The life of Great Salt Lake is inseparable from our own.
 
We gather to bear witness to her beauty. We gather to grieve. We gather to create beacons of possibility. We gather to increase our tenderness towards brine shrimp, microbialites, and winged citizens of the air. We gather to carry each other through spells of despair. We gather to revere all that is vital and alive...
We continue to honor a great intelligence deserving of legally defensible personal rights, as we sing back to a ever-singing and sentient entity.
 
Nan Seymour, Great Salt Lake Vigil

Poet, teacher of writing, and community activist Nan Seymour lives near Great Salt Lake, which is in peril, as are inland saline seas around the world—from climate change but also from human generated polution and environmentally unsustainable practices which threaten their existence. 

Dams on tributary rivers divert flow of water to the lake, which is shrinking. Sequestered toxic chemicals from industrial farms and industry which have settled on the lake bottom create dust storms of pollution as the lake recedes. Wildlife are forced to leave this habitat which is on the North American flyway for migratory birds.

Beginning in January 2022 Nan Seymour has spearheaded a daily vigil for the lake, corresponding to the seven week period of the Utah State legislative session. 

The vigil began in 2022 as one woman, Nan, living in a trailer on Antelope Island, supported by fellow writers and friends. It has grown in number, voice, and action to include other writers, fellow citizens, scientists,  environmental groups, Indigenous voices, and occasional voices from abroad who have written about this vigil which is less a protest movement than a determined community statement of intent to save the lake.

n 2024 the vigil "walked the waves" around Utah State capital building, morning and evening, sometimes joined by law-makers.


Irreplaceable, a collective long poem of over 500 voices which has resulted from the vigil will be published in 2024.

coming in 2024, Beloved Water Body, poems by Nan Seymour

Nan's first book of poetry, Prayers Not Meant For Heaven, was published as a chapbook by Toad Hall Editions in 2021. You can order it from the publisher.

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"I walk along a corridor in the Museum of memory" 
writes Onjana Yawnghwe.


Onjana Yawnghwe's grandfather was the last ruling head of Shan State in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. He was the first president of unified Burma, which was set up as a hoped for democratic state. 

In 1962 the first military coup of what is now the longest running civil war in modern times saw Onjana's parents fighting in the jungles of Burma, where her older brother was born. The family fled to Thailand, where Onjana was born, and finally immigrated to Canada with nothing but a pile of suitcases on a luggage cart.

Growing up Onjana was protected from her turbulent past by her family but suffered, nevertheless, the trauma and exclusions immigrants face. As an adult she revisits her turbulent ancestral history, distilling its essence in verse.


Work in Progress

Homes: A Pictorial Archive of Memory

Onjana Yawnghwe is also an illustrator as seen in this graphic memoir; view excerpts are on her website, Onjana Yawnghwe.com.

Rivers of Memory and Onjana's previous book of poetry, The Small Way, were published by Caitlin Press. They  can be ordered from the publisher or your favourite bookstore or online book outlet.

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At this stage of my journey, I've returned to my ten year old self when poetry was as natural as a fresh stream. 
- Yehudit Silverman

Whether writing of the war in Israel / Gaza, deaths of loved ones, or nature Yehudit Silverman distills a life spent as artist and healer in her recent poetry. In this episode we discuss both her writing and her work as a creative art therapist, author and film-maker. 
The Story Within: Myth and Fairy Tale in Therapy & The Hidden Face of Suicide

Based on her clinical work in several hospitals, and as the former Chair, professor, in the Department of Creative Arts Therapies at Concordia University, Montreal, Yehudit understands the power of the arts for healing. Her book and film, T he Story Within - Myth and Fairy Tale in Therapy, as well as her film, The Hidden Face of Suicide, encourage others to discover their own creativity and resilience even in the face of great suffering.

Yehudit Silverman

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Pervin Saket is the pen name of a multi-genre poet, novelist, playwright, children's author and essayist who lives in Mumbai, India. She writes of identity and the purpose of language influenced by her family's Zoroastrian, ( Parsi ) faith and the caste system of her home country. Inspired by a forgotten woman from a timeless epic, 

Inspired by a forgotten woman from a timeless epic, the Ramayana, Pervin’s novel Urmila rekindles questions of love, devotion and desire in contemporary India. 

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My body on a bus stop bench is a place of high drama, writes  poet Alison Braid-Fernandez in her poem, Blue Dot, which is included in the Montreal Poetry Prize 2022 Anthology.

