How can poetry set you free? The final offering in our National Poetry month series is an intimate reflection from Laila Malik. As she speaks on breath, survival, and possibility, her response brings us full circle, back into Lorde’s essay, and the freeing power of poetry. “In 1991, six years after Audre Lorde wrote “Poetry […]
Continue readingMonthly Archives: April 2023
National Poetry Month: Poetry as Wonder
How can poetry set you free? Slide down our National Poetry Month series rabbit hole with Shani Mootoo’s phenomenal response to the query: “Discussions about, and answers to big questions, are – for most of us – a quick and easy click away. How sweet to slide down those rabbit holes. I find that the […]
Continue readingNational Poetry Month: Poetry as Parallel Universe
How can poetry set you free? Can poetry be a safe space? An act of protest? What about both? For our National Poetry Month query, River Halen gets personal about poetry as a way for marginalized ideas to bloom and find their publics: “I said a version of this elsewhere once, but I think it […]
Continue readingNational Poetry Month: Poetry as Amplification
How can poetry set you free? Adebe DeRango-Adem continues our National Poetry Month series with a message on how poetry’s voice can move us to necessary action. Read her far more profound explanation below: “As I write, I can’t help but read aloud, think about how the lines I am writing will sound—their sonic potential. […]
Continue reading“A constant movement, an ongoing development”: In Conversation with Laila Malik
Today, we are delighted to be in conversation with Laila Malik, author of archipelago. Malik’s lyrical poems intertwine histories of exile and ecological devastation. Beginning with a coming of age in the 80s and 90s between Canada, the Arabian Gulf, East Africa and Kashmir, they subvert conventions of lineage, instead drawing on the truths of […]
Continue readingNational Poetry Month: Poetry and Solidarity
How can poetry set you free? The next voice in our National Poetry Month series belongs to Daniel Sarah Karasik. They astutely examine the way in which poetry can be an instrument of solidarity. Here is more on their conversation of poetry’s ability to connect us: “Writing and reading poetry are, for me, most often […]
Continue readingHappy Book Birthday to Places Like These by Lauren Carter!
Today, we are delighted to celebrate the release of award-winning writer Lauren Carter’s moving short story collection, Places Like These! A 2023 Fiction Pick from CBC Books, 49th Shelf, and Winnipeg Free Press, Places Like These is a poignant exploration of the longings that sit just beneath the surface of daily routines and close relationships. […]
Continue readingNational Poetry Month: Poetry as Awareness
How can poetry set you free? Author Kate Cayley answers our National Poetry Month series question with a query of her own: can poetry’s request for our acute attention be a pathway to a world unseen? Read what she has to say: “I’m not sure how to answer the question of how, or whether, poetry […]
Continue readingNational Poetry Month: Poetry as Empowerment
How can poetry set you free? Our National Poetry Month series continues with a response by Therese Estacion on how poetry reflects the most vulnerable parts of our humanity and returns power to our sense of being: “ ‘Our poems formulate the implications of ourselves, what we fear within and dare make real…our fears, our […]
Continue readingMeet Our New Sales and Events Coordinator: Reid
Hello everyone! My name is Reid, and I am thrilled to be the new Sales and Events Coordinator at Book*hug Press! I have been working with the press since January, collaborating with our authors to organize book launches and events and corresponding with bookstores around the country to raise awareness of our new season of […]
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