Questions and Remedies

ANCESTORS:

Questions and Remedies

ancestors tell us how to continue

inside a world of lovers long forgotten

inside a world of how to be

remembered on the page,

in books, in our memory and taste buds

ancestors haunt us through our bone marrow

ancestors whisper all that you know

when I am asleep, murmur answers

from the universe, like my lover

does in movie theatres, broadcast beyond

this world with stories that fuel our cells

ancestors defend our love poems, back to us

ancestors we have queries about your whereabouts

a flash on a street corner, blinds us

a lime green coat, crosses the street, a double take

a grey-haired woman turns slightly to reveal a profile

we linger at the street corner, tear-filled

stop in the middle of the road, chin wobble

we reach out, arms at the ready

a bubble up quick an ugly cry

ancestors show us our own heart

-Sharanpal Ruprai

DESCENDANTS:

Remember, that you dear poet, come from a long line of artists. Read, absorb, read, research the poets that have come before you. You are not alone. Honour our artist ancestors by sharing their work with others; share a piece of poetry by someone who has influenced your own work. Grow our ancestor’s readership and it will ground your own practice.

Sharron Proulx-Turner, a well-known two-spirit Metis poet and she was a dear friend; passed away a few years ago. Our conversations over the years led to sparks of love, ideas and fuelled my second collection of poetry, Pressure Cooker Love Bomb. Sharron reminded me that food and recipes were a vital aspect of love and life. When Sharron was in hospice, I promised her that I would spread the word about her work and make her famous! She, of course, laughed and said, “you, do that!” and we never had a chance to talk about writing again.

Descendants, when I am asked to read at literary events, I share a poem (or two) from The Trees are still Bending South, by Sharron Proulx-Turner and explain our connection and how she includes her family recipes as poems; this is how we will build a network of generations of ancestors that will support and light the way. I ask you, to do the same.

From The Trees are still Bending South by Sharron Proulx-Turner

two-spirit love poem, three

in some cultures

when a woman dreams

she’s sun’s lover

she becomes a sundancer

I’ve had no such

dreams of sun

but dreams of you

as we walk

the blue mountains

winter’s sun

warming the sides

of our faces

the backs of our necks

you and me opening

pathways

in the snow

our future

as new to us now

as alive and certain

as the distant

morning star

welcoming sun

as she rises

her face opened

in our eyes

Sharanpal Ruprai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg. Sharanpal Ruprai’s début poetry collection, Seva, was a finalist for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry by the Alberta Literary Awards. Her second collection, Pressure Cooker Love Bomb, is a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards for Lesbian Poetry.Her poetry is featured in a number of anthologies: GUSH: Menstrual Manifestos for Our Time, The Calgary Renaissance, Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets, and Exposed. Sharanpal Ruprai is also a poetry editor for Contemporary Verse 2: The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing (CV2).

Sharanpal Ruprai is the 2019-2020 Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary working on a collection of short stories called, Blue Kara.

Sharanpal is currently…

working on a collection of short stories called, Blue Kara and I am writing a play! I am so excited that my second poetry book, Pressure Cooker Love Bomb, is a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards! So, I am reading all the other Lambda Literary Award finalists listed here: https://www.lambdaliterary.org/awards/current-finalists/. And being inspired by all the new fresh story lines, language, and visuals that these narratives bring to the mind!Attachments area

Being Outside Time

DEAR ANCESTORS,

When I survived my birth, and you learned that I am a girl, what is the first thing that went through your mind? And, this one for the grandparents, considering that you were completely or functionally illiterate, what made you insist on full education for your kids (i.e. my parents)?

DEAR DESCENDANTS,

Being outside time, I can’t fathom what day to day living is like for you. I would recommend kindness, compassion, humility, gratitude. Those were the fashions back when I had breath. But maybe those choices get you killed nowadays.

Rebecca Fisseha is the author of the novel Daughters of Silence, as well as short stories, personal essays and articles that have appeared in Room Magazine, Joyland, Lithub, Zora by Medium, and Selamta. Born in Addis Ababa, she lives in Toronto.

Photo credit: Chris Frampton

Which Olive Tree Did You Sit Under?

