The Envoy #117 – The official newsletter of the CCLA – Canada Cuba Literary All

THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the

Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693

December 2021

Issue 117

www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Urineworts

By Bruce Meyer When we were living in the mining community, a place that is now a ghost town with nothing left to show for everyone’s hard work except curb cuts for the long-lost driveways and a pine tree that has grown up between the arms of a carousel clothesline, I was told to stay away from the ditches.

The ditches had been cut out from the granite by the same jackhammer men who carved our basements from the rock. The ditches were meant to carry away snow and rain run-off. Farther down the block from our house, there was a patch of stone that resembled the pages of a book, a series of layers where the quartz butted up against the feldspar and the feldspar was overlaid with schist.

We used to stop our bikes in front of that patch of stone. On our street, the only street in town, there wasn’t much else to notice except the minehead at the end. Our fathers dug for uranium.

They all died of lung cancer. They all smoked, and every man was radioactive to his dying day.

We begged our mothers to send us to summer camp. We’d seen kids on television paddling canoes and swimming in roped-off areas protected by floats. We tried to argue our case one Wednesday afternoon as the women gathered for their weekly bridge club. They were bored, too. One of the women, her lips over-pasted with bright red lipstick and her hair curlers covered in a kerchief, looked up from her hand as a cigarette dangled a long droopy pip of ash and said, “Kids, you live in summer camp. Go play in the woods and leave us alone.”

One day a boy named Jerry whose father got crushed not long after that in a cave-in, hollered that he had a porcupine trapped on his front lawn. His chained dog was snarling at it.

Any other kid would have dragged his dog inside, but Jerry found it strategic. He stood waving his arms at the spiny creature, and between the dog and the gang of us who showed up, we tried to trap the poor quilled animal.

Instead of the thing just giving up, it ran straight for the ditch and dove in head-first. Just like that. It splashed about in the water, but porkies are supposed to float. Their quills contain air that buoys them up. They’re meant to float. This one didn’t. It may have gotten tangled in some brush beneath the surface. After a few minutes it grew still and floated with its face down in the green murk of street run-off.

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Someone said something along the lines of “Now look what you’ve done,” and we were all suddenly frightened and ashamed as if we’d killed someone’s little brother. The animal just floated there. It wasn’t pretending. We had trapped it and left it no way out.

Another guy suggested we get a shovel and haul it out because the quills were valuable and we could strip the bark off a birch in the bush and make baskets for our mothers, but no one wanted to touch the creature. We got on our bikes and rode away to the edge of a cedar clump and sat smoking some cigarettes we’d swiped.

Our fathers didn’t know where the smell came from several days later. They talked on their front lawns, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths and their hands in their pockets between puffs. They’d stand that way for hours, one saying something and the others listening and nodding then going silent until after a long pause someone would say something else. They looked defeated. But the smell. That gave them something to talk about until it, too, deserted them.

The next spring the melt lifted the water level in the connected ditches, so the run-off lapped at the lawn, and when the small flood subsided, in what was merely a foot of water rather than three of four, yellow flowers bloomed. They floated on the surface, bright and spring-like, and when one of our dads caught us pissing in the ditch because we didn’t want to break our activity and go inside or go in the woods, he shouted that we were only adding to the problem, that we were making urineworts and they were a sign of putrid water. I’d seen them growing in the slug murk along the highway. But they weren’t a sign of boys taking a leak or even of the tealeaf suspension of spring that had nowhere to go. It was a sign of the porcupine speaking to us from the depths where his body had settled and he was saying he’d become a hundred wonderful small lives and each one was as bright as the sun.

(continued from My Twenty Favorite John B. Lee Poems by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, CCLA President in Cuba, author, editor, reviewer) IF WE ASSUME POETRY as an extraordinarily creative, lettered crystallization of outer and

inner realities, we will discern the poet’s identification with his lines in our next poem: “Imagine yourself at one or all of these lines.” The poet is one with his creation; he is part of that reality he cups in his hand and magic-wand-touches in his mind. The poet identifies with the reader and sees himself as a reader, too.

By using a simile, “Imagine the poem closing you in / like a cell…” Lee proposes a microinstant of experiencing a physical-mental solitude of encasement; then to oppose the idea with a thesis on the unbounded freedom writing/reading provides: “read this poem / to set yourself free.”

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

John wrote the next poem when he was seventeen: “It was requested of me by Margaret Avison that I write a book of poems on one theme. In a fever, I composed the entire chapbook Poem for One or More Feet, in a matter of hours. I was inspired by the prospect of her championing a manuscript for possible publication. It was submitted and accepted for publication, firstly by Coach House Press and then by Applegarth Follies Press. Later it was published in my second book, Love Among the Tombstones, and then republished in This Is How We See the World.”

