Oxygen Art Centre’s Author Reading Series Presents Aisha Sasha John and Alexei Perry Cox
Alexei Perry Cox and Aisha Sasha John will read online for Oxygen Art Centre’s Author Reading Series, 26th January (images provided by the authors)
Join Oxygen Art Centre on Wednesday the 26th of January at 7:00 PM PST for an online reading featuring poets Aisha Sasha John and Alexei Perry Cox. The evening will open with readings from students in the Selkirk College creative writing program.
Alexei Perry Cox will read from her forthcoming collection, PLACE, arriving from Noemi Press in Virginia. In the words of Megan Fernandes, “Place begins from the psychology of ruin, as in, where do we go when the dust lifts and settlers remain, when countries are bombed and people displaced, when arbitrary boundaries have been locked into one’s statehood but not one’s imagination? […] She dives into the archive and uses transliteration, aphorism, and meta-critical thought experiments to construct her own epistemological groundwork.”
Aisha Sasha John will read from the second edition of her most recent chapbook, TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED, published by Ugly Duckling Presse in New York. Written primarily over the course of four months in the fall of 2018, when the poet spent time in her native Vancouver. The chapbook sees John reckoning with narrative in the wake of returning to a place at once familiar and strange. Says John of the collection: “the other name for this work is DAUGHTERHOOD. What if instead of shaming your parents about their need to grow up, you went on ahead and did it yourself? […] Centrally I was confronted with growth as a function of daughterhood.”
Students from the Selkirk College creative writing program will include Andrew Wood and Gwen Higgins. Both will read from work developed in their coursework at Selkirk, and during their mentorship through Oxygen Art Centre with Susan Andrews Grace.
Attendees can register on Eventbrite through the following link. https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/author-reading-series-aisha-sasha-john-alexei-perry-cox-tickets-219346389957
Copies of PLACE and TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED can be ordered online.
Everyone is welcome to attend the 26 January 2022 Author Reading Series event at 7:00 PM PST featuring Aisha Sasha John and Alexei Perry Cox. To attend, register via the EventBrite link. More information available on Oxygen’s website, as well as recordings of previous events. Admission is free or by donation. The Author Reading Series is generously supported by Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance.
Author Biographies:
Alexei Perry Cox is a writer, teacher and organiser. She is the author of Night 3 | اليوم الرابع (Centre for Expanded Poetics), Re:Evolution (Gap Riot Press), Finding Places to Make Places (Vallum), as well as the full length collection Under Her (Insomniac Press). PLACE is forthcoming with Noemi Press. Her poetry and criticism has graced the pages of a wide variety of publications, including Journal Safar (جورنال سفر), Arc Poetry Magazine, Moko Magazine, Carte Blanche and The Georgia Review. At the core of her makings is the belief that we imagine relationally, sometimes with words and sometimes with grace.
Aisha Sasha John medium is energy. A poet and choreographer, Aisha is the author of I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart), finalist for the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize, THOU (Book*hug), finalist for the 2015 Trillium Book Award, and TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (UDP 2021). Aisha was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto (Scarborough) in 2018 and served as guest faculty for the 2019 Writing Studio residency program at The Banff Centre. Aisha is also the 2019-2022 Dancemakers’ Resident Artist—in 2022 she continues research on the ensemble work DIANA ROSS DREAM. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a B.A. in African Studies and Semiotics from the University of Toronto.
Student Writer Biographies:
Andrew Wood is a professional snowboarder with photos published in Kootenay Mountain Culture, Coastal Mountain Life and National Geographic’s “100 Slopes of a Lifetime.” At Quest University Canada he explored the parallels between physical and social risk trying to understand why reading poetry in front of a small group of supportive peers felt so similar to jumping off thirty foot cliffs on his snowboard.As a writer Andrew has published in Coastal Mountain Life, CV Collective and a mixed-medium collaborative arts publication: W.E.R.D. Magazine. Andrew was a student of Leesa Dean’s Manuscript Development course and is a 2021 recipient of an Oxygen Arts Center mentorship program with Susan Andrews Grace for his in-progress first novel: “West of Hope.”
Gwen Higgins is an accountant by day and writer by night who lives in Castlegar with her husband, two teenagers, and a dog. In her spare time, Gwen volunteers with Girl Guides. She’s currently a student in the Selkirk College Creative Writing program and a participant in Oxygen Arts’ mentorship program with Susan Andrews Grace. Gwen loves to read and is never far from her Kindle.
Image Credit: Photographs contributed by the writers