What compelled them?

I am curious about my mixed background but mostly about the Genoese and Venetian ancestors on both sides of my family who sailed the Mediterranean and landed in Izmir in the 17^th century, or perhaps earlier. What compelled them to leave home, how and why did they sail, what happened to them?

As a child I was fascinated by maps. When I got sick my favourite thing was to be in bed surrounded by encyclopaedias with colourful pictures, a large world atlas and a cold compress on my forehead. I spent feverish hours poring over maps, drawing them, running my fingers along coasts and mountains, to the point where I was able to draw the entire map of the world by memory. I became good at drawing the Mediterranean. You’d think I was about to go on an expedition or become a navigator at the age of eight. Why was I so obsessed? I blame it on the ancestors who crisscrossed those waters. Perhaps it goes even farther back in time, to Odysseus whose ship one of my very great grandparents may have boarded as a sailor or a stowaway on that voyage among the dreamy sunny islands of the Aegean. Who knows how far into the past, and how wide into the world that curiosity for “elsewhere” goes? I think of my ancestral roots as the intricate underside of a large forest made up of many different types of trees and shrubs whose life sources are so intertwined that they can no longer tell themselves apart.

The Genoese ancestor I would like to interview appears to have landed on the island of Chios first, possibly in the 14^th century or earlier, and may have been involved in the mastic production and trade as well as in the political life of the island. There is a fascinating book I read a few years ago by Philip Argenti, “Religious Minorities of Chios, Jews and Roman Catholics” (Cambridge University Press, 1970) which traces the history of this island within visible distance of the Smyrnian coast, all the way back to 200 B.C. with an emphasis on their minorities. Chios was an important source of mastic – resin from the mastic tree was used in various industries, making paint and glue etc for a very long time, so the role of the island was pivotal for this particular reason. It played an interesting part in the power shift that occurred between kingdoms and empires in Europe in the 16^th century. Two kings, Suleyman I who ruled the Ottoman Empire and Francis I of France created a formidable alliance. This powerful and close friendship between a Muslim and a Christian ruler not only scandalized but also terrorized the rest of Europe. In that time, Suleyman and his famous admiral, Barbarossa (Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha) challenged the Genoese supremacy in the Mediterranean and when the Genoese commander Andrea Doria lost an important and final naval battle against Barbaros, the vast sea became dominated by the Franco-Turkish fleet. Sometime in 1566 an Ottoman fleet of 100 ships arrived in Chios. The Genoese governors who until then were paying tribute to the Ottomans, were invited aboard the ship. Once they got on, they were swiftly taken into custody and that was the end of the Genoese rule of Chios. The importance of mastic in world trade began to wane in favour of rubber around that time as well. I imagine my Genoese ancestors moved to Smyrna, in the 17^th century as a result of all this and settled there. I am not a historian, so I hope I will be forgiven for this brief and imprecise account, and any mistakes I may have made. Although the Venetians and Genoese were sworn enemies and competed for supremacy for most of their history sailing and trading in the Mediterranean, in Smyrna they seem to have settled down in apparent brotherhood and make up a large part of my ancestral heritage. I would tell them that wanderlust and love for the Aegean Sea aside, the aptitude for trade or business did not trickle down to me. I am not at all gifted that way, but I can perhaps tell a tale. I would love to tell theirs, if they could share them with me.

Another ancestor, a spiritual one, I’d want to meet is Homer who lived both around Izmir and on the island of Chios. If I could meet him, I would stay quietly by his side and listen to his stories. I know exactly how the moment would feel; the brightness of the Aegean light, the insistent sound of cicadas, an imbat breeze cooling our faces, the smell of clay and goat poop on dirt roads. I would hold his hand and ask, “Which olive tree did you sit under and dream, please show me, so I can find it in my own time, sit and dream there in the company of your marvelous spirit.”

Leave a Small Trail

I hope you gaze at the world you live in with awe and wonder, tread gently upon it beside all living things and try to leave a small trail of kindness behind you when you go.