We are in the presence of a gem in the raw writing away like a genius poet-to-be. Despite the poem´s early stage of creation, it is worth reading for the reasons I presented above. What impresses the most is what Lee continued to say: “I wrote the entire book (chapbook) in a few hours as a seventeen year old student at Western sitting a table in the library on campus.”

Let´s enjoy the poem with these considerations in mind:

... how to read this poem This poem is a dance a ritual imagine each line hammering on the floor like a spoiled child or spinning an insane dervish.

Imagine yourself as one or all of these lines.

Imagine the poem closing you in like a cell read this poem to set yourself free

is an explanation of beauty, life and death, a philosophy of the soul unfurling in tropes of genuine birth. What has been said and written so many times, now reworded and re-engraved in floating, streaming poetic lines, finally perches upon our trembling realization and enlightenment of veiled accoutrements and feelings. It settles into our vulnerable hearts as revealed by the poet in By the Shore’s Collapsing Waters I am Bound.

John shared some interesting objective-subjective thoughts with me regarding our next poem: “...this poem from the chapbook The Day Jane Fonda Came to Guelph was written one summer at the very first cottage we owned… Our cottage was across the road from a cliff leading down to the lake (meaning Lake Erie, the most southerly of the Great Lakes (except for Lake Michigan which is entirely located in the United States.) The house where we live now is located about thirty kilometers west from Peacock Point. My present location overlooks Long Point Bay. Página 4

THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Peacock Point is a small point of land thrust out into Lake Erie so the view from there is of the lake. In the case of this poem, I think I was conflating my lake view with my experience with the ocean. At that time I had visited the Atlantic Ocean and perhaps I had been to Cuba; I don't recall; hence, the reference to the sea. The Kama sutra of many sleeps is both an innocent sexual allusion and, at the same time, a sort of time lapse image of someone's movements in REM sleep. The poem remains slightly enigmatic to me: the abstract pain, comparing the flaw of love to a gnat in the gloaming, the shadow (and the shade--both references to the soul, and the life of the shadow in memory ... a kind of Freudian reference as well) the shadow self.

A simulacrum perhaps. I'm glad you liked this one (as I would be happy to have you enjoy any poem you find that gives you pleasure) but I had to read it again several times to revivify something of the original impulse since the story of its inspiration is lost to me.”

Departing from these “confessions” made to me by Lee, I can derive some personal ideas. He finds it all and exposes it motivated by an inspiring source, the sea, which he acknowledges in his closing simile, “… like the surface of the sea.” He enters meditative, inquisitive realms only chosen ones tread on, leaving behind his revelatory penning. The line “The long shadow you cast standing in your lifelight,” invites to an inward reflection of our lives, to a revision of that shadow we cast, understood as influence, mark, legacy that he puts in perspective for us to see and ponder.

Lee confers dreams a special significance in his poem as we lie down and rise every day from our transit phase of sleeping and dreaming. Such a phase is biologically mandatory in human and natural cycles and is lyrically drafted by Lee in his poem’s final lines.

Dialectical in its underlying sinews, the poem makes claims for change – over sleep; change that must be channeled positively – in awakening, in our reflection of living, colored by the manifold interpretations sparked in the readers through this allusion to Kama sutra with obvious sexual implications embedded in an oneiric background.

By the Shore’s Collapsing Waters I am Bound There are certain ways of making brevity seem brief.

Something you notice in memory some half-forgotten pain some darkening flaw of love like a gnat in the gloaming.

The long shadow you cast standing in your lifelight.

The Kama sutra of many sleeps where you curl and change like the surface of the sea.

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

WORD SMITHING

By Lisa Makarchuk a writer’s hell is one dry spell nothing to tell ideas don’t gel. sweating brackish blood through cliched phrases searing hackneyed trivia annoying in their banality panning for expressive gems in a sea of literary glut expropriating baubles of phrases deflected into handiwork that makes me shiver in anticipation, assails the senses yet nurtures with morsels of wordage gratifying in insight to contemplate, to seek the essence of reality.

Re-edited-published in summer issue of “Verse Afire” of The Ontario Poetry Society

Where Goes The Light?

