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ZOM-FAM Book Launch (Online)
December 1, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST

Massy Arts Society and Metonymy Press are pleased to invite you to a special virtual book launch for Montreal-based Mauritian-Canadian poet Kama La Mackerel’s debut collection ๐ก๐๐-๐๐๐. La Mackerel will be joined by author Jillian Christmas in this Vancouver event of a cross-country tour. โฃ
Registration mandatory:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_owtgnIgQRpWv8clApIAA-Q?fbclid=IwAR2py95re2DF5irywGivXLd_gxAS6DRj-T2vTS6waajQDK4m4SISBN_cQcw
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In their debut poetry collection, Kama La Mackerel mythologizes a queer/trans narrative of and for their home island, Mauritius. Composed of expansive lyric poems, ๐ก๐๐-๐๐๐ (meaning โman-womanโ or โtransgenderโ in Mauritian Kreol) is a voyage into the coming of age of a gender-creative child growing up in the 80s and 90s on the plantation island, as they seek vocabularies for loving and honouring their queer/trans self amidst the legacy of colonial silences. Multiply voiced and imbued with complex storytelling, ZOM-FAM showcases a fluid narrative that summons ancestral voices, femme tongues, broken colonial languages, and a tender queer subjectivity, all of which grapple with the legacy of plantation servitude.โฃ
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Striking, vivid, tender, intimate, and political, ๐ก๐๐-๐๐๐ is a beautifully wrought journey that articulates a contemporary decolonial poetics and offers a roadmap for colonized and displaced queer and trans voices to (re)imagine themselves into being.โฃ
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๐ก๐๐-๐๐๐ is available for purchase through independent bookstore Massy Books, with delivery options available for across Canada and the USA. https://bit.ly/3ewF5k9โฃ
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KAMA LA MACKEREL is a Montreal-based Mauritian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, educator, community-arts facilitator, and literary translator who works within and across performance, photography, installations, textiles, digital art, and literature. They have exhibited and performed their work internationally and their writing in English, French, and Kreol has appeared in publications both online and in print. They have lived in far-flung places such as Pune, India and Peterborough, Ontario. ๐ก๐๐-๐๐๐ is their first book.โฃ
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Kamaโs work has been published in the Lambda Literary Awardโwinning anthology ๐๐ญ๐ช๐ต๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ & ๐๐ณ๐ช๐ต: ๐๐ถ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ ๐ง๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ด ๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ด ๐๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐น๐บ (2015) and ๐๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ฌ ๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ณ๐บ: ๐ธ๐ณ๐ช๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ๐ด ๐ง๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ด๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ (2018). Their translation of Kai Cheng Thomโs ๐๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ต๐ข๐ณ๐ด ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฌ๐บ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ช๐ด๐ฉ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฆ๐ข was published in French by Eฬditions Dents de Lion in spring 2019 and their co-translation of Vivek Shrayaโs ๐โ๐ฎ ๐๐ง๐ณ๐ข๐ช๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ฆ๐ฏ was published in French by eฬditions du Remue-Meฬnage in winter 2020.โฃ
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JILLIAN CHRISTMAS is a queer, afro-caribbean writer living on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam people (Vancouver, BC), where she works as Speaker Coordinator at Cicely Blain Consulting, Spoken word curator of the Vancouver Writers Fest, and formerly served for six years as artistic director of Verses Festival of Words. She has won numerous Grand Poetry Slam Championship titles and represented both Toronto and Vancouver at eleven national poetry events, notably breaking ground as the first Canadian to perform on the final stage of the Women of the World Poetry Slam. She has presented poetry and theory in a multitude of venues including the BC Civil Liberties gala, the SFU 2018 grad conference closing keynote, and numerous panels focused on the intersections of critical race theory and contemporary art. She is the author of ๐๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฐ๐ด๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ (Arsenal Pulp Press 2020).โฃ
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