Pasquale Verdicchio, alumnus of UVic, is Emeritus Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. His work has appeared through Guernica, Ekstasis, and Sun and Moon. His academic volumes include and Ecocritical Approaches to Italian Culture and Literature:The Denatured Wild (Lexington, 2016). Contentment, his most recent collection, appeared through Ekstasis. “Contentment” represents a contemplation on variations of the term beyond its assumed senses of happiness and satisfaction through various contexts and the ambiguity of descriptive language. Its verses are meant as signposts in the aid of achieving a direct and uncomplicated relationship with the world. Lines unwind to create spaces where attachment is undone through shifting tenses of being and territories. The resulting landscapes propose a non-conventional relationship, where to be at home in a place means to be able to leave it behind. Tharani Balachandran is a first-generation Canadian, lawyer, tea enthusiast, reader of books, lover of gossip and writer of poems who lives on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen peoples in Victoria, British Columbia. Her work has appeared in the Racket Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Quail Bell and Fine Lines. Her debut chapbook was entitled Love in the Time of Corona. Brown Sugar Skin is the second poetry chapbook by Tharani Balachandran. In this collection, the author delves into childhood, family, immigration, mental health, dating, identity, fertility, and motherhood. She hopes that readers of this collection can find at least one poem that resonates, as moving from childhood to adulthood, becoming comfortable in your own skin, and loving yourself are all universal experiences.