Inspired by…with Hana Shafi
We’re so excited to be sharing some works that inspired Hana Shafi in writing People You Know, Places You’ve Been!
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
I know it’s strange that a book of poetry about mundane, average, everyday experiences (and all the beauty and chaos within them) could be inspired by one of greatest fantasy stories of all time, but Lord of the Rings heavily inspired how I went about thinking of the tropes and archetypes that we fit into. Anti-hero, nemesis, palaces, and dungeons were all taken from my love of fantasy, and particularly The Lord of the Rings.
Trip hop
The music genre Trip Hop is a huge inspiration for this book; artists like Placebo, Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, and DJ Shadow. To me, the sounds of trip hop are the sounds of the city, the sounds of day-to-day life, walking on the subway platform, on a deserted city street at night with nothing but the glow of an orange street lamp on wet tarmac, the glow of a neon light on a convenience store making the smoke from a lit joint look like something out of a neo-noir film. This is the aesthetic I envisioned.
The works of Kahlil Gibran
Particularly Sand & Foam and The Prophet. In fact, I included a quote from Sand & Foam in the beginning of my book. I love the way Gibran talked of the connection between all people, the connections between us and the universe, us and divinity. He saw beauty in people and his works will always inspire me to keep trying to find that beauty and connection.
“Comptine d’un Autre été, L’apres-Midi” by Yann Tiersen
This song from the movie Amélie is the ultimate people-watching song for me. I highly recommend that you sit somewhere comfy outside, pop on your headphones and listen to this song while observing people.
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Hana Shafi is a writer and artist who illustrates under the name Frizz Kid. Both her visual art and writing frequently explore themes such as feminism, body politics, racism, and pop culture. She’s published articles in publications such as The Walrus, Hazlitt and This Magazine, and has been featured on Buzzfeed, CBC, Flare Magazine, and Shameless. She received the Women Who Inspire Award from the Canadian Council for Muslim Women in 2017. Her first book, It Begins With The Body was selected by CBC books as one of the best poetry books of 2018. Her second book, a compilation of essays and illustrations from her notable affirmation art series, titled Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty: Affirmations for the Real World came out in 2020. Hana and her family immigrated to Mississauga from Dubai in 1996, and she now lives in Toronto with her two cute, but sometimes annoying, cats.
