new from above/ground press: from The Book of Bramah, by Renée Sarojini Saklikar

from The Book of Bramah
Renée Sarojini Saklikar
$5

Bramah’s Grandmother & Other Tales

Finder of the lost: keys, rings, lockets, chains
builder of the last Revival Network:
She brought warmth to cold friendships, crescent moon
winter morning that star shone―
healer of the broken: she mended clocks
devices rarely seen, moving parts oiled
no one to say the word soul or look up—
Bare trees, aquamarine sky, dark towers
pressed, her messages retrieved, factory bound
delivery routes disrupted by migrants
Geneva to Tokyo, great councils met
oil prices, the flow of capital, trade—
never lose your sight, she would say, half blind
Years later, in rags, her fingers, still kind.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Renée Sarojini Saklikar recently completed her term as the first Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey, British Columbia. Her latest book is a B.C. bestseller: Listening to the Bees (Nightwood Editions, 2018). Renée’s first book, children of air india, (Nightwood Editions, 2013) won the 2014 Canadian Authors Association Award for poetry. Renée co-edited The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them (Anvil Press/SFU Public Square, 2015,) a City of Vancouver book award finalist. Renée’s chapbook, After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees, (above/ground press, 2016), reprinted earlier this month, was a finalist for the 2017 bpNichol award. Her poetry has been made into musical and visual installations, including the opera, air india [redacted].  Renée was called to the BC Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor, served as a director for youth employment programs in the BC public service, and now teaches law and ethics for Simon Fraser University in addition to teaching creative writing at both SFU and Vancouver Community College. She curates the popular poetry reading series, Lunch Poems at SFU and serves on the boards of Event magazine and The Capilano Review and is a director for the board of the Surrey International Writers Conference. Renée belongs to the League of Canadian Poets and The Writer’s Union of Canada (TWUC) and is active on the TWUC Equity Committee. She is currently working on an epic-length sci-fi poem, THOT-J-BAP, that appears in journals, anthologies and chapbooks.

[produced, in part, for the sake of the author’s appearance at Ottawa’s VERSeFest Poetry Festival, March 2019]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com