Born and raised in Turkey, Loren Edizel has lived in Canada most of her life and is the author of three novels, Adrift (2011), The Ghosts of Smyrna (2013), Days of Moonlight (2018) and a collection of short stories, Confessions: A Book of Tales (2014). The Ghosts of Smyrna was also published in Turkish, in Turkey, in 2017. Her short fiction has appeared in journals in both Canada and in Turkey. She lives in Toronto.

She is currently working on a novel that takes place in Smyrna in the late 19^th – early 20^th century, focused on the relationship of two sisters and their lives.

Visit her website and follow her on Goodreads, FB and Twitter to stay in the loop for upcoming events, readings and publications.

Where did you find it?

THERE WAS HOPE TOO

Marhaba, dear ancestors, thank you for all you have given for me to be where I am today. My heart aches thinking of what you endured in order to survive and, in turn, ensuring the survival of generations after you. You lived through a deadly famine during World War I where swarms of locusts and drought devastated fields of vegetables and olive trees. Blockades worsened those tragic days. As decades passed, there were more wars, more deaths, more sorrow. But there was hope too, wasn’t there? There were wedding and birthday celebrations, dancing and drumming on terraces or under canopies of grapes. Despite the tragedies, you had faith. Where did this faith come from? How did you see optimism through the dark clouds of despair and horror? Where did you find the strength to carry on? To still love and dream?

TELL YOUR STORY

Descendants, we must carry on. My ancestors taught me this. Hard work and a belief in yourself will help you on this journey of creativity. I encourage those following the writer’s path to push through the rejections, embrace the conflicting feelings of anguish and joy and find your voice. Don’t give up. Our voices are unique. Don’t compare yourself to others and, above all, don’t get discouraged if things aren’t happening yet. In time, more opportunities will arrive and you’ll be heard. Tell your story and carry on. The seeds of your dream were planted for a reason: to grow, to be harvested, to be felt, to be heard. Carry on, my fellow writers, fellow dreamers.

Sonia Saikaley is the author of the award-winning novella “The Lebanese Dishwasher” and poetry collections “Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter” and “A Samurai’s Pink House”. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers, she lives in her hometown of Ottawa, Canada near her large Lebanese family. In the past, she worked as an English teacher in Japan where she introduced belly dancing to her students. Her novel “The Allspice Bath” was recently published by Inanna Publications.

Currently…

Sonia is working on a novel set in Lebanon about a young woman trying to achieve her independence despite the cultural restraints placed on her. It is also a love story between this Lebanese woman and a Jewish man. The story takes place before and during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975.

Sonia is inspired by brave women who fight for what they believe in and who don’t give up. Her novel “The Allspice Bath” is about such a woman. Adele Azar is struggling to find her place between the old and new worlds. It’s not an easy task. From the start, Adele disappointed her parents because she wasn’t born a boy. She balances two cultures yet the question remains: can she find her freedom without losing part of herself in the process? Set in Ottawa, Toronto and Lebanon, “The Allspice Bath” is a reminder that dreams are possible in spite of hardships.

Follow Sonia on Twitter & FB

Photo credit: Sylvia Saikaley

When did you cross the threshold?

WHEN?

My Nani once shared with me that my great-great-grandfather Pirmohamed Anand, was actually named Purshotam, prior to sailing to East Africa from the ports of Kathiawar. Purshotam means “Supreme Being” and is the 24th name of Lord Vishnu.

I would ask my ancestors what it was like to be neither Muslim or Hindu, but instead Khojas following the Satpanth, a syncretic community that adhered to a fusion of Shia Muslim, Sufi, and Vaishnavite traditions.

When did you decide to cross the threshold and call yourselves “Ismaili Muslims”?

What is it about the religion of your forefathers, that gave you the strength to hold on to it for generations?

What did you feel when you sailed away from the ports of Kutch and Khatiawar to reach the coast of East Africa?

How do you feel knowing your descendants are losing their mother tongue, sense of rootedness, and love for their own (brown) skin?

REMEMBER THE UNKNOWN STORIES

For my queer diasporic desi descendants, those who have hybrid identities that hyphenations fail to connect, I would remind them about their ancestors.