By Lisa Makarchuk

where goes the light when it’s switched off? can we catch it after it’s shone enough and store it and bring out when we laugh? we enter deep caves with lanterns of light where does it go when it’s in full flight? does it come back to play hide-and-seek bouncing off stalactites circling the stalagmites darting ‘round crystal, limestone and fluorite or cowering away in deep fissures of calcite? perhaps hiding in flora of laurel Página 6

THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

or chasing amongst recesses of coral? when OUR light goes out, what is its fate? in ideas and thought does it stay behind cracking and brightening the closeted mind entering music of spheres or poetry of rhyme resonating in lyrics, haunting, sublime? in the quickened beat of a stricken heart still racing from loss, sorrow and grief reliving the memory for which it pines left sadly bereft by those who depart reaches for light nestling deep within each to emblazon the world and continue to shine.

Re-edited- originally published in “Things That Matter” An Anthology of Ontarian Writers, Poets and Visual Artists; editor-in-chief: Sheila Tucker

A Dry Yellow Rose

By Anna Yin

A dry yellow rose among snow apples yesterday once more

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Photo by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Seasoned publisher, poet, writer, promoter, Canada Cuba Literary Alliance (CCLA) Founding President, Richard Grove (Tai), keeps the wheels of tribute to Can Lit rolling. Below, the front covers of three more books to be issued soon by QuodSermo Publishing. This has been Grove´s priority since he started his own publishing career. Canadian literature deservedly occupies a place of privilege in his efforts and the effort of his close associates, like author, editor, poet, essayist Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, our The Envoy Assistant Editor and CCLA President on the Cuban side. Their joint passion and dedication to study, promote, reveal and write about Canadian authors are materialized in books we have presented before and these now. Access our sites and email addresses to follow the alluring trail of first-rate Canadian writers!

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

IN THE NAME OF

By Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

Yesterday I walked again to work from home a forty-five minute stroll along an up-and-down agreeably cold avenue while a red horizon offered a sun still low but the news flashed COVID numbers still high-relentlessly rising.

Crowd-free, only in the company of 6:00 a.m. vehicles and few and far between pedestrians, I avoided getting on a bus full of masks and partly-stifled coughs which, once commonplace, are now heard with apprehension and those around the coughers keep apparently secure distance from them.

A hard sight to see.

I guess I´ll have to get used to hiking in the name of safety and health as we anxiously wait for the vaccines lifting our eyes to Him in hope and pray silently for us, for family, for friends, for a breath of life beyond the merciless dictates of an unseen foe.

July 5, 2021

PRAYER

By Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

… therefore have I hope. Lamentations 3:21 … or go down without hope. James Deahl … we hope for the better. Linda Rogers

Covid has slowed us down to a wary traipse while we strive at surviving. Life the way we know it has been twisted into a procession of masks Página 10

THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

faces half-concealed hope held tightly in our hearts hope waved from side to side as a talisman, as a light in the dark corridors ahead. Covid keeps a short leash we can only break free from should we remain cautious, alert confident it´ll all pass. Amen.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

By Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

Another COVID year elapses fracturing our lives, our country´s life. Sometimes there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel; it´s blocked in more than one way.

Sometimes we feel hope dangles from barely anything as the virus nature and the POTUS with anti-Cuba wolves conniving to crush our spirit to which we cling with resilience and chutzpah that have molded the Cuban essence across centuries and helped us endure.

Another harsh year turns the screw on us: illnesses hurricanes politicians in a frenzied procession where morbidity stabs deep, the elements wreak havoc and high bets against us are placed in D.C. but we´ll heal we´ll rebuild and we´ll soldier on against all odds.

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

DESVELO

By Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

Estoy en cama desvelado como si esperara la hora… James Deahl A través de los largos, insomnes relojes de la noche… James Deahl

Hago como que no sé de las horas que se acumulan subrepticias bajo mi cama y van escarchando el cuarto en cofradía con el frío de allá afuera. Tal vez sí sepa de ellas, pero no quiero mirarlas no quiero saberlas ni contarlas porque se filtran álgidas, advenedizas como las sombras y me imponen pesadillas que me niego a tener.

Cimbran las antenas en el viento semejan manecillas de relojes empecinados en sonar en urdir más y más horas para que marchen en un tropel de invasiones bárbaras y crípticos cánticos antiguos como la vida que se escurre irrepetible e irreversible a lo largo de la piel. Los silencios se alternan con la confusión para que todo fluya desde la eternidad surrealista de algún oscuro rincón que palpita hasta la intangibilidad infinita de los sueños que fraguamos donde se aglomeran edades, eras, milenios, eones que se amotinan bajo mi cama y siguen helando paredes, techo, cuadros, vida, recuerdos-pero no lo permito; no es mi fase final aún, y me arrojo, vivo, al espacio esperanzador que trepida entre telones oníricos que suben-bajan/suben-bajan y mi contumaz, redentor desvelo.

