Angel House Press, operated and lovingly spreading its angel wings by Amanda Earl, is publishing one poem every day for the month of April. Not just any poetry – “a new poem, video poem, collage, piece of book art, comic and visual poem by 30 contributors from around the world. The poems deal with discrimination, gender violence and abuse and resilience, to homages to women artists, to the celebration of sex, the body, family and friendship.”
I am extremely proud to be the poet for April 18th! So, please stay connected to this relevant and powerful site!
Here is the first poet!
NationalPoetryMonth.ca begins with Primary Colours, a video by spoken word artist Roua Aljied, aka Philosi-fire. Please watch this gorgeous video http://www.nationalpoetrymonth.ca/
Roua Aljied is a biomedical engineering student and spoken word poet who is passionate about writing, social justice, and people. Born in Sudan and raised in London, Ontario she is currently living in Ottawa, Ontario. Her poetry focuses on issues such as anti-blackness, human rights abuses, gender-based violence, and Islamophobia. In 2014 she was crowned the Ottawa youth slam champion as well as the women’s Versefest slam champion. She has coordinated with Women in International Security Canada and the 16 Days of Activism Campaign as well as performed for the 2016 International Women’s Day ceremony in Ottawa to speak about issues of domestic abuse. Her work has been taught in classrooms, featured on CBC, as well as screened across Canada, the US, Ukraine, Germany, Ireland and Serbia. The summer of 2016, Roua gave a TEDx talk about intersectionality and accessibility in activism and the subject continues to be her main focus as she believes activism without intersectionality and accessibility is not productive or progressive. She is the cofounder of the Carleton Students for Climate Justice and hopes to create safer spaces for BIPOC, and especially women/femme identifying individuals. As a Black, Arabized, Muslim, immigrant woman she never runs out of words to write, but when she’s not performing, coding, or where she’s supposed to be, Roua can almost always be found in a coffee shop. Through storytelling, she hopes to connect with people in order to collectively cope and heal.
Primary Colours is a cine-poem written and performed by Sudanese-Canadian spoken word artist Roua Aljied, aka Philosi-fire, about the realities of domestic violence and how each step a woman takes is a new colour to paint on the canvass of her life. Roua is an activist and artist who has been featured on A-Plus and CBC Exhibitionists, and has done numerous performances for the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence campaign and International Women’s Day. Her words tackle subjects of racism, human rights and gender violence. Directed by Derek Price and Produced by Emily Ramsay. Primary Colours appears on NationalPoetryMonth.ca 2017: A Celebration of Women.
THANK YOU AMANDA!
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 