Celebrating the depth and diversity of BC publishing
On Wednesday, September 6th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and House of Anansi Press to celebrate the launch of The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird.
Brandi Bird will be joined by Samantha Nock, Mallory Tater, Heather Saluti and host Selina Boan at this celebration of Brandi’s long-anticipated debut poetry collection.
“I … will be reading these poems for the rest of my life.” — Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of A Minor Chorus
“These poems are tender and surprising; they are holes travelling through time and space. They are able to shapeshift God into pills, prayers, seeds, and stars. The All + Flesh has taken root in my mind and I’m happy to let it grow there.” —Jessica Johns, author of Bad Cree
The All + Flesh will be available for purchase at the event, care of Massy Books.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
The All + Flesh (House of Anansi Press, 2023)
Brandi Bird’s long-anticipated debut poetry collection, The All + Flesh, explores the concepts of health, place, and memory. These frank, transcendent poems expose binaries that exist inside those relationships, then teases them apart in the hope of moving toward a decolonial future. Bird’s work is highly concerned with how outer and inner landscapes move and change within the confines language, a tradition of movement that has been lost for many who don’t speak their Indigenous languages or live on their homelands. Bird ultimately writes poetry for their kin, whether they be ancestral or chosen.
About the author & readers:
Brandi Bird is an Indigiqueer Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer from Treaty 1 territory. They currently live and learn on the land of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh & Musqueam peoples. Their chapbook I Am Still Too Much was published by Rahila’s Ghost Press in Spring 2019. Their first full-length poetry collection The All + Flesh was published in August 2023 by House of Anansi Press. Their work can also be found in Poetry is Dead, Room Magazine, Brick Magazine, and others.
Samantha Nock is an apihtaw’kos’an iskwew who grew up in Treaty 8 territory in Northeast BC. Her family is originally from Ile-a-la-Crosse (Sakitawak), SK. Her debut book of poetry A Family of Dreamers will be available Fall 2024 with Talon Books.
Mallory Tater is the author of the poetry collection This Will Be Good (Book*Hug Press 2018) and a novel, The Birth Yard (HarperCollins Canada 2020). She is the publisher of Rahila’s Ghost Press, a recently retired poetry chapbook press.
Heather Saluti is an Italian/Ukrainian poet, visual artist, and expressive arts therapist based on the unceded ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, & Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Their poems have appeared in Canthius, Beyond the Veil Press, CV2, LBRNTH and others. They probably want to talk to you about their fandoms and enjoy making lists.
About the host:
Selina Boan is a white settler-nehiyaw (Cree) writer living on the traditional, unceded territories of thexʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) peoples. Her debut poetry collection, Undoing Hours, was published in Spring 2021 by Nightwood Editions which won the 2022 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English. Her work has been published widely, including The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 and 2020. She is a poetry editor for CV2.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.