Julie Joosten Reads from Nought

Today, we have another reading to share with you, this time by Governor General’s Literary Award finalist Julie Joosten. Joosten reads from her recently published poetry collection, Nought, which explores the intersections of body, identity, and love. In Nought, experience—from resistance to love and all points between—is constantly surprising and utterly enchanting. Thought comes alive through the materiality of body and experience, neurology and metaphysics entangled with sentient physicality—skin, eyes, mouths. Throughout, Joosten grapples with form and rhythm, crafting work that is intimately perceptive; that pulses and teems with life.

“Joosten composes a phenomenology of care, brings me to the sill of an attentive stillness where I am free to not be myself,” writes acclaimed poet and translator Lisa Robertson. “It’s a little frightening and a little exhilarating. But in these poems I am welcomed and supported by the shared minutiae of perceiving.”

We hope you enjoy the following reading, and we encourage you to stay tuned for more on the blog! You can also follow us on Instagram.

Julie Joosten’s first book, Light Light, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and the Goldie Award. She won the Malahat Review Long Poem Contest in 2011. She lives and writes in Toronto on the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.