Tartan Turban Secret Readings #39

Event by Gavin Barrett and Pat Connors, CAA Toronto branch members.

The 39th session of The Tartan Turban Secret Readings is curated by Patrick Connors and features Jennifer Hosein, Stedmond Pardy, Brenda Clews, Paul Edward Costa, and Saghi Ghahraman

The featured writers will be performing in person. The in-person event will be live-streamed and a link will be provided to attendees who register for the livestream. Tickets (free) are required to attend. Please select whether you want to attend in person or via livestream when you register for your ticket/s.

Register at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tartan-turban-secret-readings-39-tickets-671500384727?aff=Email.

Curator

Patrick Connors’ first chapbook, Scarborough Songs, was released by LyricalMyrical Press in 2013 and charted on the Toronto Poetry Map. Past publication credits include Blue Collar Review; The Toronto Quarterly 4; Spadina Literary Review; Tamaracks; and Tending the Fire, released in spring 2020 by the League of Canadian Poets. Recent publication credits include Poetry and Covid; Devour; Lummox 9 Anthology; Canadian Stories; Harbinger Asylum; Silver Birch Press; and Poetry Pause. His first full collection, The Other Life, was released by Mosaic Press in 2021. His newest chapbook, Worth the Wait, was released this spring by Cactus Press.

Featured writers

Jennifer Hosein is a Montreal-born writer, visual artist and educator of Trinidadian and South Asian ancestry residing in Toronto. Her debut collection of poetry, A Map of Rain Days, was longlisted for the 2021 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Her poems, fiction and non-fiction and a play have been published in magazines as well as translated into Hungarian for the anthology Crystal Garden/Kristálykert. Her artwork has appeared on book covers, in magazines, and in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto.

Stedmond Pardy is a self-educated, left-handed poet of mixed ancestry (Newfoundland and St. Kitts/Nevis) raised in the Lakeshore Mimico area. His first book the pleasures of this planet aren’t enough was published by Mosaic Press in 2021 and his 2nd, beached whales, will be released in late 2023.

A Zimbabwe-born Canadian, Brenda Clews is a poet, painter, videopoet, and photographer. Her books are the luminist poems, a chapbook (LyricalMyrical Press, 2013), Tidal Fury (Guernica Editions, 2016), and Fugue in Green (Quattro Books, 2017). Her poetry has been published in print and online journals, including Tessera, CrossBridge, Synchronized Chaos, Juniper, and in anthologies. Her artwork has appeared in books, on journal covers, and is in a number of private collections. She hosts Minstrels & Bards, a soirée at the Tranzac Club in Tkaronto/Toronto.

Paul Edward Costa is an award-winning poet, spoken word artist, and teacher. He is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets, a Poet Laureate Emeritus for the City of Mississauga, and a former Director of Toronto’s Art Bar Poetry Series. His full-length poetry collection, The Long Train of Chaos, was released by Kung Fu Treachery Press and his book of flash fiction, God Damned Avalon, was published by Mosaic Press. As a spoken word artist, Paul has featured at many poetry readings online and in person across Canada, such as The Victoria Poetry Project and Shab-e She’r.

Saghi Ghahraman is an Iranian refugee and a Canadian citizen who left Iran over 30 years ago. Zhe is non-binary and bisexual and has been actively working for gender identity and sexual orientation rights within Iranian society inside Iran and in the diaspora. A poet and short story writer, zhe has published four collections of poetry and one collection of short stories with Afra Publications in Toronto. When blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram became popular tools for the Iranian LGBTIA community, zhe styled her writing into compact posts to fit these platforms and reach the LGBTIA community and its allies. Follow Saghi at @saghi_ghahraman.