Interview with Gwen Benaway

Context:

I reviewed Gwen Benaway’s poetry collection, Passage, which was published recently in Arc Poetry Magazine’s Canada 150 Reconciliation issue. The review started with a reference to Neal McLeod’s book, Indigenous Poetics in Canada. After the publication of the issue, I posted a photo of the review on Twitter. The photo led to a Twitter conversation with Gwen where she informed me of the problem that lay in invoking McLeod in a review of her work, given his history of domestic abuse of Indigenous women. The news of his abuse had broken publicly a few days before I posted the photo on Twitter, while it had been common knowledge within the Indigenous community. While I acknowledged the news as something recent and something that I had been unaware of, I also began to defend the review itself. Instead of being a productive conversation, the conversation became a disagreement. Doyali Islam, the reviews editor for that particular issue, stepped into the conversation, but the conversation ended without any resolution.

The next day, after I had a chance to reflect on the Twitter interaction and the actual issues raised by Benaway, I reached out to her via email with an apology. Over email, we were able to unpack the problems raised by the presence of McLeod’s name in the review. The following interview rose out of that initial email conversation. Benaway and I met in downtown St. Catharines during Queer Canada, and over lunch, unpacked some vital issues plaguing CanLit in relation to Indigeneity, today.

The interview is now on The Rusty Toque. You can read it here.

On the Line podcast: A conversation about Tarfia Faizullah’s Seam

Last summer, a month before I was due to head to India for my wedding, Catriona Wright, Laboni Islam, and I, gathered in Kate Sutherland’s living room to discuss Tarfia Faizullah’s poetry collection, Seam (2014).

It was mad fun. We talked about a lot of things, like structure, word choice, voice of the speaker(s), and ethics of research that led to this book. I especially talked of the problem of co-option of voices of the survivors of 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War (the biranganas), and how Faizullah’s privilege as an American woman in academia (on a Fulbright scholarship, no less) allowed her to do so without repercussions.

And, we had a peek at Kate’s poetry collection, which is rather kickass.

You can follow Kate Sutherland on Instagram, where she posts her poetry reads.

You can listen to the podcast here.

 

up to date

It’s been 3 days ish since I submitted my comprehensive exam (3 short essays), a few hours since I finished with most of my teaching assistant duties (marking) – although grades need to be uploaded – and am a few days away from moving back home. I should be exhilarated, right? I should be relaxed… but like most of my life in action, the tinge of unfinished business graces the air around me, and until I am done (which I am never, usually, as there is always something unfinished), I cannot breathe.

It’s also the 6 year celebration of this blog. Happy birthday, us!

I have some news that I guess I should dispense with. I have my first ever publication forthcoming in a Canadian magazine this spring. Cause for (some) celebration, I suppose. It’s a short fiction piece from a collection of short stories that I have been working on for the past – 3? 4?  – years.  I performed the piece recently at Laurier. It’s one of my most difficult/best pieces till now (I say that every time, I know), and merde! I wasn’t stage shy at all… no shaking feet, or quivering heart. It seems I have conquered that godawful stage fright thing I always had.

Well, then.

I am so happy with what I have been writing in the past few months. I guess I have sort of been on a creative high considering I am in love with a writer; also, a dear friend; also, my partner; also, the person I am going to marry.

There, that’s it… for now.

story of a single brown canadian woman’s body

Artist: Carol Rossetti; Source: http://mic.com/articles/92651/18-empowering-illustrations-to-remind-everyone-who-s-really-in-charge-of-women-s-bodies#.mQD4etOpu

 

If you have been following the last few posts, then you are aware of the fact that I have been working on some new stuff. Rather, this “new stuff” has become a marker of everything that I now produce, creatively.

I am not sure what opened up the floodgates, but somehow, all the inhibitions I had as a writer have been shed. I am unafraid to be vocal.

And the words… they just keep on coming.

My poem, “story of a single brown canadian woman’s body,” is a part of Media Diversified’s newly launched Tumblr Poetry Series. Some of the issues I extrapolate in the talk in my previous post are evident in this poem, as well. Go see.

How, then, to begin, to begin?

If the subject – here, the writer of colour – is unaware of the absence of speech, then where does he/she begin? Or, as Roy Miki asks, “How, then, to begin, to begin?” – an excerpt from the final essay I wrote for Dr. Smaro Kamboureli’s graduate English class at University of Toronto end April 2015.

On 24th November 2015, I was invited by Dr. Jing Jing Chang to give a short talk to her undergrad class on Bollywood films at Wilfrid Laurier University. The talk addresses my existence as a South Asian person/academic/artist in Canada, and negotiating that identity through creative writing and academia.

The talk ends with a performance of my most recent work of poetry, “elephant in the room.”

Since I don’t completely despise how I sound, here is the talk in its entirety:

Hear ye, hear ye

I will be, ahem, partaking in my first public reading.

