Get to know our Issue #6 "TRANSIT" Poetry Contributors!

B222 Journal
Dec 23, 2025
10 min read

Gabriel’s Responses:

Hello readers! It's been a little over a week since Issue #6 Transit was released into the world. After fourteen weeks, we are happy to see and celebrate with our contributors during our launch on Dec 1st, 2025.

If you want to read the journal, please click this link to check out the digitalized version of Transit. If you want to snag a copy for yourself, please send contact us at b222journal@gmail.com.

Couldn't make it to the launch? Never fear; the celebrations aren't over just yet. We had the chance to interview our contributors and learn more about their pieces and their artistic process. Meet some of our Transit poets below!

Annie Lynn Tebbutt

Annie Lynn Tebbutt is a third-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing and Publishing student. She is a poet and a game enthusiast from Mississauga, Ontario. Her works use abstract language to explore person-hood and human emotion. She gravitates towards things that are peculiar or unconventional in poetry, prose, and game mediums to impact how others interpret the world around them.

I wanted them to feel the impact of choice and how parts of how you perceive the world can remain true, but it shifts when you start to discover which parts of that truth most resonate with you.

Question #1: What were your intentions with this particular piece? What process did you want to take your reader through?

"Opacity (superman isn’t real)" is about questioning what you’ve been told. More specifically, it’s about forming your own opinions even when there is overwhelming pressure to believe what you are being told at face value. It's about the cultural norms that have been manipulated to fit malicious agendas and harmful ideologies. The return of these harmful rhetorics is actively pushing us further away from the goal of community-centered care and back into the idea of singular success. I wanted readers to truly experience the process of questioning what you’ve been told, forming your own opinions and belief systems, and ultimately coming to peace with your truths about the world, even when they go against the grain. I wanted them to feel the impact of choice and how parts of how you perceive the world can remain true, but it shifts when you start to discover which parts of that truth most resonate with you.

Question #2: What is the significance of Superman in your poem? What is he meant to represent?

In this piece, Superman is a representation of God, but comments on the ways he's manipulated in society for commercial and superficial means. Superman is a manifestation of the selfish cycle of performative servitude that attempts to manipulate what God has actually asked of his people. Using Superman in his place is meant to show that their ideologies and behaviours aren’t rooted in truth anymore; they are rooted in their own political, financial, or social gain. If by their standards the truthful understanding of the Bible isn’t important, then the messianic figures could be interchangeable. The use of Superman is meant to encourage asking questions and developing individual truths about the world. Since it is already littered with a large amount of self-serving and harmful interpretations, the significance of using Superman is to call attention to the artificial version of God that is present in society.

Aria V. Aheem

Aria V. Aheem is a fourth-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing student who enjoys reading and writing poetry and has recently developed a possibly concerning addiction to Laura Secord Hot Chocolate K-Cup Pods.

I was hoping that the true brutality of this act, of trying to fit something that's already so perfect into what we think might be perfect based on our selfish outlooks and egos, could be portrayed through the animal cruelty.

Question #1: What was your inspiration with this particular piece?

I tend to find inspiration in random thoughts or things I experience/see. It can be pretty random at times, so I have to make use of my notes app a lot to make sure the ideas aren't totally fleeting. The inspiration for this poem came gradually from my thoughts on how we so innately dislike things that are unalike from us, and try to fit them into things we do understand so we can comprehend their existence, even if we have no business trying to do that in the first place. I found myself doing it and the poem is sort of an opportunity I gave for myself to reflect on that tendency.

Question #2: Can you go more in-depth with the metaphor of animal brutality in your piece? How do music and violence intertwine for you?

The metaphor of animal brutality in my piece is meant to symbolize how something, such as a bird, can be so perfect for the perimeters of its own life: it can eat with its beak and also clean itself with it, its feathers keep it warm and give it the ability to fly, and the feathers are also naturally beautiful. I wanted to show in the poem that the owner of the bird isn't able to appreciate any of that, and wants to apply their own beauty standards to the bird so that it can be "better." I was hoping that the true brutality of this act, of trying to fit something that's already so perfect into what we think might be perfect based on our selfish outlooks and egos, could be portrayed through the animal cruelty. I wanted it to be uncomfortable, and it felt awful to write, but it also felt necessary, in a sense, to get the intended point across.

Dimitrie Ermurachi

Dimitrie Ermurachi is a second-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing student at Sheridan College. A poetry enthusiast, Dimitrie finds inspiration in the shared harmony people achieve through the motions of everyday life regardless of their differences. He loves cooking, movies with mind-bending plot twists, and watching the water flow through the Credit River.

This regret is a deep and overbearing awareness for the passing of the short time we have in life, forcing us to ask: “what if?”

Question #1: How does your piece relate to the Issue’s theme, Transit?

It relates to the theme in two ways. The first is more obvious being the setting of the poem inside of a transit bus. Hangman begins once the speaker enters the bus, follows them through it as they search for an empty seat, and concludes once they do. The more symbolic association with the theme is how the speaker takes an internal journey through their regret as the poem progresses. They are practically counting back their guilt of missed opportunities as they make this “walk of shame” down the aisle, realizing that the stop they hoped to get off at does not exist.

Question #2: How does regret manifest in your piece?

When it comes to regret in the context of Hangman, it is much more than a fleeting afterthought of “oh no, I forgot to buy butter from the store”. This regret is a deep and overbearing awareness for the passing of the short time we have in life, forcing us to ask: “what if?”. I wanted to highlight the haunting element of not just simply feeling incomplete but realizing that the chances you had to erase this feeling have slipped out of your hands. Therefore, I presented regret as a physical constraint that suspends the speaker in the air, forcing them to feel the weight of each of their unfulfilled possibilities, which are visualized as the limbs that make up the figure in a game of hangman. The choices one makes in life defines them, however, in this piece, the choices the speaker did not make ultimately crushes them.