INSOMNIA

By Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias I lie in bed sleepless as if awaiting the hour… James Deahl Throughout the long, sleepless timepieces of the night... James Deahl

I ignore the passing hours that pile up surreptitiously under my bed frosting the room allied with outside coldness. Maybe I am aware

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

of them, but I don't want to see them I don´t want to know about them nor count them because they bleed like chilly, opportunistic shadows and impose nightmares I refuse to have.

Antennas swing in the wind Seeming to be clock hands intent on ticking on spinning more and more hours so they march in a stampede of barbaric raids and cryptic canticles ancient as life that slips away unrepeated and irreversible along the derma. Silences take turns with confusion so everything flows from the surrealist eternity of some throbbing dark corner to the infinite immaterialness of dreams we forge where ages, eras, millennia, eons collect and revolt under my bed and continue to ice walls, ceiling, paintings, life, remembrances-but I don´t allow it; it´s not my endgame yet, and I plunge, alive, into the hopeful vibrating space between oneiric curtains rising-falling/rising-falling and my recalcitrant but redeeming insomnia.

A poetry book in my friendly hand to Richard Grove (Tai)

By Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias

dear Tai, how it pains me not to have my books this year. What reassures me is knowing we´ve both worked hard to give birth to them, and some day after many months they´ll caress my eyes. It will be a new-normalcy feast of books again. But - and most importantly - it will be a jubilee of hugs because books are treasures yet they take on truer meaning and richer value when we can thank the friend behind them when we can lose ourselves into a long-desired embrace with the friend who brings them and we share warm poetry readings while sipping a hot cup of Jorge´s coffee.

There will be a poetry book in my friendly hand coming from your generous in-the-flesh hand.

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

New Year Spirit

By Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias There is a distinct mood around us as the old year hobbles towards the fresh one. The spirit of Xmas. descends settling in people´s hearts like a gift of goodness and faith wrapped in grateful paper.

There is more to it: hearths shine, homes brighten, fidelis rejoice while hymns of comfort and elation of hope and love are heard filling life on earth with redeeming warmth.

(December 14, 2021)

Idilio

By Diana Lucía Bruzón

Anda la tarde arcano de hiedra custodia sueños en su regazo.

Los días se abrazan rumbo al norte, no temen oleajes, se van a peinar la risa mientras otros murmuran con la escarcha amamantan guindaleras.

Cae el guiño del ocaso, lloran cometas se inciensa esa charada en luna nueva; sabe a madrugada, huele a tierra.

Es el mejor de los idilios, parlotea un viejo entre fábulas y acertijos rodeado de brujas y sombras.

Romance

(translation by Miguel Olivé)

The afternoon is a mystery ivy that watches over dreams lying on its lap.

Days cosset northward, they fear not the waves; they curry laughter while others whisper and suckle cherry tree lands.

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

The wink of twilight falls, comets weep this charade borne thru a full moon; it tastes of dawn, scented of earth.

It is the best of idylls, prattles an old man among fables and riddles surrounded by witches and shadows.

That We Survived

By Alina González Serrano (in collaboration with Miguel Olivé Iglesias) The worst seems to be passing like dark clouds sweeping the sky and rolling away. Sadness prevailed for days on end; now hope flits about and speaks in a riot of colors we all welcome. We pray, and praying we yearn for our salvation and peaceful rest to whom we had to bid farewell… The worst seems to be leaving, with it the gloom. Pain subsides yet we have cried and mourned for so many, for so long. Let us pray now for a brighter life tomorrow; let us thank God that we survived. (translated by Miguel Olivé Iglesias)

Pantoum

By Pat Connors

The smouldering fire of his heart stoked by hope borne of a long wait was yet truly the very start of uncovering such a trait.

Stoked by hope borne of a long wait he learns the truth within the dream of uncovering such a trait beauty greater than what may seem.

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

He learns the truth within the dream the radiant light in his eyes beauty greater than what may seem coaxing his desire to arise.

The radiant light in his eyes was yet truly the very start coaxing his desire to arise the smouldering fire of his heart.

A poem at Christmas ... when we were visiting Israel I wrote a book of poems called Let Us Be Silent Here, the title of which is based on a song written by an inmate of a concentration camp. After we returned from the Holy Land a clash broke out between two factions responsible for sweeping the floors of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We had visited Mary's grotto there. One of the poems I wrote was inspired by this petty conflict. It's called The War of Brooms and it's based on a true story. The poem ends with the reason my Uncle John gave me for his own loss of faith. His best friend had been swept overboard in the high seas of the North Atlantic, and then in a ceremony, they dropped an empty casket into the dark waters.

Here's my Christmas poem. Although it is quite dark in some of its content, the central theme involves love and hope.

