Issue 1.0 | Arrival

Artwork by Salem Paige

To kick off our online publication, Issue 1.0 is comprised entirely of pieces written by the flo. team.

Senka Stankovic | Editor-in-Chief , Visual Arts Editor

Jen Jakob | Poetry Editor

Katrina Wilcox | Fiction Editor

Salem Paige | Social Media Manager

Erin Samant | Managing Editor, Nonfiction and Online Publication Editor

Vincent’s Walls: After Vincent Van Gogh*

Senka Stankovic

I ask Vincent how he goes about painting walls with such gesture and personality. He merely whispers, The wall paints itself. His eyes then dart suspiciously around the room looking to the left, then the right, then the left before landing on me once again and repeating, slightly louder, The wall paints itself.

Vincent says: A white horse in the mud, in a corner where heaps of merchandise lie covered with a tarpaulin—against the old, black, smoke-stained walls of the warehouse. Quite simple—but a Black and White effect.

Vincent says: Background very simple too, pink and yellow walls with windows with green louvred shutters, corner of blue sky.

Vincent says: You may not always be able to say what it is that confines, that immures, that seems to bury, and yet you feel I know not what bars, I know not what gates—walls.

Walls. If I bring an empty brush to the ochre stained canvas, am I still painting? If I leave no trace, do I exist? If I tell myself, Today I will paint like Vincent, will he enter my body and help me capture the history of an empty space? The tension of an unknown life? The anxiety of a nonexistent future? Or will he simply ask me to let him rest?

Vincent says: One doesn’t easily learn anything good between four walls, that’s understandable.

Nothing good to be learned—understandably. A layer of paint, on a layer of paint, on a layer of paint. In the corner you can see the wretched bright orange that didn’t stay long, the lavender that was her favourite colour (I wish I still knew her). Mother says, It’s time to repaint these walls, look how dirty they are! What she means to say is, Hide the history, it hurts. The Zinnias and Geraniums nod in agreement, Hide it! Hide it!

*Italicized text is cited from the letters of Vincent Van Gogh sourced from https://vangoghletters.org/vg/

Senka Stankovic (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Ottawa, Ontario. She holds a BFA in visual arts from the University of Ottawa. She is a co-founder and the editor-in-chief of flo. literary magazine. Her visual work has been exhibited at Gallery 115 and Art Mûr. Her writing has appeared in FEED and is upcoming in Common House Mag.

She, of Spring

Jen Jakob

The sweet mud of earth when Spring is roused,
the new heat of the sun high on the love of the moon
synchronicity entwined.

The tender hardy buds, tenacious
ripping ruptures through frozen ground
proof of living and pain.

Living and pain
Synchronicity entwined
Living in pain
And so I abide:

I let your hands cradle my winter weary heart
Rock away seasonal depression
and the pain of loving what isn’t good for me.
Do you feel the ruptures of
crocuses ripping through my ribcage
desperate to defy those frozen brittle bones?

I let you bouquet the blossoms born
from my longing of winter sunsets.
My loss and grief of the ice, the dark, the cold.

You are the secret hope I harbor
for warmer, longer days
The assurance that April bears
in the face of March
the rain to wash away
the sickness in my heart
and coax to life
the flowers beneath my skin.

Jen Jakob (she/they) is an emerging poet based in Ottawa, Ontario. Her poetry is centered in sapphic love, mental health, and human existentialism in nature. She is currently pursuing a BA in English and History at Carleton University and is an active member of the literary scene both on campus. Their contributions include the roles of co-president and founder of the Carleton English Literature Society, and the managing editor and co-founder of the Sumac Literary Magazine. Jen is also on the editorial team of flo. literary magazine in Ottawa as their poetry editor.

