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 […]
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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 […]
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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. […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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How can poetry set you free? The second response in our National Poetry Month series comes from author Hasan Namir who explores freedom from a lens of self-discovery and self-actualization. Enjoy: “Poetry is my therapy. Poetry has always been the vessel of my emotions. When I was 16, whenever I felt sad I would always […]
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How can poetry set you free? Shannon Webb-Campbell starts off our National Poetry Month series with mesmerizing words on the magic of poems. Prepare to be swept away: “Poetry is a vital tonic – it invigorates minerals in the blood and stimulates the brain like oxygen. In her 1985 essay Audre Lorde writes, ‘For women, […]
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Hello friends! My name is Miriam and I have been welcomed on as a Spring placement at Book*hug! It is my final step in completing the Centennial College Publishing Program certificate that I began last September, as well as a longstanding dream of mine. I have always loved being part of the process that brings […]
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Happy National Poetry Month everyone! In 1985, Audre Lorde published her well-known essay on poetry, “Poetry is Not a Luxury.” Short but powerful, the essay speaks on the act of writing poetry as a challenge to traditional narratives and a means of amplifying new and alternative perspectives, particularly of those that have been historically silenced. […]
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