{"id":10689,"date":"2019-04-03T17:50:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T21:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.ryerson.ca\/asianheritage\/?page_id=10689"},"modified":"2024-08-12T10:34:02","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T14:34:02","slug":"basma-kavanagh","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/authors\/basma-kavanagh\/","title":{"rendered":"Basma Kavanagh"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Basma Kavanagh is a poet and visual artist of Lebanese ancestry. She has lived in diverse parts of Canada and in Qatar. Her artist’s books are issued under the imprint Rabbit Square Press.<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Poetry<\/h3>\n

Distill\u014d: P<\/strong>oems<\/h3>\n

Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2012.
\nPS8621 .A715 D57 2012<\/a><\/p>\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)<\/h4>\n

In her debut collection, Basma Kavanagh engages the natural world and seeks to explore our relationship to it. Hers is a poetics of description which subverts scientific observation and the authoritative language of nomenclature for mythopoetic ends. In the opening section (\u201cMoisture\u201d), precipitation is dissected and categorized, but ultimately the deluge of \u201crain making rain, \/making rain\u201d overwhelms controlled interrogation and undulating imagery saturates everything. Nomenclature reappears elsewhere in the book, attempting to anchor object poems about west-coast flora and fauna\u2014salmon, elk, bear, bigleaf maple, bog myrtle\u2014which otherwise drift toward the mythworld and gesture in the direction of the ethereal and the totemic. Understanding that language can be most precise when it harbours ambiguity and surprise, Kavanagh experiments with pattern poems and the layering of multiple voices in her attempt to express \u201ca fullness \/an absence \/of self.\u201d This is a book which turns over rocks and looks under them in search of truth in its soft, damp hiding places, poems which instruct us to \u201c[d]escend. Blend \/your knowing with the breath of earth\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Poetry<\/h3>\n

Niche<\/h3>\n

Calgary: Frontenac House Poetry, 2015.
\nPS8621 .A715 N53 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)<\/h4>\n

Compelled by loss of knowledge, species, habitat and traditions, my intention with this collection is to elucidate the endurance of what is no longer physically apparent. Extinctions and an exploration of the Red List (the endangered species list for Nova Scotia) are important to this work. The poems grapple with human culpability, but also ask: What will happen as human relationships with non-human animals and other living things diminish? What will happen if we become extinct? These larger questions about our future in a changing climate are inextricably linked to specific inquiries into what we have lost by reducing certain habitats, hunting particular species to the brink of extinction, and abandoning place-specific traditions and practices. Our sadness surrounding extinction seems to confirm E. O. Wilson\u2019s Biophilia (life-loving) hypothesis, our basic need for other life; however, a uniquely human self-loathing distances us from the very life-affirming and life-giving connections that we require. How do we move beyond despair? What happens after extinction? What is regained through the revival of traditions, the restoration of habitats, re-introductions of species? Is this a moment to be both patient and visionary, to see beyond destruction to whatever natural renewal will occur without more intervention, or should we cautiously explore the \u201cre-animations\u201d and \u201cde-extinctions\u201d proposed by the scientific community?<\/p>\n

Awards and Honours<\/h4>\n

2016 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry — Manitoba Book Awards (Winner)<\/p>\n

2016 Alberta Book Publishers Awards<\/a>: Cover Design (Finalist)<\/p>\n

2016 Alberta Book Publishers Awards<\/a>: Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry (Finalist)<\/p>\n

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Poetry<\/h3>\n

Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots: A Poem<\/h3>\n

Calgary: Frontenac House Poetry, 2018
\nPS8621 .A715 R83 2018<\/a><\/p>\n

Publisher’s Synopsis<\/h4>\n

This book length poem comprises three major interwoven threads:\u00a0Ahli<\/em>, an auto\/biographical thread about my Lebanese heritage;\u00a0Astura,<\/em>\u00a0a grim tale linking climate change and the oppression of women, and\u00a0Ana<\/em>, a reflection on identity, language, and writing. To tell a story of my mother, her sisters, and their mother; a story of traditions, gesture, ritual, transformation, and self, is to persist against the erasure of the nuanced and tenacious feminine histories that co-exist with our troubled present and its bland stereotypes.<\/p>\n

Like a seed, a family story houses its ancestors, and the diversity\u2014genetic and experiential\u2014that equips us to thrive in a multitude of possible futures. Written in quatrains, called\u00a0ruba\u2019iyat<\/em>\u00a0in Arabic, from the word for \u201cfour\u201d, each stanza of this poem is self-contained, yet converses with adjacent stanzas to build a narrative. The repetition of phrases across stanzas, and the studding of the text with Arabic words, combine to create a layered, incantatory quality evoking the complexity of Arabic oral poetry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Links<\/h4>\n

Basma Kavanagh personal website<\/a><\/p>\n

Publisher Frontenac House Poetry<\/a><\/p>\n

Publisher Gaspereau Press<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Basma Kavanagh is a poet and visual artist of Lebanese ancestry. She has lived in diverse parts of Canada and in Qatar. Her artist’s books are issued under the imprint Rabbit Square Press. Poetry Distill\u014d: Poems Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":16,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10689","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10689"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18539,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10689\/revisions\/18539"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}