Alison Braid-Fernandez is a Canadian poet who has lived in Prague, Vancouver and now London, England. Her work is informed by the legacy and environment of these unique locales and the relationships she has encountered with individuals, trains and buses, parks, fruit, colours, the devices we live with. Lately she has been writing ekphrastic poems which take their inspiration from art works but also from overlapping influences such as music and the written word. Their influences on the body are at the heart of Alison's poems. 

The ekphrastic references are so complex, juicy and evocative that I decided to list them here as an aid to the listener in my fascinating interchange with Alison. Enjoy.

Blue Dot: after Dorothea Lasky, Animal, essays

Ekphrasis Yourself, Jennifer Nelson, Woodland Pattern Book Centre, woodland pattern.org

Embracing Confusion, Bryon Cherry, woodlandpattern.org

Light Upon the Body, after Adrienne Dagg, Luncheon in Room 206, Bau-Xi Gallery

Moving Continents, after Leonardo Cappiello, Chocolat Klaus, Library of Congress

Nectarine Heart #1 after John Wilde, Boxed Fruit #1: A Nectarine, Milwaukee Art Museum

Oranges, after Erin Armstrong, Between Two Minds, Bau-Xi Gallery

Alison Braid-Fernandez's first chapbook, Little Hunches was published with Anstruther Press (2020.) She is presently working on a short story collection, Look Both Ways and Other Stories. Visit her website to learn and read more. 

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The world is made up of stories, many of which remain untold. History told from the point of view of grand achievements, harrowing deeds, or significant events omits the effects of history on personal lives, family, and community.

The childhood memoirs of Jadzia Prenosil and Elizabeth Herejk couldn't be more different, yet each illuminates the hardships faced by families following World War 2. Each memoir has been realized through new models of self-publishing.

Elizabeth Herejk's memoir, From Kendal to Canada: An Adventurous Spirit follows her childhood growing up in Kendal, a small market town in Cumbria, England, her interesting nursing career in Canada, and her varied retirement activities. Elizabeth regards From Kendal to Canada as legacy work written for her family and friends with emphasis on her European heritage. Life in Kendal was austere, a story of self-reliance and ingenuity at a time of food shortages and other privations which inevitably follow war.

Jadzia Prenosil's memoir, My Childhood Behind the Iron Curtain details an even grimmer post-war life. In 1968 Russia invaded Czechoslovakia and Jadzia's mother died unexpectedly. In the aftermath of this double tragedy her father remained in Europe and Jadzia and her sisters emigrated to Canada, sponsored by an aunt. Jadzia was seventeen. A brutal beginning to life in a new country.

Jadzia wrote this memoir in memory of her beloved mother and sisters for her family and friends in Vancouver. It illustrates how love and strength of family can endure great hardship.

Both authors self-published their memoirs through new publishing models which make this sort of project possible.

In her conversations with the authors, Ingrid Rose discusses the process each went through in bringing their memoir to fruition.

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Kat, the protagonist in Jane Callen’s novel, Bernini’s Elephant,  leads the reader on a dark adventure of transformation. This tale of murder and redemption is set within contrasting environments in Canada and Italy with lush descriptions of Vancouver, the coastal wilderness of Vancouver Island, and the high art world of Florence and Venice.

“Genre-defying. Callen draws us deep into the vivid art world, conjuring the life and legacy of a young Italian painter and his muse, an older lover with a poisoned past. A literary mystery spanning two continents; the moral stakes of human desire create an intelligent and utterly absorbing read. A sensual, richly detailed glimpse of Italian architecture, art, family secrets, and above all: the struggles of love.”
—SUSAN DOHERTY, author of A Secret Music, and The Ghost Garden

Bernini's Elephant was published by Guernica Editions in May 2023. You may order it from the publisher or your favourite library, bookstore or online source.

Visit Jane's website to learn more of her writing and current projects.

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GOODBYE TO LAMPEDUSA

It is what they say
because the sea does not have footprints
to see where others have ended their journeys,
and today—this incandescent afternoon—
they tell you to follow
the path of the wind,
follow it to where the water leads you
as a new merchandise arrives
with a parcel of goodbye.

Goodbye is what they tell you
as your final parting gift, so close
your heart to unholy thoughts
about the waves.

