Seed Beetle

Enter the Hyperreal

Water-Kin

Claw Machine

And this week we’re joined by Mahaila Smith, author of the poem “Manipulating the Light” in The Future Fire #69, to talk about solarpunk, climate crisis and future work.

Micro-interview with Mahaila Smith

Anstruther Press: Ellen Chang-Richardson, Síle Englert + Mahaila Smith,

Interview promoting my flash piece in the Extrasensory Overload Anthology

Extrasensory Overload Author Spotlight

Six Questions interview #205 : Mahaila Smith

Chapbook manuscript review + Claw Machine by Mahaila Smith (Anstruther Press, 2020) – SIGNED

Mahaila Smith : On Into the Hyperreal

This year's judge was Jim Johnstone who said,

"In this year's John Newlove Award winning poem word building becomes world building, a powerful meditation deftly stitched together with a seamless, serotonin-inducing hand."



Ugly, Red: A Cento - Winner of the 2024 John Newlove Award

Local poet Mahaila Smith is winner of the 2024 John Newlove Poetry award.

Award-winning poet Mahaila Smith reflects on writing speculative poetry - CBC Ottawa, All in a Day

Mahaila explains creating a cyber-feminist speculative magazine, their debut poetry chapbook with Anstruther Press, and exciting literary theories.

Conversation with Mahaila Smith

Little red

Zoom-Era Stardew Valley Love Poem

A Side of Spinach

The Anstruther Reader is an anthology compiling ten years worth of limited edition chapbooks and broadsides, including poems from my chapbook, Claw Machine.

The Anstruther Reader: Sappho, Let Go, & Flick Off!

Earthseed: The Book of Life, a Cento

How would you like to be drawn?
The body artist asks. She sits under
a shower of mist.
Her blue-green scaled body
catches sunlight from the watery window.

There are sketches of beings on the walls
and her tables. 


How would you like to be perceived?

The sun tries to touch the soil, burning through tarmac
and asphalt to reach cold earth underneath.
The roads crack and sink.
Sparrow wings sit discarded in ditches.
I do not need to consume continually,
it is more a craving turned habit.

The Mindworm is Spreading

Stilted bones for your birthday
are an expected guest
present in the evening decanter
poured between me,
the mist and my sister.
Sparrows are my confidantes.
Butterflies are my enemies.
My sister is alright,
she isn’t a butterfly.



Put on your shoes or else you need to leave

FabBooth

On a productive day
I get out my fountain pen and paper and stand outside, in the rain,
letting wet smear You can’t read this. 

I vowed to be of service to other beings

Nebby peeled back the layers of her grandmother’s Holo account. She tried to piece together the girl her grandma had been. Opening the earliest part of the catalogue. 

Family Tree

We live, we make, we work
in interconnected stratigraphies.



Our Time and Space

The open skylights lance
drops of sunlight that slip
through prisms and bounce
off mirrors, leaving a spill
of colour and light


Manipulating the Light

Art from 55 contributors from the women & lgbtqiap+ communities- all sales from this volume will be donated to Crossroads for Women

Objectified

Our honeymoon to the stars

The woman stares at the pillbox of pearls beside her bed.
She takes it in her hand, shakes out a few into her palm
then strings a necklace. She clasps it behind her neck.


Chemical Rebalance for Young Cyborg Housewives

Now we find each other turned by urban obstacles.
With disbelief I touch the cold marble,
time for the tram, time for the conductress, time for the policeman.
When I banged my head on the door, I screamed,
instead of painting volcanoes.

Ugly, Red: A Cento

Pulling up backyard violets & dandelions
baby birds gossip and scream, sitting beside one another.
They make their wobbly way up the branches: shaky landing strips.
Warm air cools to night.
I skateboard with my friends on a bike path home.


Squishing Ants

Light glances off the
geodesic dome. Inside:
a cool, green reprieve
against the dry, cracked desert.
Our community survives.

Mahaila Smith

Books

Selected work

Projects