife.
Content Warning: Body Dysmorphia
I had already stopped praying For over a decade, I’d been clawing Peeling, deepening the distance between Who I am and What I look like Body dysmorphia, the cunning rodent, began Cracking my outer casing and devouring the insides, leaving me Deconstructed and naked A skeleton abandoned by both skin and soul. Lately I’ve been drifting into a polarized duality. Like twin infants bundled within the same blanket, The I and the it, distinctly separate entities, Are forced to wear the other’s embrace. I fear I’ve spent so much time refusing to be associated with my body That I and it have grown too far apart to know how to reconcile. You are not my enemy, I should remind it I am sorry, to it and for it I pity the neglected, open-armed cradle of my body that wishes only to hold me I should’ve asked my mother, ten years back If it's possible to place the peanut back into its shell Aphrodite’s unfit to model what my psyche needs illustrated, and I’d hate to stay the kind of deity to bash the stone walls of her own temple into sand Only to stand alone in the wreckage Wondering how to worship herself.
Amanda Kovanen
LA MALADIE D'AMOUR
Gwyn Peters
PRIMARY GIRL
Carmin Sherlock
like me
Laura Bertrand
Hang your skin on a wire like tapestry, if you think ceiling white is your colour, washes away decades and douses your clouds outwards and inwards— are you really so thin? You think ceiling white is your colour, washes away decades so you place sharp nails around a frame gilded, fold yourself in, beg: like me. Are you really that thin falling a-part, but you patch your voice like ripped seams to be called pretty. So you place sharp nails around a frame gilded, fold yourself in, beg: like me. Needing men who own museums to gaze at your corners falling a-part, but you’ll patch your voice like ripped seams to be called pretty, are you submitting to them or the weakest word in the English language: Beauty? Needing men who own museums to gaze at your doused clouds. Outwards and inwards— are you submitting to the weakest word in the English language: Beauty. Hang your skin on a wire like dirty tapestry.
Judy Park PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN ON PROZAC
NUDE I
Judy Park
NUDE II
Judy Park
Content Warning: Injury
deadtooth
Erica Brown
I just salivated at a picture of an ex lover. If that gives any indication of how bone dry I am. I read their names off the list like tossing pebbles in a bucket. What's the difference between pebbles and people after all? This summer I put pebbles in my mouth and rolled them around thinking about the playground at my elementary school. One time a wasp stung me right between the eyes while I was standing on that playground. I was 5 then. And my face swelled up just the same as my eye did when I was 20. And both times I was standing among pebbles. And people. And feeling stunned That's how you feel after you receive “trauma to the face”, That's how the dentist described the injury at least. “Trauma” is what killed one of my bottom front teeth. The dentist said it might turn grey. Thats what happened to one of my top front teeth when I was 5. They had to pull it out and I was missing a front tooth for like 2 years because the entire root came out when they pulled it. I asked the dentist if they were gonna pull my bottom front tooth now because it's dead. They said no, They’re just going to monitor the bone for now. Keep an eye on how dry it is. They might not need to do anything. But no amount of pebbles, or drool, or ex lovers can bring it back to life
MUSE
Gwyn Peters
Content Warning: Blood/Gore
What happened this summer?
E.
Do you remember when you made my nose bleed in the back of the truck? And you kissed me to prove to yourself you’d done it. Back when summer was a feral thing, And we were wild animals prowling in it. Slinking through the night, Where you would pull my hair, And I would bite your neck. When we were too strong for our own good, And our tanned bodies forgot how to be gentle, And we would shove each other away, just to yank each other close. To knock teeth, And laugh cruelly. When the anger we shared was heartbreaking, And the roughness made us raw. Until we grew tired of being carnivores, Craving each other's blood.
Judy Park
Pass me my bath bomb
Love Bite
Erica Brown
Your love, bites into my skin Leaves marks of red and blue erupting from within My breast which heaves and softens While my breath hits endless dead ends Trying to escape the acrid smoke of construction Sites working away below my own jaw that bites Into the world and demands recognition Or understanding, or something as a reason to keep living Beyond dreaming and thinking of potential love that I'm missing Fuck romance and heteropatriarchal society, You're trying to trap me and now that I see This world you’ve constructed to make me your whore I adamantly refuse and demand so much more. I want laughter, and poetry, and the wide open sea. I want endless green forests, and hives home to bees. I want to be happy, with or without Other people who build up or pick at the grout That holds me together and what I understand And fuck you for ever thinking that I need a man.
Susanna and the Cat
Erica
Brown
Alice in the Blue
Notes from Our Artists LAURA BERTRAND is a Montrealer—de souche. You can find her work as laurabertrandfolio.wordpress.com. She is a seamstress in her spare time, and volunteers for social justice causes in the Plateau community. ERICA BROWN I am a second year arts student Majoring in Gender, Sexuality Feminist & Social Justice Studies, and International Development. I am curious, confused, and moonstruck, and channel these energies into my art. I want my work to inspire a good think or a nice sigh. I love women, garbage, Montreal, the west coast, and I’d like to be a cowboy when I grow up. AMANDA KOVANEN You can find more of her work on Instagram: @mairebeauty. JUDY PARK My portraits are based on photographs of women in my life. All of the photographs were self-portraits taken by the women themselves, and by painting these self-portraits I seek to portray their bodies under noone’s gaze but their own, and showcase the beauty of their agency in how they choose to depict themselves. CHRISTINA ROSCHE I am interested in humans' relationship with plants. How we view them, talk about them, use them; how our society has evolved from a very intimate relationship with them to one of convenience. Instead of taking a critical approach to the changes this relationship has gone through, I want to focus on the good that is still left. Though the number of witches and the number of plant species have declined through colonization and the patriarchy, the relationship that witches have with plants is still alive and well today. I want to celebrate that by creating an intimate portrait of a human/nature relationship. Instagram: @christinarosche.
GWYN PETERS Gwyn’s photography captures instances of public artwork that may otherwise go unnoticed - the kind that has escaped the geographies of a museum and live freely in the alleys and gardens of cities. The pieces included in this issue were taken in Budapest and Berlin, allowing her to carry pieces of her travels with her through the pandemic and onwards. LAURA TOBON / "For Everyone" This acrylic painting showcases the confidence and acceptance I feel when I see many women speak against the additional systemic barriers they are confronted with. Ever since I have learned about intersectional feminism, I have been inspired by their inclusivity and resilience. Inspired by minimalist art, I opted for a representation more focused on its messages rather than its aesthetic traits. That way, the painting is all about the resistance against sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, body-shaming and classism. KIRSTEN WESSELOW / "Sweet" The poem is based on a comment my former friend made six years ago that always stuck with me, when she put down this fruit imagery-based poem our friend had created because of the notion, "it had been done before." As I process the many levels of how she hurt me five years after that comment, I am finding little breadcrumbs in my memories of our friendship that indicate who she always was rather than who I constructed her to be, as I fell in love with her first platonically, then romantically. I wanted to use similar imagery to what she put down as a mode of resistance, but also as a way to confront her with the idea that the way her confident negativity bleeds into the lives of others can have an excruciating effect that I do not think she realizes she is capable of inflicting.
Christina Rosché
Self Portrait with Zucchini