Our Winter 2026 issue includes many exciting pieces, but one in particular stayed with me. Paper clip sex by Roger D. Anderson is a quick, humorous expression of joie de vivre made in just a couple of rough brushstrokes, the rich colours of which are as vivid as an oil painting, and just as memorable. It is an exquisite short poem about the mundane paper clip, personified from the opening lines as a stubborn, passionate being. Their tendency to tangle so effortlessly gives the impression that this is their primary function:
they can be so amorous
those naughty little creatures
toss them into a small box or into a small tray
one at a time
and watch them go at it.
Stumbling across something and thinking, “I’ve thought about that too” is one of the great pleasures of reading. While the way an author expresses your shared idea is almost certainly different from how you would go about it, such differences offer an opportunity for surprise; being presented with a new angle adds dimensions to your perspective. With paper clip sex, I was struck by the notion of the clips’ insatiability. Anderson speaks to the frustration of picking out a paper clip, sharpening his narrative with a humorous disdain for the fiddly, time-wasting process.
The piece as a whole feels like a monologue—a joke that grows as the speaker keeps talking—and that sense of expansion is reflected in the paragraph breaks, which seem to say: “here’s a thought… and here’s another… and this one too!” The poem reads like part of a conversation in which, encouraged by the amusement each line provokes, the speaker keeps adding to the joke until we reach the overblown judgement of paper clips as insatiable creatures:
then try to find just a single one later
yeah, right, good luck
twosomes, threesomes
sometimes a total orgy of entwined metal sex
in just that one small container
such insatiable little things.
The speaker’s sneering annoyance and faint affection for paper clips are both felt in equal measure, and this difficult balance is precisely what gives the poem its charm. This balance is what creates a sense of joie de vivre: after all, we often feel sudden bursts of happiness and excitement about the world when we approach things humorously—and with a slight air of defiance.
Anderson’s speaker is blasé in tone, as if his observations were an established fact. And this imposing manner conditions the reader to believe in the idea. After reading the well-written narrative of this poem I suspect I will always see paper clips as creatures glinting mischievously under the light. I’ll probably start asking my friends whether they’ve ever imagined them the way Anderson and I have—and what dimension they might add to ours.
Rosa Bucher, Associate Fiction Editor
This blog post, along with many others, is available to read on the Spellnotes section of our website.
If you don’t follow us on social media yet, you can find links to all our channels here.
If you’d like to read or view this work in full, you can subscribe here. Our magazine is available in both PDF and paperback formats. Click here to learn more.
Photo by Mart Production on Pexels.