Room Number: TRS 1-075
Join the Meeting: https://ryerson.zoom.us/j/91873121966?pwd=dDhmanNQU0RhWkVzb0xvOXZ1QnpyZz09
Chair: Shuyin Yu (U Calgary)
Speakers:
Ghosun Baqeel (U York), “Postcolonial Iraq: Resistance and Healing through Poetry”
Isabella Lau (U Calgary), “I am Asian Canadian”: Poetic Innovations and the Resistant Voice of Asian Canadian Writers”
Janet Neigh (Pennsylvania State U), “Mapping Lines of Connection between Caribbean Street Poetics and a Digital Commons”
Paper Summaries:
Ghosun Baqeel (U York), “Postcolonial Iraq: Resistance and Healing through Poetry”
Muzzafar al-Nawwab’s poem “Sweiheb’s Wound” illustrates how poetry and literature were mobilized in Iraq to resist and try to heal the ruptures that postcolonialism was bringing. Iraq had struggled to maintain its cultural, social and national identity but this poem among others offered a rallying cry that remains relevant today.
Isabella Lau (U Calgary), “I am Asian Canadian”: Poetic Innovations and the Resistant Voice of Asian Canadian Writers”
My paper introduces Asian Canadian poetry as a medium for minority writers to break the silence. By examining the innovative poetic practices of Chinese-Canadian poet Rita Wong, I contend that Wong’s poetic innovations permeate and deconstruct the anglicized literary tradition in mainstream Canadian writing.
Janet Neigh (Pennsylvania State U), “Mapping Lines of Connection between Caribbean Street Poetics and a Digital Commons”
Through an analysis of the online Caribbean literary journal Pree, this presentation expands our understanding of dub poets’ influence by examining how their preoccupations with both the technology of sound and the street as a site of protest anticipate the poetic possibilities and limitations of a ruptured digital commons.