Nigerian poet Salawu Ọlájídé  joins host Ingrid Rose to discuss his chapbook, Preface for Leaving Homeland.
Ọlájídé is a Ph.D candidate at University of Alberta with a passionate interest in de-colonization. "Goodbye is a migrant word",  Ọlájídé says of the title of his poem, Goodbye to Lampedusa.
Lampedusa, an island off the coast of Italy known for fishing and tourism has welcomed many African migrants in the past. In autumn 2023 the resources of this generous island were overwhelmed by Africans fleeing war and poverty, “We find people at sea – on boats and in the water – and we rescue them,” Pietro Riso, a local fisherman told Al Jazeera. “At times, we find bodies in our nets.”
Ọlájídé is also passionate about preservation of Indigenous language. "When I see Nigerian writers writing in English receiving national awards, I recognize an implicit gesture of exclusion going on as well. I wonder what kind of awakening could greet Nigerian literature if more indigenous voices were included in these literary spaces." 
from a 2021 article, On the Politics of Language in Nigerian Literature, Ọlájídé Salawu Examines the Colonial Grounding of the Country's Literary Industry.NOTE!
Transcriptions of the poems in this episode will be available to view on the Writers Radio Listen page while the program is on air and with our Podcast.

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Epigraph to Holy Magic
Let wise men piece the world together with wisdom
Or poets with Holy Magic
Hey-di-ho

Wallace Stevens

Each chapter of Holy Magic has a colour palette. Each poem reflects a vibration of that colour. Many of the poems contain epigraphs of other writers or artists. Each section captures the mood of its colour. Archeology of Orange for instance, A Glass of Bitter Ale, Bluebirds.

It is a rainbow of a book.

In 2022 Priscilla Long released a book, Dancing with the Muse in Old Age, about thriving in old age. She is eighty.

Priscilla writes, "The book explores the old-age time of life of more than one-hundred dynamic elders—mostly but not entirely creators in the arts, both well-known and little known, both able-bodied and disabled. Their inspiring stories model for us all how to live in old age. The sections, “Composing Our Lives: Old Age” at the end of each chapter will help readers consider and better plan for a satisfying old age."

Priscilla Long is a Seattle-based poet, writer, editor and a longtime independent teacher of writing. She has been an activist in peace and social justice movements. She serves as founding and consulting editor of HistoryLink.org, the free online encyclopedia of Washington state history. She writes science, poetry, history, creative nonfiction and essay, and fiction. She has written a guide to creativity, Minding the Muse, and a how-to-write guide, The Writer's Portable Mentor.

Her books are available for order through libraries, bookstores and online.

Holy Magic was published in 2020 by Moon Path Press for which it won the Sally Albiso Poetry Book Award.

Dancing with the Muse in Old Age was published in 2022 by Epicenter/Coffeetown Press.

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Title: The Passion of a Poet
Episode: P075
START: January 01, 2024
ENDS: January 14, 2024
Length:  33' mins
Host/Producer: Ingrid Rose

Poetry is the hinge between the artist, having that moment, and the reader or listener, having their own moment in the silence of the first breath, after a poem. A poem is a medium, that says, "here, have this" it can do this, because it is compact. Because it carries you, like a magic carpet, across meaning. Because its intent is fleeting.

"Advocacy through story: an interview with Michelle Poirier Brown".

Michelle Piorier Brown: writer, performer, playwright, photographer, and former federal treaty negotiator is a writer with a desire for clarity. What is going on? She asks us to consider.

She describes, You Might Be Sorry You Read This, as a poetic memoir. It distills five decades of living through extreme childhood trauma, learning to live with PTSD, discovering her Cree, Métis roots at age 38 and finding her way through this maze to the page.

Join Michelle and Ingrid Rose, in conversation about personal and public identity and the challenges and opportunities in writing difficult histories.

Michelle Poitier Brown is an internationally, published writer and performer, currently living on the traditional unseeded territory of the silax peoples, in Vernon, BC. She is nehiyaw-iskwew and a citizen of the Métis nation. Her debut book of poetry, You Might Be Sorry You Read This, was published in the Robert Kroetsch Series from the University of Alberta press in Spring, 2022. It was shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch award for innovative poetry. In 2023, her chapbook book of poems and photographs, Intimacies, was published by Jack Pine press in 2023.

Adapted from the authors website

Order You Might Be Sorry You Read This,from your local library or a bookstore or direct from the publisher

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