Radical Political Poetry

Toronto — 18 October 2014.

Poetry allows us to rethink violence, justice, resistance and revolution. It opens up the possibilities for radical imagination and allows us to think new ways of being into existence.

Introduction by Robert Massoud from Beit Zation. Moderated by Ayesha Basit. Poetry readings by:

• Kaushalya Bannerji is a Canadian writer whose work explores the tensions and joys of life as a queer and socialist poet. Drawing on inspirations and struggles from home and abroad, Kaushalya is the author of poetry books, A New Remembrance, The Faces of 5 O’Clock, and translator for Cubans, Silvio Rodriguez and Josefina de Diego. Her work has been anthologized in Third World and feminist/queer publications and journals.
• Cheran is a Tamil poet born in Jaffna, in Sri Lanka and now lives in Toronto. He has published eight anthologies in Tamil. His poems have been translated into English, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Swedish, German and Arabic. His latest collections of poems in English translation are: In a Time of Burning (UK: ARC Publishers, 2013) and You Cannot Turn Away (Toronto: TSAR Publications, 2012). He teaches at the University of Windsor on migration, racialization, and identity.
• Himani Bannerji is a Bengali-Canadian writer, sociologist, and philosopher from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She recently retired from teaching at York University, Toronto. She writes in the areas of Marxist, feminist and anti-racist theory. Her works include Doing Time: Poems (1986), A Separate Sky (1982), Inventing Subjects: Studies in Hegemony, Patriarchy and Colonialism (2001), Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Racism (2000), and Demography and Democracy: Essays on Nationalism, Gender and Ideology (2011).