There’s something almost poetic about a tweet. Consider what Audre Lorde had to say about poetry: “Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper … poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored women. A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing … [Read more...]
Addiction, isolation, and the fate of one city
The city of Cambridge, ON Cambridge, ON is a small city. I have mistakenly referred to it as a town, only to be reprimanded by those who were born and raised here (I have only lived in Cambridge a few years). In fact, the city of Cambridge is Waterloo Region’s second largest community and home to just under 130,000 people. Despite the unanimous belief that Cambridge is indeed a city and not a town, however, Cambridge is internally quite divided. There are three distinct neighbourhoods: … [Read more...]
Private sponsorship and community solidarity
The most recent issue of Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees is devoted to private sponsorship. Reading it encouraged me to return to themes I raised in a previous post about Canada's Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. And good news--Refuge is open access, so anyone can read these articles! I find private sponsorship for refugee resettlement to be an opportunity to think through Hannah Arendt's claims about the blurring of private and public concerns. For Arendt, the private, the realm … [Read more...]