Both blood and chosen. That’s right – blood isn’t the only criteria we use to build our families. We should remember our queer ancestors who came before us but who weren’t necessarily related to us by blood – whose art, poetry, resilience, and experiences inspires generations after. But also remember our ancestors who allowed us to come into being today, even if their stories are unknown and lost to time and memory.

I would remind them that it was colonization that uprooted our connection to our third gender sister communities in South Asia and made our sexualities appear deviant.

I would encourage them to celebrate wins, small and large. My win is being able to proudly wear jhumka earrings and flowing shawls to my Jamatkhana in Toronto, irrespective of the bewildered faces and the nazar of aunties. My win is identifying allies within my place of worship that see me as a human trying to be his authentic self, a privilege not many have.

I would ask them to work on decolonizing. To create spaces for them to live, breathe, and create in and build solidarity among other marginalised communities. For them to join this legacy for their own descendants – both blood and chosen.

Zain Bandali is an unapologetically queer non-binary poet that writes on themes related to Islamic mysticism, queerness, diasporas, and where they interact. He is 21 years old and takes pride in being a Shia Ismaili Muslim of Indo-Tanzanian heritage living in Canada. Zain is in the final year of his undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, where he founded QTPOC KW, a community group for racialized queer and trans students. He is an avid vegetable gardener but cannot always stomach the chilli peppers he grows.

Learn more about Zain and his work here.

Upcoming Event:

Zain be performing at brOWN//out at the Deloitte Stage (Intersection of Church St. and Gloucester St.) on June 22nd from 5-8 pm (the Saturday before the Toronto Pride Parade).

Show Up.

Before me…

Where’s home? Where’s peace of mind? Who will be there when I arrive?

How do you revisit a dream you lost in the midst of surviving a bad scene?

What’s the trick to living in harmony with those who have harmed me?

Why do so many women I know harbour so much self-hate?

For my soular-sister who wonders: When last did freedom say your name?

Beyond/After me…

In order to heal you must acknowledge what hurts. The words, gestures, and rhymes for these signs are perhaps foreign at first. But I think when you are finally able to call it out, then you can change its hold on you. There’s a bona fide beauty in moving, stepping out and splitting off from a hiding place. It is not unlike birth. Simply, you ask to be found when you search.

Trust that what is meant for you is relying on you to show up. Show up.

Britta B. is a spoken word poet and arts educator. Her works have been featured on TEDx, The Walrus Talks, CBC Radio’s Day 6, Ask Her: Talks presented by The Stephen Lewis Foundation, Toronto Star’s The Kit: Compact Magazine and the Art Gallery of Ontario. In 2017, Britta was an artist-in-residence for the spoken word program at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Britta is currently a member of the Toronto Arts Council Leaders Lab.

As an arts educator, Britta develops curriculum, facilitates artist-training seminars, poetry workshops and after-school programs in partnership with organizations like UNITY Charity, Leave Out Violence (Ontario) and various school boards across Ontario. Britta is a former youth mentor for The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and junior artist mentor for the Art Gallery of York University.

When not performing or teaching, Britta emcees break-dance battles, hip-hop jams and community appreciation events.

Learn more about Britta here.

Social Media: @missbrittab

Photo credit: Gilad Cohen

Kindness like water

Ancestors,

to m.s ramaswamy, my great grandfather who translated thamizh poems into english, whose copies of anna karenina, war and peace i’ve inherited:

periya thatha, your poems are friends i run into from other lives, when will we meet again?

Descendants,

kindness as the means and end. relentless kindness. an unhurried kindness. a kindness that is unconcerned with performance. kindness like water. kindness as breath, as movement, as the stillness in which you gather your songs.

my name is kayal vizhi. i’m a poet, currently based in toronto. my stories time travel, occupy many geographies, question the validity of borders and are ultimately, borderless. nothing i write will be as beautiful as thamizh and this is a solace.

i’m currently working on a collection of poems that are also essays about family and solitude. i’m reading james salter’s light years – a gorgeous, luminous novel. i’m excited to read anything by durga chew-bose.

Follow Kayal on instagram.

Photo credit: Sarah Manlapaz Suresh

I want to know

To those who came before—

I used to look for myself in timelines and dog-eared photos, tried to trace my body through maps that spanned the world. I want to know how you were all wildfires below monsoon clouds, flickering flames in tropical rains; how one single steady breath sparks the light in all of us.

