Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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This Week in Lit Events: April 17-23rd
This week there’s launches, dramatic readings, reading series, dramatic series…you name it. Don’t ever tell us that we don’t take you anywhere.Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date, time, and address to hello@alllitup.ca to be included in our listings.
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Poets Resist: Deirdre Dwyer
The small farming community of Blomidon on Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy is the setting and heart of Deirdre Dwyer’s The Blomidon Logs (ECW Press). The poems in the collection refer to the legends of the First Nations chief who once settled there, and celebrate those who make a living off the land. Below we share…
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In Review: The Week of April 10th
We’re eggstatic about the Easter long weekend because our agenda mostly consists of eating chocolate until the bunnies come home, and catching up on our TBR piles. But before we hop off, we rounded up the weekly book news and share our weekend book pick, below.
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Poets Resist: Faizal Deen
With references as wide-ranging as Bollywood and an old edition of Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, Guyanese-Canadian poet Faizal Deen uses his collection The Greatest Films (Mawenzi House) to queer and decolonialize the cultural and historical touchpoints that make up the poems within it.
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Poets Resist: Jane Byers
Jane Byers’ Acquired Community (Caitlin Press) is a poetic history of lesbian and gay movements in North America along with first-person poems about coming out, and a truly powerful example of the political being personal. Below we share the poem “Gay Bashing” from the collection, and get Jane’s thoughts on poetry as resistance.
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Poets Resist: Gwen Benaway
Two-spirit Anishinaabe and Métis poet Gwen Benaway alternately stuns and heals in her latest collection of poetry, Passage (Kegedonce Press). Gwen shares her strength-giving poem “Ceremony” in today’s #poetsresist interview, and how poetry “is the space I make myself whole.”
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This Week in Lit Events: April 10-16th
If you’d rather be hunting for new reads than eggs this week, check out our listings featuring launch parties, reading series, and all good things in between.Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date, time, and address to hello@alllitup.ca to be…
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Poets Resist: Christopher Gudgeon
As a screenwriter, essayist, biographer, and poet, Christopher Gudgeon writes poetry that pulls at you. Today’s poem, “Future Tops of America” (from his latest collection Assdeep in Wonder from Anvil Press), paints a near-wholesome picture of a future where those in the LGBTQ+ community are embraced in America like baseball and fireworks are, defiant to present-day homophobia. March on…
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In Review: The Week of April 3rd
Happy National Poetry Month (NPM)! We’ve got our fists up with our series Poets Resist dedicated to poetry as a form of resistance. Every day on the blog we’re featuring a poet whose work explores one of these: colonialism and violence, homophobia and transphobia, environmental destruction, and/or the !@#$% patriarchy. (But even though it’s NPM,…
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Poets Resist: Peter Midgley
Day five of #poetsresist gives us something to get loud about: Peter Midgley’s Unquiet Bones (Wolsak & Wynn) features visceral, physical poems that explore struggles for democracy around the globe, speak to efforts to uproot colonialism while working in a variety of languages and even referencing traditional African poem forms.
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Poets Resist: Moez Surani
On day four of #poetsresist, we examine state violence and language. The colloquial title of Moez Surani’s most recent book, Operations’ official title is the word “Operation” in the six official languages of the United Nations. This “poetic inventory” lists the military operations conducted by UN member nations since its inception in 1945, when its signatories pledged to…
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Poets Resist: Garry Gottfriedson
Garry Gottfriedson’s Deaf Heaven (Ronsdale Press) is our third feature in our National Poetry Month series, Poets Resist. Published last year, his poetry collection explores postcolonial issues while also paying attention to First Nations internal problems with a fresh, provocative perspective.
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Poets Resist: Janet Rogers
Day two of #poetsresist for National Poetry Month calls up Janet Rogers to the anti-colonialism plate: her fourth collection Totem Poles and Railroads (ARP Books) interrogates Canada’s often hurtful relationship with Indigenous Peoples in the post-TRC era of our history. Rogers writes poems as fierce reactions to current events and to the “historical record” of Canadian dogma.
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This Week in Lit Events: April 3-9th
This start of National Poetry Month is a good omen of things to come: tons of readings and launches this week. Plus, our namelganger Toronto Lit Up co-hosts an event with the League of Canadian Poets.Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details,…
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Poets Resist: Louise Bernice Halfe
Our NPM series Poets Resist begins with multiple award-winning poet Louise Bernice Halfe. In her very personal poetry collection, Burning in this Midnight Dream (Coteau Books) Halfe responds to the feelings that arose during the Truth and Reconciliation process, touching on how the experiences of residential school children continue to haunt those who survive, and how…
Got any book recommendations?