Isabel Lin

Isabel Lin is an aspiring writer interested in poetry and prose. She enjoys reading any novels recommended by others and playing her favourite songs on piano. She is a second-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing student.

This poem shows the way music joins people and changes the state of mind drastically, changing the dark atmosphere into something bright and warm.

Question #1: How does your piece relate to the issue’s theme, Transit?

Transit looks like moving from one place to another physically but it can also be mentally. The theme in my poem is about moving from winter to spring through the sounds of a concert band. “Spring Performance” is an ode to music, honouring the days I spent as a flutist and trombonist in my high school concert band. It captures the dread of showing up to rehearsals and anxiety that arises before performing for an audience. Wolves are the metaphor for the audience and what moves them is the band's passion for a memorable performance. This poem shows the way music joins people and changes the state of mind drastically, changing the dark atmosphere into something bright and warm.

Question #2: How does music influence your writing?

Music has always had a huge presence in my life. I played the flute in Grade 9 and trombone from Grades 10 to 12. Though it was exhausting to show up consistently for two hours every week, the reward was hearing the band play a polished piece for an audience. Now, I am a pianist that enjoys listening to pop, classical music, and a little bit of jazz. Only this semester did I think about those days I spent in a music room and kind of missed it. I went through my old music sheets, found a piece, and listened to a performance on YouTube. Listening to that performance brought back memories and inspired me to write my poem. I constantly have music playing in the background as I write poems because it comforts me to hear other people's songs.

Jade Jacob

Jade Jacob is a fourth-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing student at Sheridan College and an experimental rising poet. Her work is deeply rooted in evocative verse and explores the fragile balance between philosophical creation (and destruction) while inspiring deeper awareness of our shared world. She also expands her craft through narrative storytelling and digital portraiture.

I feel that a nesting doll somehow mirrors that idea through its structure (and definition): layers within layers, each revealing another self, another story, another continuation, another generation…Even when one form is opened or removed, something still remains inside.

Question #1: What does your drafting process look like for poetry? What did it look like for this piece specifically?

My drafting process for poetry is usually very instinctive. I’m very visually motivated, and once I’m inspired by a scenic environment, a word or expression someone says or does, or—more importantly—a song (usually cinematic or orchestral music that really moves my soul), I start envisioning an image in my head that relates to any of those things, and the language of poetry moves the rest. I don’t write with a strict structure in mind; instead, I listen to how that kind of language moves on the page and how a line might sound in someone else’s mouth. I write whatever arrives first, then shape and refine each stanza once the initial momentum settles. But I find that this poem was significantly different. I had first written it, almost jokingly, about wanting to be a rock.

Seriously. I didn’t know how to finish it until I heard that my grandfather had passed; and, even months after his death, I couldn’t find a way to shape that kind of grief into language. I kept circling the poem, adding lines, removing them, and then feeling like nothing I wrote could hold the weight of what I really wanted it to mean. It took me months to finish! Only after I heard the phrase “memento mori” in a movie and finally let myself sit inside its meaning (as you can see in the poem itself), did I somehow finish the poem. So, my drafting process is very spontaneous, but this one definitely carried a different sort of heaviness.

Question #2: Can you expand more on the imagery of the nesting doll for your requested illustration? What is the significance to the piece?

The nesting doll imagery came to me quite suddenly, but it felt immediately right for the piece. The World (Still) Boils Rice is, at its core, about the inevitability of life: the way the world continues its “quiet” labours long after we’re gone. I feel that a nesting doll somehow mirrors that idea through its structure (and definition): layers within layers, each revealing another self, another story, another continuation, another generation…Even when one form is opened or removed, something still remains inside. My grandfather’s death helped shape the poem into that idea and this felt deeply aligned with the poem’s meditation on not only mortality, but also the persistence of small, everyday rituals as well as the subtle “reincarnations” of self that keep living in us long after a life ends.

Stacy Estabillo

Stacy Estabillo is a second-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing student. She is from the Philippines, and aspires to broaden her creative mind and skills. While she is still unsure of what her future brings, she looks forward to where her creative writing journey will take her. Stacy wishes to reach and inspire others, and to make an impact with her work.

We often turn to nature to escape the chaos of society and the modern world, finding peace in its stillness, silence, and its beautiful sights.

Question # 1: How does your piece relate to the Issue’s theme, Transit? What was the editorial process like with B222?

“Embrace” relates to the Issue’s theme, Transit, in how the contents of the poem essentially shows a person’s reaction to their own personal chaos and turmoil, and how they get through their emotions. The speaker first assesses and realizes what’s happening within themselves and goes through a grounding process to calm down, which is explored through elements of nature. It conveys the message of embracing chaos instead of fighting against it.

The editorial process with B222’s editorial team was very insightful and informative. I learned a lot about myself, like how I embodied the contents of the poem as I was trying to improve it to be better. I also learned some new skills to improve my own poetry writing when going through the editing stage. I am proud of the final version of “Embrace,” and I can’t wait for others to read it!

Question #2: How does your work and your poems intertwine in finding healing through nature?

My work for B222 and my own poems intertwine with finding healing through nature by describing sights, sounds, scent, texture, senses, and representing images of nature to write about how nature is in tandem with humans. In my work, I use the weather and broken objects to describe negative emotions; I use water and the scent of wood as calming elements to nudge the atmosphere of the poem into a better state instead of chaos. We often turn to nature to escape the chaos of society and the modern world, finding peace in its stillness, silence, and its beautiful sights.

When I write, I often express emotions by associating them with an image or sensation of nature, and nature is the most common element and tool to use to describe how we react to the world around us.

Check out my other interviews with our Prose and Visual Art contributors!