To those who follow—

From where I stand, the path behind me unwinds and winds and winds more than my eyes can hold. The path forward is just as dimpled and trodden because we travel with others, because routes intersect to weave tapestries, because we traverse in pairs and navigate waterways with crews. I am sure in my journey there will be slips and falls, tumbles and tender missteps. Do with it what you will. Never feel as though you are obligated to take the same path. Hold your ancestors and heroes as accountable as you would your friends – after all, they’re one in the same.

Natasha Ramoutar is an Indo-Guyanese writer, academic, and storyteller from Scarborough, the eastern suburb of Toronto. She completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts in English & French at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and is currently pursuing a Master of Professional Communication at Ryerson University. Her professional and academic background is in literature, film, and communication. Both her critical and creative writing explore popular culture, diaspora, physical movement, and representation.

Follow her creative journey on instagram and twitter.

Natasha is currently…

working on her manuscript, tentatively titled Bittersweet, which explores cross-cultural and intergenerational communication, diaspora and transnational migration, and the concept of homeland. It examines her relationship to Guyana, India, and Canada with Scarborough omnipresent as a framing device, along with aspects of my identity as a woman, a person of colour, and a first generation Canadian.

She is grateful to have access to the work of so many impactful writers. Some of her current inspirations include: nayyirah waheed, Anne-Marie Turza, Tanya Talaga, Gaiutra Bahadur, and Dionne Brand. Most recently, She has also found a home within David Chariandy’s lyrical, precise novel Brother, and forever moved by the work of these emerging writers: Adrian De Leon, Leanne Toshiko Simpson, Téa Mutonji, Oubah Osman, and Chelsea La Vecchia.

Photo credit: Matthew Narea

Did you celebrate?

Iethihsothó:kon, ancestors , nyàwenkowa, big thanks for all your sacrifices, resilience and enduring presence within the night sky, horizon, water, land, spirit guides, our songs, dances, languages, stories, foods, medicines, teachings and the unseen and unknown. I know you best during my dreaming; in my waking it is upon your shoulders I stand. Nyàwenkowa~

Iethihsothó:kon, what was Pre-colonial Turtle Island really like? Describe for me, the abundance, contentment, and wonder.
Iethihsothó:kon, why did you welcome the European Settlers? Why did some of y’all not follow the prophecies? Who sold us out, and why?
Iethihsothó:kon, we are still here, doing our best to manifest your promise, your dreams, but shit is getting unbearable. Real talk…what is the way forward for our people? Most of us are done with the negotiating, reconciliating and debating. I’m done with this notion of White Ally-ship. What’s the end game here? The 8th Fire Prophecy, is that gonna work out for us or not?
Iethihsothó:kon, since receiving my spirit name, Enml’ga’t Saqama’sgw (The Woman Who Walks Through The Light), I’ve been doing my best to manifest my purpose and follow my path, what three things would you advise me to do in this lifetime to keep my passion for my purpose burning bright, before I become an ancestor?
Iethihsothó:kon, what are your thoughts on the evolution of Bannock?
Iethihsothó:kon, what is the most sacred place on Turtle Island where reconnecting with you, my ancestors, would be a healing and spiritually enlightening experience?
Iethihsothó:kon, can you please send actual Thunderbirds to vanquish all these Black Snake Corporate Capitalist Terrorists (Burn dem)
Iethihsothó:kon, did you celebrate when the Bison started coming home?

To all my Onkwehonwe I want you to know that although you are the seeds of the next 7 generation you are more than your roots. If you’re reading this it means my resiliency manifested into legacy and that is the greatest contribution any Onkwehonwe can invest in during their lifetime. Speak Light. Speak Life. Speak words into existence. Keep our stories alive. Say our names. Live Onkwehonwe’ neha, remember our stories make us whole and we are connected to all things, and this way there can be no separation between us, even we are apart. We begin as story~live as story~and exist as stories in the after, because our stories never end, they always begin again.

Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml’ga’t Saqama’sgw The Woman Who Walks In The Light is an award winning drum talk-poetic rapologist, community warrior, Haudenosaunee Mohawk/Mi’kmaw, Wolf Clan, social change artist, based in Tkaronto, with First Nations ancestry from Kahnawá:ke Q.C. and Bear River, N.S. ; African Diasporic blood lines on Turtle Island dating back to the Atlantic Slave Trade and Black Loyalists in Canada since the 1700’s, as well as, Afro-Caribbean roots from the Bahamas and European roots from Ireland.

Mahlikah is currently…

a facilitator for Louder Than A Bomb Toronto and will be opening the finals on May 12th at Daniels Spectrum. She is continuing to deliver workshops as part of the NAC 10 Learning Days with the AGO and Indigenous Education Centre for the remainder of the school term. She is participating in three recording projects at the moment, working with Red Slam on their second full length LP and a House EP; contributing poetry to Brick Books Publishing who has asked Indigenous Waves, Jenny Blackbird to curate stories and poems from Indigenous writers; and is featuring in the Fonna Seidu, sisterhoodmedia.net project, sharing her experiences with mentorship, creative entrepreneurial pursuits, overcoming obstacles and leadership success. She is currently booking performances and key notes for summer 2018 and arts education workshops for the 2018-2019 school year. To book Mahlikah, click here.

You can find her & Red Slam Collective on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube & Twitter.

Photo Credit: Red Works and Nadya Kwandibens

How can I learn?

Ancestors,

Thank you for your guidance. For making yourselves known – through the stories shared by elders, through the memories you left behind – the music and the photographs… For the way the wind sounds some days, when its whispers seem to call out your name. Thank you for your sacrifices. Thank you for your love and courage. My question for you now? How can I learn to keep my connection to you open? How can I best honour your lives? How can I best honour my own?

Descendants,

All you came here to do is recognise the beauty of who you are. All you get to take with you when you leave, is your ability to love. And oh yeah… we’re all in this together.

Andrea Thompson has performed her poetry across the country for over twenty years. In 2005, her CD One was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award. She is the author of the novel Over Our Heads and co-editor of Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out. Thompson teaches creative writing through Brock University, the Ontario College of Art and Design University and the University of Toronto.

Learn more about Andrea here.

Andrea is currently doing a lot of research…

I’m writing about the history of spoken word – specifically the influence of Black American art and literature – from slavery to today. My own paternal family history traces back to the plantations of the old south, so celebrating that creative lineage is something I’m passionate about. I have just completed a CD that explores this history (with music by Evren Oz), due to be released in a few months.

I’m also gearing up to teach a five week Spoken Word Workshop through Continuing Studies at OCADU. The course runs Saturday afternoons, starting May 26th, and is open to everyone. OCAD U – Continuing Studies

Photo credit: Kristi McDougall

Tell Me

Ancestors,

My question is to my Poh Poh, my maternal grandmother who was also a writer. It is often said in my family that she was born too soon. She came from a privileged family in Hong Kong and was afforded an education. Poh Poh was literate. She married when she was 15 and birthed 9 children. I don’t think she was a great mother from what I can gather from my mother, and I don’t know if she even wanted to be a mother. She smoked and wore Cheongsams every day. My mother tells me that she was scandalous as a young woman, wearing “transparent” flapper dresses when modesty was the vogue for wealthy women at the time. Before WW2, she wrote. I have no idea how this happened, but she wrote under a pseudonym and had a column in several syndicates. She wrote stories told in sequence that were updated weekly. They were love stories, set in Shanghai mostly. I don’t know anything about them, but I tried to find them on research trips to Hong Kong. I can’t read Chinese, and so I had a friend who went to the archives to assist me. Her pen name was Purple Pear. Sadly, we found that all the papers were destroyed when Japan occupied Hong Kong during the war. After it was over, another writer, a man, continued the column under her name. All that remains are his stories, and she is erased from the record.

My Poh Poh raised me from 1 month old until I was 5 and immigrated to Canada. I remember her telling me marvellous stories although my mom says it was actually just the one story that she told me over and over again. She eventually did immigrate to Canada, and I remember long nights in her bedroom, filing her nails while she smoked her menthol cigarettes. I loved her very much.

