Shazia Hafiz Ramji: How did you arrive at the title of your chapbook, Dear Kestrel? Khashayar Mohammadi: A few years ago, during a very rough time in my life, I started writing small prose-poems addressed to my dear friend Ke, whom this book is dedicated to. I started every piece with “Dear Kestrel,” and after […]
Dina Del Bucchia needs no introduction. She is the lifeblood of poetry across the country. She is the flora in every Mazzy Star track. She is your slumber party bff and that distinctive, funny voice on Can’t Lit, a podcast, which she co-hosts with Jen Sookfong-Lee. In this interview, Del Bucchia chats with Invisiblog guest […]
The Search for Ziggy Nowicki by Cole Nowicki Zigmund Nowicki disappeared in 1961. I didn’t know Zigmund Nowicki existed until 2018. A great uncle whose name I’d never heard until a chance utterance around the dinner table while visiting Grande Prairie for my younger brother’s highschool graduation. Oh, Ziggy? Grandpa had another brother. Where is […]
Oubah Osman began exploring poetry when she was a teenager. As it is for many during that tumultuous time, writing was a way to process the emotions and events that comprise life experience. “I was able to communicate through poetry,” Osman says, reflecting on her early writing experience. “I think journaling was helpful and then […]
David Bradford, author of The Plot (House House Press), his third chapbook of poetry, speaks with Shazia Hafiz Ramji about unearthing family histories, “untellable grief,” and personal debris. Shazia Hafiz Ramji: What is The Plot? David Bradford: “The Plot” is actually the title of the poem, in four parts, spaced out throughout the chapbook—a title […]
Sanna Wani, author of the chapbook, The Pink of the Seams (Penrose Press), speaks with Shazia Hafiz Ramji about the “strange little immortal creatures” that are poems, the Ramadan treat of rose syrup, pink insides, and more. Shazia Hafiz Ramji: How did you arrive at The Pink of the Seams? Sanna Wani: Hmmm, I went […]
Cody Caetano’s first chapbook, Pleasure Dome Poems, was published in January 2019 under Knife|Fork|Book’s What Queer Reading (WQR) imprint. Award-winning poet, Billy-Ray Belcourt, says Caetano’s work “bears a kind of pop art sensibility – it is slippery and agile and revisionist and campy and ethical and ultra contemporary. Some of the turns-of-phrases here are so […]
For National Poetry Month, Manahil Bandukwala, the author of the chapbook, Pipe Rose, talks to Shazia Hafiz Ramji about her second chapbook, Paper Doll, published by Anstruther Press. Shazia Hafiz Ramji: How does it feel to have a new chapbook? Manahil Bandukwala:I love chapbooks! As an emerging writer, they’re a very comfortable place to have […]
THRILL-RIDE (OR, HOW I LEARNED TO ENJOY POETRY)By Amanda Ghazale Aziz I. Impression Online, you’ve seen poetry shared to express reprieve, a shift in seasons, global mood. On the runway, Pierpaolo Piccioli commissioned four poets: Greta Bellamacina, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Mustafa the Poet, and Robert Montgomery, to collaborate with him on his Valentino Fall/Winter 2019 collection, […]
Port of Being, the debut poetry collection by Shazia Hafiz Ramji, is shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize — one of the BC Book Prizes! We’ll be crossing our fingers and toes until the winner is announced. Congrats too to all the other finalists!