Photo credit
Temmuz Arsiray

Biography

Tawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet, author, performer, producer and Ashik. Her poetry collections include Bothism (Ekstasis 2017) and Nouveau Griot (Frontenac 2018), and her debut novel Book of Wings (Véhicule 2021) won the 2022 CAM/Blue Metropolis New Contribution Prize. Her French autotranslation Livre des ailes is forthcoming from Marchand de feuilles in 2023. With a twenty-five-year practice in spoken word and music, she performs internationally and has released several studio albums and videopoems including the upcoming 2023 Afrofuturist concert film CYANO SUN SUITE. She is president of the Quebec Writers' Federation and produces interarts events as Mother Tongue Media. Born and based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal of Antiguan and québécoise origin, she moonlights as a whirling dervish.

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?

Yes, I read poetry in high school, and it was mainly poetry by musicians because music has always played a central role in my life. When I was fifteen, I listened to The Doors day and night and had several books of poetry by Jim Morrison. I still have my copy of "Wilderness" which contains one of my favourite pieces of his called “Signals.” Also, when I was sixteen, I had to do a school project on a famous Canadian and my father suggested the poet Leonard Cohen. I had no idea who he was and so it was a fantastic discovery. My project had to be presented creatively outside of the standard essay format. So, I wrote an essay about Leonard Cohen, recorded myself reading the text onto a cassette interspersed with samples of his songs, and handed in my first spoken word project. It was 1988 and I still have that cassette.

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

I started writing poetry after a very heavy depression put me in the hospital when I was fourteen. A friend from class gave me a journal while I was there. I had had other journals before but this one was different--I blackened the pages with poetry. Poetry saved me, and poetry continues to save me to this day. However, it took many years for me to consider myself a poet. In 1996 while I was completing my BA in English Literature and Creative Writing at Concordia University, I started compiling my work and self-published my first chapbook called "Blood In, Blood Out." I went on to self-publish five more. And because I have always presented my work orally as a spoken word artist, it is only after my first studio album of poetry and music in 2004 that I really began seeing myself as a poet and not just an occasional writer of poems. It's not a job one chooses, it is a verdict.

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

I believe that the job of the poet--and all artists in fact--is to question, reflect, inspire and predict the future.

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

I would choose Guanahani, 11 by Kamau Brathwaite.

Publications

Poem title(s)
N/A
Title
Book of Wings
Publisher
Véhicule Press
Editors
Dimitri Nasrallah
Date
2021
Publication type
Book
Poem title(s)
N/A
Title
Nouveau Griot
Publisher
Frontenac House
Editors
N/A
Date
2018
Publication type
Book
Poem title(s)
N/A
Title
Bothism
Publisher
Ekstasis Editions
Editors
N/A
Date
2017
Publication type
Book
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