The War of Brooms

By John B. Lee In the church of the nativity preparing for Christmas season the Byzantine brothers came sweeping in from the east the dust rolling before them like the slow curl of sand with the coming on of a desert wind and the Armenian monks brooming the cold mosaic near the nave approaching with the same concentrated intensity Página 16

THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

of labour, heads bent shoulders rounded crossing the sacred floor with the audible rhythm of their work like the brush strokes of cosmic grooms but when the two monastic armies met in the middle of a disputed tile these holy janitors erupted in a war of faiths wielding their broom shafts in a great joust and counter joust clashing in handle clacks of woody crescendos like the storm crack of a winter forest my uncle in the north Atlantic dropping the empty casket of his best friend into the dark chill of those war-torn waters lost his faith for less than this from my book Let Us Be Silent Here, (Sanbun Publishing) 2012

Photo by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Meeting a Reader (from Such Sweet Sorrow)

By Merle Amodeo I can see you now wandering into Book City, your hair curling up at the sides. a coffee in hand.

You take a sip, but it's too hot, so you place it on a small table near the poetry section, do a frantic search for your glasses, find them in an inside pocket.

Your deep knee bend stops just before you hit the floor.

Your joints won't take the pressure for long, but there's only one shelf of Canadian poetry, so you stay down long enough to decipher most of the titles.

Nothing looks familiar, no name jumps out at you.

Then I suddenly appear, shyly, pretending I'm a devoted clerk.

I help you to your feet, speak softly so you won't be nervous.

I promise there's a poet who's written what you want to hear.

You're surprised to be accosted like this in a book store, But I'm short and slight, so you’re not frightened.

You say you have an appointment to keep.

I say, "It's ok. I'm always here.

I love poetry readers, want to meet every one of them."

I'm back Thursday with a few copies of my book, but you don't show. I've done it again.

Scared away a potential fan.

But that's how it is, you know:

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THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

poetry fans are on the endangered species list.

They're contemplatives.

They think before, during and after they speak.

They love to read the same phrases repeatedly and say them aloud to hear the music.

They often take refuge in classrooms, hoping to touch students with their fervour.

That's how I caught it -- the poetry bug.

It's why I keep writing, why I keep pursuing readers, Why I'll be back tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Photo by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández Página 19

THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

By Victor Manuel Velázquez En un carro de heno argonautas de ultramar trajeron a mis patricios negros, convirtiendo al país en jubileo de esclavos: jóvenes titánicos de atuendo fenicio y mujerzuelas de linaje celtíbero, mojigatas del Levante aromadas de "Amor y psique". En ellos bogaba la infancia de los abuelos, apestando al vómito de la travesía el aura feudal de reyes africanos, cotorreando amontonados por meses en los galpones del bajel negrero. Y en primera clase, bajo el sello de la rosa náutica, vinieron a la vida mis abuelos blancos, de piel rubia abrasada por oros ultravioletas, ciegos de escorbuto. Por mascarón de proa, puso Dios un miope gato de angora. ¡Negros, pombos febriles de mi corazón, enfrentados en el cauce de mis órganos a mil años de distancia, en el sóngorocosongo de las sangres, en el molino rojo de mis apetitos!

Es ciencia constituida que Dios tiene maneras inescrutables de bromear.

In a hay cart Argonauts from overseas brought my black patricians, converting the country in jubilee of slaves: titanic youths in Phoenician garb and sluts of Celtiberian lineage, prudes from the Levant scented with "love and psyche". In them the childhood of the grandparents, reeking of the vomit of the journey the feudal aura of African kings, chattering piled up for months in the sheds of the slave ship. And in first class, under the seal of the nautical rose, my white grandparents came to life, with blond skin scorched by ultraviolet gold, blind with scurvy. For a figurehead, God put a myopic angora cat. Black, feverish pombos of my heart, faced in the channel of my organs a thousand years of distance, in the sóngorocosongo of the bloods, in the red mill of my appetites! It is constituted science that God has inscrutable ways of joking around.

Painting by Víctor Manuel Velázquez Página 20

THE ENVOY 117 –EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

MASTHEAD – Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández, CCLA Ambassador as editor – Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, Cuban President as Assistant editor – Adonay Pérez Luengo, Cuban vp as reviewing editor – Lisa Makarchuk, Canadian vp as reviewing editor – Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado, CCLA Cuban poet laureate as reviewing editor _ Wency Rosales, Cuban Photography Curator

Editor´s emails: joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoph@infomed.sld.cu

CANADA CUBA LITERARY ALLIANCE FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WE WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO THAT WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, JUST LET US KNOW! Página 21