Poh Poh had Parkinson’s Disease towards the end. It was a long and cruel death that robbed her body a little bit at a time until she could not move at all, and even her voice was taken. At one of her hospital visits, she pointed at me to the nurse and said in Cantonese, “this one is mine”. I am hers. I am still hers.

My question to her is this: Poh Poh, what was your happiest moment? Tell me a moment of immense joy, so I can carry it in my body, cherish it, celebrate it for you every day.

Descendants,

I am here. I was here. There were more that came before too. You are never alone.

Carrianne Leung immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada at age 5. Her first novel,The Wondrous Woo (Inanna Publications), was a finalist for the 2014 City of Toronto Book Award. Her collection of linked stories THAT TIME I LOVED YOU (HarperCollins Canada) will be released March 2018.

Connect with her on her website, tweet her your thoughts, and find her on instagram!

Carrianne is currently preparing for her book launch…

Her book of linked stories, “That Time I Loved You” will be coming out at the end of March. The launch will be held at the Lula Lounge on March 28th at 7 PM!

Photo by Sarah Couture McPhail

I ask you…

Ancestors,

Thank you. I have immense gratitude that goes beyond words for all you have done. I ask you to please continue to guide our hopes, dreams, struggles, and coping so that we all can move toward the lives you envisioned for us.

With as much love as I can muster,

Sedina

Descendants,

Be emboldened to act, to dream, to play, to be courageous in who you are, without apology.

Always look to the past for lessons, while envisioning a better future.

Sedina Fiati is a performer, producer, creator and activist for stage and screen. She proudly identifies as black and femme and was born in Tkaronto to a Trinidadian mother and Ghanaian father. Her name means a gift from God in Ewe and she hopes to be that to the world. Sedina has a BFA in Music Theatre from the University of Windsor and has worked on a variety of projects ranging from cabaret, Shakespeare, devised work, multidisciplinary work and short films. Sedina is currently 2nd VP of Canadian Actors Equity Association council and Managing Producer at The Storefront Theatre.

Sedina is currently…

Creating, producing and acting in a web series called Last Dance. As the Managing Producer of The Storefront Theatre, working on After Wrestling upcoming at Factory and the Feminist Fuck It Festival. Stay tuned for upcoming news on social justice workshop series for the live performance community. I am inspired right now by the next generation who are questioning old paradigms and standing up for social justice in every sphere. I am also working on finding time for fun self care and seeing my friends and family more often.

To stay updated on Sedina’s work, follow along on twitter and instagram.

Photo by Warren Cleland.

A New Year, A New Set of Questions

We are behind the scenes, developing a wonderful lineup of creative, inspiring humans who will share their questions with us this year.

In the meantime, feel to contemplate and reflect upon one or more of these questions as we settle in to 2018:

What will I do this year to remind myself that I have the support of my ancestors and traditions behind me?

What unhealthy ideas/ beliefs/ways of being have been unintentionally passed down to me? What do I need to do to let them go?

If my ancestors could speak to me now, what would they remind me to do/be? Is that advice in line with what I want to do and who I want to be? Why or why not?

Come back often.

Stay a while.

You’re home.

How can I?

Ancestors,

I have thought and thought and I don’t know if I have any questions for you. I know your words were stolen, your stories and bodies turned into sites of shame. I wouldn’t want to burden you with questions you might not want to answer, or memories you may not want to recount. So I guess I have no questions to ask of you. I only have gratitude for you. Because of you, I’m here. Because of you, my daughter is here. Because of you, we still have a small patch of land to call home, a place we can speak our languages and hold our ceremonies together to make our nations strong.

Maybe I do have a question or two after all.

How can I make you most proud?

How can I best show my appreciation for all that you’ve done?

Descendants,

You are worth all the struggles I’ve had to endure and will have to endure in my life.

You are worth it all.

Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora writer living in Brantford, Ontario. Her writing has been published by The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Walrus, Macleans, Globe and Mail and many others. Her essay “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” won Gold at the National Magazine Awards this past May and has been selected to be published in Best Canadian Essays 2017. She has most recently been named the 2017-2018 Geoffrey and Margaret Andrew Fellow at UBC.

