Event
Poetry Workshop with Smokii Sumac: "Love Poems for First Dates, LTRs (With My Cat) and "The Cadillac of Dicks": A Workshop on Celebrating Queer Decolonial Love through Poetry
Monday, October 1, 2018
When: October 1st, 12-2 PM
Where: Ferrier 230 (accessible space)
To register: info.igsf [at] mcgill.ca
Come close out Indigenous Awareness Week and kick off McGill's Inaugural LGBTQ2I+ History month by writing love poems with Two-Spirit and Transmasculine +++ poet, Smokii Sumac. With a forthcoming book from Kegedonce Press, Sumac is perhaps best known for his near-daily online haiku practice, where he kept a kind of running journal on Facebook using the hashtag #haikuaday to post musings on his life (and love) regularly from 2016-2018. Over that period of two years, Sumac wrote haiku verses on gender, Indigenous ceremony, his cat, transitioning, changing his name, his crushes, and observations on falling in (and out) of love. Through all this, Sumac found that at the centre of his writing, is love. In times of America's current president and Ontario's current premiere, Sumac believes that we need #morelove. Always. And what's the best way to spread love? Perhaps there are many great ways, but for Sumac, it's always been the love poem. He's written love poems to his car, to his mother's great great grandmother, to his partners, his friends, and yes, even to his prosthetic dick. Sumac wants to help you spread the love! Whether you are feeling sexy, asexy, (or maybe both!), aromantic, or into romance, whether you want to write a love poem to your favourite smoked meat sandwich, or vegan brownie, or to the land you were born from, or the ocean you haven't seen in years, or maybe you have a crush or wedding vows to write! Whatever your pleasure, all are welcome to come share what you love, who you love, where you love, why you love, and when, on the page. (please bring a notebook and pen). Presented as part of McGill first LGBTQ2I+ Awareness Month. Co-presented by the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Indigenous Awareness Week. Part of “The Arts of Trans, Gender Diverse and Two-Spirit Lives”, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
(And also check out IAW’s event Tuesday, Sept. 25 5-6:30 in the Thomson House Ballroom, on “Inuit Women Artists,” a panel featuring some of the most distinguished contemporary Inuit women in the arts: Heather Igloliorte, Niap Saunders, Nina Segalowitz, and Beatrice Deer. https://www.facebook.com/events/297606387495180/)