Welcome to National Poetry Month! To celebrate this special time of year, we’ll feature a series of poet spotlights throughout April! Poetry is the backbone of our press and is near and dear to our hearts! To kick things off, we are shining a light on Michael V. Smith and sharing a poem from Queers […]
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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 […]
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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 –Â 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? 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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