Speculative Poetry
Event Details
From science fiction to mythology to that lingering feeling of dreams, poetry can be speculative too! Whether it’s fairy tales in verse or a world created in a few tight stanzas, these poets explore the fantastical through the poetic. Moderated by Millie Ho.
Linghun by Ai Jiang
Dark Matter Ink
From acclaimed author Ai Jiang, follow Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs. to the mysterious town of HOME, a place where the dead live again as spirits, conjured by the grief-sick population that refuses to let go. This edition includes a foreword by Yi Izzy Yu, Translator of The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, the essay “A Ramble on Di Fu Ling & Death” by the author, and two bonus short stories from Jiang: “Yǒngshí” and “Teeter Totter.”
A Refuge of Tales by Lynne Sargent
What does it mean to make a home inside a story? Stories are safe, comfortable, familiar. Fairytales and myths, these stories we all know and grew up with are even moreso. A Refuge of Tales takes everyday tropes and asks: safe for who? This is a collection of poems for anyone who has ever felt outside of the myth. With language both sharp and lyrical, Lynne Sargent weaves a treatise on the power of stories, and how those who have been left behind can take up that power and use it to build a new, better world.“Filled with irony, rage, humour, and compassion, this poetry collection takes our fairy tales and fables, and all the stories we tell ourselves, and doesn’t simply deconstruct them, but blasts them into tiny shards, razor-sharp and beautiful.”Su J Sokol, author of the Sunburst-nominated novel, Cycling to Asylum
MONUMENT by Manahil Bandukwala
Brick Books
MONUMENT upturns notions of love, monumentalisation, and empire by exploring buried facets of Mumtaz Mahal’s story. The collection layers linear time and geographical space to chart the continuing presence of historical legacies. It considers what alternate futures could have been possible. Who are we when we continue to make the same mistakes? Beyond distance, time, and boundaries, what do we still carry?
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