Confused Little Girl

Katrina Wilcox

Previously published in Lived Magazine, third issue, Childhood (2022)

She hid a part of herself
The best part

Deep

Deep

Deep

She hid in The Dark
Where there was no sound
No sight
No taste and no smell

She hid until The Dark ate her alive
Devouring
Suppressing
And The Dark wanted more

It searched for more of the girl
Found her
And It tasted her sorrow once again
For years The Dark feasted

Upon
The confused little girl

She felt that if there was nothing left
No part of her could hurt
Or fear
Or detest any longer

She curled up
And let The Dark consume
But it only made everything
Worse

Deep

Deep

Deeper

She searched
For the best part of herself
Coaxed them out of hiding
And held them tight

She squeezed love
And understanding
Into their lonely
Lifeless form

And brought them back
To the surface
Where they were free
And cherished

Confused little girl
No longer

Katrina Wilcox (she/they) is a writer and musician from Ottawa, Ontario. She holds a diploma from Algonquin College for Music and is working towards a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa. She is a co-founder and the fiction editor of flo. literary magazine. Katrina’s work has been published in Wandering Autumn Magazine and Lived Collective Magazine.

algorithmically speaking

Salem Paige

While I’m pretty public about a lot of my interests, something I talk about less frequently (until now I suppose) is my love of data and my interest in coding and algorithms. As writers/creatives/people on the internet, we all hear about the notorious “algorithm” and its all-powerful control over how many people see what we post online, but I don’t know how many folks know the internal workings of this elusive algorithm. I don’t know how the algorithm works for certain, but I have my theories and the data to back those theories up, and I want to talk about them with someone, so here we are.

Outside of art and poetry, I work as a social media officer. I also manage my own social media, and social media accounts for some literary magazines. I may not be an expert, but I work with algorithms more than the average artist, and let me tell you, algorithms are a mess.

I’ll start with what we know: algorithms prioritize whatever a programmer decides it should prioritize, so they often vary from platform to platform. The way these algorithms work are rarely made public, and they’re changing all the time in the background of the apps and programs we use as programmers experiment with the algorithm’s code. All this to say: we know almost nothing. By the time we figure an algorithm out, there’s a good chance the programmers have already altered it to work a little differently, and there’s no way for us to ever be certain that what we think is correct. It’s all guesswork. It’s all a gamble, a virtual slot machine.

Here’s what I think I know: algorithms tend to reward engagement. Sometimes there’s more weight on a specific kind of engagement—in some cases likes are more important than shares, which are more important than saves, or perhaps the other way around completely. Again, what is valued by the algorithm varies from platform to platform, and is constantly changing and updating without much (or any) warning. Engagement itself is an elusive thing, and there’s no surefire formula to get engagement, only possible best practices and a lot of guesswork.

All this to say, algorithms are giant slot machines and success with them depends on factors almost entirely out of our control. Maybe we should just make what we want to make and forget about the algorithms altogether.

Salem Paige (they/them) is a transgender poet and designer living on Algonquin Anishinaabe territory (so-called Ottawa, Ontario). Their works revolve around the exploration of identity, technology, space, nature, and the uncomfortable. In 2022 they were shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and longlisted for the ROOM Poetry Prize, and their poems have appeared in Beyond Words magazine, STREETCAKE magazine, flo. literary magazine, Ariel Chart Literary Journal, BiPan magazine, and others. Paige can be found at www.corpseofapoet.com or @corpseofapoet on instagram and twitter.

फ़िरंगी Chai

Erin Samant

When I make my grandmother’s chai, it always turns out bitter and weak. Amma says it’s okay बेटा and forces herself to drink it (even though the first time a white lady made her tea, she poured it down the sink.) Maybe it’s karmic retribution for my other ancestors colonising those that she and I share, like an ancient story of betrayal coded in my DNA. 

I buy the expensive assam. I stir in fresh ginger, cardamom pods, and whole cloves—none of the ground and powdered shit—with the correct balance of care and preemptive fear of failure. I strain it twice to remove the leaves and aerate it into a light, creamy texture, but I’m left with a watery and acidic brew. Eventually I started serving orange pekoe in little round tea bags with cream and white sugar when guests came around.

When she heard that I started dating a white boy from Brampton who could cook chana masala and make aloo parathas, my grandmother called to tell me she’s so happy I’m with someone who can teach me about my culture. But when I made him my grandmother’s chai, he said it’s okay हनी, reached for an MDH chai masala packet and poured mine down the sink.

Erin Samant (she/her) is a graduate student from Ottawa, Ontario working her way toward an M.A. in comparative literature with a particular interest in Canadian literature. When she is not reading or writing, she is the managing editor, the nonfiction and the online publication editor, for flo. literary magazine.