Ashley Qilavaq…

1996

Biography

Ashley Qilavaq-Savard is an Inuk writer, artist, and emerging filmmaker born and raised in Iqaluit, Nunavut. She writes poetry about decolonizing narratives, healing from intergenerational trauma, and love of the land and culture. Her first collection of poetry, Where the Sea Kuniks the Land, explores grief, colonization, and finding identity in between it all.

Micro-interview

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

I didn't get into poetry writing until I worked with Taqralik Partridge and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory in my early 20s. I witnessed how powerful poetry can be through their spoken word pieces that beautifully and realistically encapsulated Inuit life. My favourite poem is Taqralik's "Sea Woman" poem which is told from Sedna's (Inuit sea goddess) perspective on how humans are treating her waters.

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

I was in my early 20s when I started writing poetry, I was really bad at it but I kept reading poetry and I kept writing. I kept all of my bad poems too and after about year of my writing journey I reread my work and had the tools to refine my words to my liking, it was then that I considered myself a poet.

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

I think a poet's job should be to provoke thought, to shed light on the darkest of corners, to breathe in hope in the most airtight spaces. To make people stop and think and feel and want to change or be changed.

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

When I Become You by Teva Harrison.