THE BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENT OF MY "CAREER"

(HEAVY, heavy air quotes)

Today I’m excited to share with you (and you’re gonna be the first to hear this, Twitter won’t find out till tomorrow) some news I only got the green light to share very recently. Perhaps the biggest news in my eight-year writing “career” (heavy, heavy air quotes).

No, it’s not a book. You’ll probably have to wait another ten years for a book with my name on it.

And it’s not a traditional literary magazine publication either. (I have none of those forthcoming. I know it’s been a long time, though when it does happen you’ll be the first to know! Because bragging is fun.)

But I personally don’t believe in clickbait, so I’ll share it with you right off the top: You can now find one of my poems featured across the TTC network (Toronto subways, buses, and streetcars) over the remainder of 2025.

I’m not kidding. This is real! LOOK!!!

shoutout to Ray for sending me this pic. I myself haven’t seen it in real life yet, but when that day comes I may start crying.

You can’t really put into words what it means or how it feels to see something you wrote on a platform this huge, but goddamnit we have a thousand-word quota to fill here at Things You Otter Know Inc.

I guess I’ll tell you about the poem? I’ve been writing sonnets on and off since I was, what, 15? They aren’t super fancy or anything. Just 14 lines at 10 syllables each. I can’t recall why I started doing this but it totally changed my writing “practice”. They are the kinds of things I write when I am in a slump and need to believe I can actually do this writing thing again.

But this one’s interesting because it was the last thing I wrote before I entered the biggest writing slump of my poetry life???

Essentially after I graduated high school I took a year and a half off from writing or submitting anything of note. But I’m glad I did, accidentally or otherwise. I have a healthier relationship with my stuff now because of it, and the poems I’ve been writing nowadays are soooooo much better than they deserve to be, probably because of that time I took to recharge (and also start this Subsatck during that time).

So, if you’re following, “Sonnet for You” was written in mid-2021, when I was in high school. It’s about a lot of things—mostly about me!—but I hope it means something to you. It’s about me wanting to be a magician when I was kindergarten. Also about being told all the time as a kid that I had a big imagination. And having to imagine possibilities for myself that haven’t really come to fruition in my life: travelling the world, making friends, being happy…

I wrote it as part of my time in the Iowa Young Writers Studio (it was virtual—god I wish I could’ve gone to Iowa) where Igot to show Janelle Effiwatt this poem. I was SO nervous but her belief in it convinced me to believe in it too. I had been shopping it around with litmags for a couple years before Poems in Passage came on my radar, and I sent them the poem on a total whim last fall while on the train. Never did I think they would actually legit want to plaster my. name all over this godforsaken city.

Honestly, y’all, I’ve been writing poems since I was 13 but that little girl (nor this older one) could’ve never predicted this. And if you look on the Poems in Passage website you’ll find out that not only do I have a poem featured, but so are my CanLit heroes in Margaret Atwood and Rupi Kaur?!?!?!?!?!

Obviously Marg’s the GOAT. We were miraculously in the same anthology a few years ago but this is equally as nuts. I can only dream of building off the legacy she first began to create while at UofT.

And as for Rupi: I had a childhood friend who gifted me the sun and her flowers after discovering I wrote poems. First poetry collection I ever read. What a crazy full-circle moment it is to now be sharing space with her.

I have so, so many thank yous to give:

To the Poems in Passage team for making this possible. Pujita for the beautiful poem that put PIP on my radar. The City of Toronto and the TTC for making me feel possible. (You’re not gonna believe this, but I am literally on a subway passing through Bloor-Yonge as I type this sentence.)

And hey, while we’re at it: all my Toronto homies. My Scarborough homies. My OG Sauga homies. All of my teen writer friends. Tahira!

I have a bunch of friends who have already seen the poem out in the wild—thank you for making my day. (Any GTA friends reading this, please tag me if you see it!)

Janelle, as mentioned. Mme. Ferrari for the incredibly kind recommendation letter that got me into IYWS in the first place which gave me the opportunity to meet Janelle.

Profs. Richard Greene and Andrea Thompson, who helped me believe in my own work again. Jessica, Matt, Jared, and Carla, whose general guidance and mentorship and grace has been life-changing. Also Jean Little, a visually impaired writer who went to UofT, and my childhood hero… I hope I’m making you proud.

Last but not least (but don’t tell them I put them last)…my parents. As a kid my family and I would take the TTC to my countless medical appointments and on the way they would whisper in Polish about my bad eyesight and lack of social skills and if I was gonna make it into UofT despite my 63% on a grade 4 math test. Crazy to think Mama’s and Tata‘s little girl kinda sorta turned out okay after all. Every word I write is for you. Including this poem, even though you said you didn’t understand it.

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Back to regular programming Wednesday!

This’ll be a three-post week because I owe you for accidentally taking last week (my reading week) off. So we’ll discuss the 4 Nations Face-Off that ended in spectacular fashion lsat week. And then on Saturday you’ll hear me (read me?) yap about seeing Inhaler live. Tthat is, if I actually get to go and witness Eli Hewson’s beautiful face up close.