Terrance Hayes is one of my favourite poets, with a long list of collections, awards, and fellowships which you can explore here. He is known to invent formal constraints, and often writes on themes of music, masculinity, popular culture, and race. His breathtaking poem, “The Same City,” is no different.

As the holidays approach, bringing with them colder weather, loneliness, and isolation for everyone—especially folks in need of mental health support or experiencing homelessness—the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS) “provides free, confidential, in-person mental health supports city-wide from mobile crisis worker teams.

As the year turns, we’re invited into a season that often arrives wrapped in a package of expectation: celebration, connection, spiritual renewal, reflection. Yet the holidays also hold multiple truths at once, and for many, the season arrives with more complexity than cheer—distance from family, uncertainty about the future, unresolved conflicts, and more questions about spirituality and religion than answers; alongside the not-so subtle pressure to reinvent ourselves on Jan

When everything is expensive, you want to be more sustainable, or produce as little waste as possible, it’s time to think outside of the box. The Holidays don’t need to be about spending money—they can be about taking the time to make meaningful things.

This is my first Christmas away from home. Not away as in university or somewhere thirty minutes away, trying to make a landlord special house a home. I mean away as in 4,000 kilometres away. I love everything about British Columbia and my little life on the island. I love the misty mornings as the night’s rain rolls off the mountains and the lizards under my feet and the weather that never really gets that cold. Not like the cold back home. Not like anything I’m used to back

Lately, I’ve been thinking about COVID. But I still skip every episode from whatever TV show in 2020 where a pandemic invades the static screen. I don’t want to talk about it, and yes, I also can’t believe it happened.

I remember, when I was younger, I would dream about having a megaphone. In the dream, I’d be speaking to everyone—setting everyone free. I just love that; telling everyone things to encourage them to rebel. I feel like poetry is that. The poems that I want to include in Extended Mic will be, of course, meaningful, and they’ll have to speak to people and say something.

As a white, cisgender woman, I had biological advantages playing basketball. But no one threatened my right or ability to exist because of it. I was a bit of a nuisance on the basketball court—in the best way. I’m ~5’10” (probably closer to 6’0” in basketball shoes), but my wingspan is over 6’2” and I could borrow my 6’4” teammates’ jeans. On defense, I deflected many passes that the other team’s point guard didn’t think I could reach or get to in time. But I did.

As a disabled person, I’m worried for the future of disabled people, particularly speaking as a disabled Person of Colour (POC).