Follow her on twitter @WordsandGuitar.

Were We?

Ancestors,

Miriam, Mary, Maryam, how will my garden grow?

Mata Sindhu, were we always dancers?

How did you find and capture joy?

Peek-a-Boo!! ~ Do you see me now beloveds?

Descendants,

I learn over and over again that tuning into spontaneous expression

is the key to presence and showing up to our life.

People often ask me why I dance.

I DANCE

to reconnect,

to get out of my head

to commune with the sacred

to feel my power

to bliss out

to be with my pain

to process my emotions

to express what I can’t in words

I Dance to Celebrate,

I Dance to Create.

Why Do You Dance?

and….Tag – You`re it!

A daughter of the Indus River and the Sindhu people, Kanwal Rahim often weaves dance, storytelling and humour into all her artistic expressions. Her poetry and dance reflects her nomadic and hyphenated upbringing in Pakistan, Egypt, UAE and Canada. Drawing on her diverse experiences in performing arts, she continues to explore new body wisdom practices and healing traditions to deepen awareness and connection, with a focus on honouring the integrity of the body. Kanwal has graced many stages in Toronto and is currently working on her first collection of poetry and songs.

Follow her on instagram here.

Photo: Amber Ellis ~ Creating Light Photography

WHY ME?

Ancestors,

Why me?

This is an updated question to the one I invariably asked—“What does that even

MEAN?”—when I was growing up and my mother periodically reminded me to

“remember who I was”.

Descendants,

You get to choose who you will become.

I am still learning this.

Born and raised in Calcutta, India, Ayesha Chatterjee has lived in England, the USA and Germany and now calls Toronto home. Her publisher, Bayeux Arts, has just released her second poetry collection, Bottles and Bones, available from the Bayeux website, Knife Fork Book & other bookstores throughout North America.

Follow her on twitter here.

Photo: Katja Ganesh Photography

How?

Ancestors,

Which scars are my own and which are those of my ancestors?

Which ache in my heart is from my time on this earth and which is the echo of an ache of my kin?

Which conversation with creator is me speaking and which conversation is me reciting spiritual poetry etched into my bones by the words of my foremothers?

And to the strength…that, too, has been passed down to me.

DSC_8073 Colour Print

Descendants,

I would like you to know that it is ok to feel like you don’t fit in.

It is ok to be different from anything you see around you.

You can find community inside and outside of humanity.

Nature is your community, also.

You share space with every little green thing on this earth.

Talk to them.

Listen.

My name is Alysha Brilla. I was born Alysha Mohamed. I was born to parents of very different ethnic/cultural/religious backgrounds and I do believe that has largely shaped who I am as a person. I’m an artist; specifically drawn to the frequency of music and sound. Rhythm has carried me through periods of depression and existential questioning in my life, so I write songs with the intention of offering hope to others. My mother’s background is of European/Canadian settler history and my father immigrated to Canada from Tanzania. My father’s family is of mainly Gujarati-Indian heritage, but were in Tanzania for 200+ years and we know one of my ancestors was Indigenously African. There is a hybridized spirituality I carry with me.

Visit Alysha’s website here.

Don’t forget to follow/subscribe on twitter, FB, IG , Spotify and YouTube.

Can you?

Ancestors,

Can you hear me?

…

What are the ways that I can honour you?

What can I do in my every day to make you feel remembered?

Are you and I ever to cross paths again?

And if so, what would you like me to bring to you?

Descendants,

Your intuition is the only voice that should lead you.

Know it intimately.

Even if much time has passed since you last listened to it,

now is always the right time to listen.

Whitney French is a writer, storyteller and multi-disciplinary artist. She is a daughter of Jamaican parents of the African Diaspora, from the lineage of Maroon warriors, with subtle Chinese bloodlines, and a blending of many unknown lineages. Whitney has been published in a couple of places but she takes more pride in the community she builds than the things she produces. Visit her website, IG, FB and twitter to learn more.

Photo: Aden Abebe

Did You?

Sheniz Janmohamed is the curator and creator of Questions for Ancestors. Her ancestors left Kutch and Gujarat, India, for the highlands of Kenya in the 1880s.