Okay, not. The first one I did was an open mike scene in front of a drunken crowd in Kingston back in 2012 during my birthday week. The work I read was “Sublime,” my most popular poem back then.

This reading is different, even though it happens to fall within my birthday month.

I am a guest speaker, for one, accompanying other guest speakers, opening for two book launches for BookThug. And… I have been working on some new stuff the past few months, some personal, raw stuff. Not love poems either. I think I may be beyond that stuff now (love poems, not love). This is the first time I will be unveiling this stuff in public.

So, if you happen to be in the Kitchener-Waterloo area on that veritable day, be there. Or, don’t. Your loss.

What?: Waterloo Joint Launch for Myrmurs by Shannon Maguire, with David Bateman, and The Poison Colour by Maureen Hynes (Pedlar Press).

With guests Emily Bednarz, Maggie Clarke, Phil Miletic, and Sanchari Sur.

Where?: Veritas Cafe, Wilfrid Laurier University Campus, 75 University Avenue,
Waterloo, ON.

When?: Tuesday Nov 3rd 2015. Doors at 7:30 PM. Readings to begin at 8:00 PM.

Free event. Refreshments will be served.

Myrmurs is an innovative variant of the sestina form (a medieval mechanism of desire that spirals around six end words). Connecting medieval textuality to contemporary politics and poetics, this poem explores living systems: cities and languages as self-organizing entities; ants; interspecies entanglements; strange attachments; neocolonialism and how to break free of it. Following on her critically acclaimed debut collection fur(l) parachute (BookThug 2013), this is the second volume in Shannon Maguire’s planned medievalist trilogy.

Because anything with an ‘nx’ suffix sounds cool*

*Not my words

Iberian lynx; Source: http://bigcatswildcats.com/iberian-lynx/

I haven’t written a poem about desire in a while. Mostly because the way I think of romantic relationships has changed in the past few years.

I am not a huge fan of panpanani poems of longing. I mean, what is the point of all this longing, that is never ever fulfilled? Stories of unrequited love have dominated pop culture for so long, that we almost forget that love doesn’t have to be difficult. If it is, then it’s really rather pointless.

Love, to me, should ideally exist between mental equals. It should hold some sort of balance, like an infinity symbol (minus the negative connotations associated with its ouroboros avatar), or a yin/yang. It should be an exchange of ideas, of inspiration, of contentment, of stimulating conversations.

Passion and Peace. Coexisting.

That is how I envision love.

Although, in my opinion, any healthy relationship should follow this model. Otherwise, what is the point?

My poem, “Wildlings,” is in The Nervous Breakdown (which is also one of the publications from my Top 30 list!). You can read it here.

When Poems come to Roost

I rarely write poetry nowadays.

The last time I wrote a poem, it was for a boy I had just met. He was leaving, I wanted him to have something of me to remember by etc. You know how that story goes. Especially if you are a poet, then you have definitely been in that boat at some point.

Most of my poems are personal. Some of them are political. While others are healing.

And then, there are those that are all three, like that sweet spot in a beautiful Venn diagram.

Two of my poems, “Badaun Sisters” and “Origa-me,” are in The Feminist Wire. You can read them here.

Also(!), The Feminist Wire happens to be one of the publications on my Top 30 list!

Shinjini’s Hazaar Songs

Like some names that linger on your tongue, her name became my albatross. Always synonymous with mine, I knew it as intimately as I knew her.

My own. My beloved. My sister.

So, I tugged and pulled. Broke it into pieces. Put it back together like a puzzle I knew by heart.

And so, she became mine. And, mine alone.

My poem, “Shinjini’s Hazaar Songs,” modeled after my sister’s name (Shinjini) is now in Toasted Cheese Literary Journal’s December issue. It was also workshopped in Carolyn Smart’s class in March earlier this year. You can read it here.

When a Poem Expires

There was – well, is. It still exists. – a poem that I wrote a little over two years ago. It was a reactionary poem to an event that sort of tilted my world at the time. Tilted it beyond a rose coloured view. It was a poem that made my insides squirm whenever I read it. It made me uncomfortable as it recalled the event in minute detail. Yes, it was a very uncomfortable poem and an extremely personal one.

The poem found a home in a magazine I admired. After four rejections at other places, this magazine agreed to take it in. I felt as if a poor lost puppy roaming around in the rain had suddenly been offered a home by kind patrons. It warmed my heart. The world would hear my pain.

The magazine sat on it. They sat and sat, and warmed their behinds on it. Other poems were published, but my accepted poem did not see the light of day.

The immediacy of my pain began to fade, as the poem slowly rotted.

I got over that two year old moment and started viewing the world through my kind of negotiated happiness. And even as I personally grew, the poem itself didn’t. It had been stalled before its unveiling. An aging debutante.

I sent several polite inquiries. Se-ve-ral. They were met with silence.

No white noise. No static. Just an unrelenting silence. A void, if you please.

And now, after all this time, the aging puppy has passed away, its memory a stranger.

I should just bury it and move on.