Gatherings | Issue 32
Samia Halaby, Mosab Abu Toha, Fady Joudah, Farzana Doctor, Canisia Lubrin, Wild Prose Readings, Vancouver Launch for AnecdotReal Vancouver Reading Series, Lilian’s Nattel, Lillian Allen, Kirby & more.
My News
Susan Sanford Blades interviewed me for her blog Girls to the Front about writing and newsletters!
I’ll be reading at the Wild Prose Readings in Victoria on January 25, 2024 at 6:30pm with JD Derbyshire and Emi Sasagawa!
Hope to see you there!
The Vancouver launch of Anecdotes has a new date after being snowed out!
Please join us on February 29th! The event is free, but please register as there is limited space at the Upstart and Crow!
I’m reading at the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series on March 3, 2024.
This is a virtual event.
Details to come.
SMLTA columnist Kirby has a new book of poetry coming out: She.
I wrote a blurb for it. Check out what other readers are saying about this stunning book!
Gatherings
When I left, I left my childhood in the drawer and on the kitchen table. I left my toy horse in its plastic bag. I left without looking at the clock. I forget whether it was noon or evening.
Read “Leaving Childhood Behind” by Mosab Abu Toha, Poets.org
They did not mean to kill the children. They meant to. Too many kids got in the way of precisely imprecise one-ton bombs dropped a thousand and one times over the children’s nights. They will not forgive the children this sin. They wanted to save them from future sins.
Read “[…]” by Fady Joudah in Jewish Currents with an introduction by Claire Schwartz
Samia Halaby’s retrospective was cancelled at Indiana University Bloomington. There’s a petition to reinstate it.
“Moths and other nocturnal insects navigate by the moon and stars. Those heavenly bodies are useful for them to find their way, even though they never get far from the surface of the earth. But lightbulbs and candles send them astray; they fly into the heat or the flame and die. For these creatures, to arrive is a calamity. When activists mistake heaven for some goal at which they must arrive, rather than an idea to navigate Earth by, they burn themselves out, or they set up a totalitarian utopia in which others are burned in the flames. Don’t mistake a lightbulb for the moon, and don’t believe that the moon is useless unless we land on it. After all those millennia of poetry about the moon, nothing was more prosaic than the guys in space suits stomping around on the moon with their flags and golf clubs thirty-something years ago. The moon is profound except when we land on it.”
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Small Press Economies: A Dialogue by Hilary Plum and Matvei Yankelevich, Chicago Review
Nicolas Bradley reads with Allie Picketts at Planet Earth Poetry in Victoria on January 26
Nicolas Bradley is the author of two books of poetry: Rain Shadow (University of Alberta Press, 2018) and Before Combustion (Gaspereau Press, 2023). His poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Poetry 2024. He lives in Victoria, BC – in lək̓ʷəŋən territory.
The routines of work, chores, and parenthood can both define and disquiet us. As the steady stream of anxieties and distractions sets the day-to-day human world adrift, what meaningful relationship remains possible with the natural world? In Before Combustion, Nicholas Bradley writes of the challenges of living with attentiveness and curiosity in a time of atmospheric rivers and forest fires, and of the struggle to reconnect our domestic worlds to greater cycles of place and time.
Allie Picketts is a poet, musician, editor, parent, and teacher who is happiest in the woods. She is thankful to live and write in T’Sou-ke territory on Vancouver Island. Her first poetry collection 'i, nemophile' was released in November 2023. Find Allie at www.alliepickettswrites.com
For more info visit Planet Earth Poetry
Canisia Lubrin’s debut book of fiction, Code Noir, launches in Toronto on February 5th at Another Story Bookshop with a stellar line up: Dionne Brand, Britta Badour, Christina Sharpe, Torkwase Dyson, Safiya Sinclair, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Kaie Kellough, Karlyn Percil, and Ola Mohammed.
Register for this free event.
Here’s a recent story from this collection "The Boy, The Girls, the Dog, and I Was There Yale Review
Lilian’s Nattel’s book Only Sisters had me sobbing in public! Multiple times!
This is one of my favourite descriptions in the book. A portrait of a family after a crisis:
All the while, he [Dad] kept working the steps diligently, sourly, and Mom cleaned, muttering to herself, “She’s fine, she’s fine.” I floated like a thread on water, trying not to make a ripple.
Check out this Lillian Allen performance from 1988!
I’m on a Hal Hartley kick thanks to Criterion.
Started with The Unbelievable Truth and now onto The Book of Life. Lots of end of the world themes here.
Montreal International Poetry Prize is now accepting submissions until May 15th!
Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival, CineVic Society of Independent Filmmakers, Late Deadline February 1, 2024
Contributor News
Kirby has an event on Friday January 25, 2024 with Don Pyle and Will Manning at the Niagara Artists Centre.
Chelene Knight has a new book out now!
“For readers of Ross Gay and listeners of Therapy for Black Girls, a reflective examination of Black self-love and joy that guides the reader to ditch old beliefs, achieve difficult unlearnings and redefine language, relationships and love to find their own unique path to joy.” (HarperCollins)
From Let It Go:
“My own path to joy has been blurred by hardship, but part of my journey is that I refuse to believe that all of my negative experiences are tethered to being a Black woman, even though it can feel like this, even when some people want me to feel like this. And when I feel it, it’s a pain that swells and refuses to subside. I didn’t learn this on my own and I don’t think I can unlearn it on my own. But I’m willing to do the work. I want my joy as I find it; I want my joy as it comes. I’m willing to let the wind push me backwards through the difficult moments. Maybe there’s something big holding you back too. Take a breath. What is it? Maybe we can let go, together.”
—Chelene Knight
Farzana Doctor has a new book coming out this spring: 52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life: For Caregivers, Activists, and Helping Professionals
“A practical guide to self- and community care, written for helpers—the caregivers, activists, community leaders, mental health and medical professionals who are the first to help others, but the last to seek help themselves.” (Douglas & McIntyre)
Past and current Send My Love to Anyone contributors are invited to share their news and events for listing in Gatherings.
So be sure to drop me a line and keep me updated!
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Thanks for sharing @reframeables!