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Sensorial connections

They say books are on their way out – and who reads anyway, especially poetry? They say humans will either be done in by wars or melted down by climate change, or be replaced by cyborgs. They say a lot […]

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Nationhood Has No Borders 

There is a fable that Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a reporter what he thought about Western civilization, and his reply was, “It would be a good idea!”

We didn’t cross the border — the border crossed us

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” — Steve Bantu Biko I remember. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. It’s a distant memory. Still, like my parents and their parents before them and so […]

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Panj and the Partition: An interview with Himmat Singh Shinhat

Introduction Panj, a solo performance seamlessly combining storytelling, spoken word, song, images, video and original live psychedelic-rock-fusion music, premiered in Montréal at the Festival Accès Asie (Asian Heritage Month) in May 2022. The show is based on creator Himmat Singh […]

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How Exotic We Are

Mount Everest: She was a mother hen and the other mountains were chicks under her wings – Tenzing Norgay Shimla was where I wanted to be, like nowhere else in the northwest Himalayas – where the houses stood on precipices, […]

Les fantassins révolutionnaires de l’Inde

Montréal Serai m’a invité à commenter ce livre, non pas en tant que spécialiste de l’Inde, du maoïsme ou des Adivasis (peuples autochtones de l’Inde), mais plutôt en tant que membre intéressé du public. À la fin des années 1960, […]

ImagiNation, or the Politics of Nation and Imagination

When I think of India, I think of many things: of broad fields dotted with the innumerable small villages; of towns and cities … of the magic of the rainy season which pours life into the dry parched-up land and […]

India’s Revolutionary Foot Soldiers

Montréal Serai invited me to comment on this book, not as someone with any particular expertise on India, Maoism, or the Adivasi (Indigenous peoples in India), but as an interested member of the public. In the late 1960s, when I […]

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The Sovereign Citizen and the Man with No Name

Sometime in the late fifties, as a 10-year-old child in what was then known as Calcutta (now Kolkata), I wandered around in the neighbourhood I grew up in and would stop at a books and comics store, which was nothing […]

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My Honour, Your Shame: Three Poems

Walls You tell me you are not like me. Nor am I like you, but obliterating my thoughts, my feelings, my senses was not yours to do. It was my place as well as yours and if I chose not […]

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Lit by veins of colour

Artist statement Working quietly for decades on a singular pursuit is what draws me, letting the pieces speak for themselves. This body of work is a study in power and refinement. For more on Eric James Jensen’s artwork, please visit […]

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Italian vigilante flicks: vengeance and popular culture

Caveat: There is a reason I’ve largely avoided the Italian crime thriller/poliziotteschi genre all my life. That’s what Tele-Italia aired on Montréal’s defunct ethnic TV channel, along with La Piovra mafia series and commedia sexy all’italiana (Edwige Fenech, Banfi or […]

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POROROCA

Pororoca Do you hear the lament of the deep riverwhere you played as a childlaughed when youngand in which you drown today? Playful shorestickling water lettucesexcited crabshiding in the warm sandwhere you dipped your feetfreelyyour cleaned handsoverflowingwith the fullnessof the […]

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Silence, Please

plink, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip plink, drip, drip drip drip drip

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Talking poetry: an interview with Michael Fraser

“Poetry’s appeal is rooted in emotion. It tends to chase people away whenever it becomes too cerebral.” Michael Fraser Author Mayank Bhatt interviews award-winning poet Michael Fraser, whose third collection of poems, The Day-Breakers, was published by Biblioasis in April […]

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Out of the Ashes

Over a year ago when our editorial team gamed out our upcoming issues, we decided that the theme for this April 2022 issue would be “Out of the Ashes.” The concept was based loosely on the idea that […]

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Out of the devastation of racism: Joyce’s Principle

[Serai editor Jody Freeman interviewed Vice-Chief Sipi Flamand from the Atikamekw Council of Manawan in early January 2022. The Council of Manawan and the Atikamekw Nation Council spearheaded consultations in the Atikamekw community and the larger Québec community, […]

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Chernobyl II, Stumbling Stones & Lockdown

Chernobyl II Revelation 8:10-11 “… the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.” We are the Chernobyl babushkas wearing black kerchiefs. We are the ones with radiation sickness. We are […]

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Mother and Child

[Editorial note: Serai editor Rana Bose was intrigued by the autobiographical story submitted by Miriam Edelson, from Toronto. “Intrigued” would perhaps be the wrong word. It was more of a sense of resonance with a time in the past. Bose’s […]

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Even After the Peace

AT THE END OF THE YARD Because after much meandering I’ve determined the world is that new bicycle, its chrome menace: Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, that hill. And because we laid out the table in the garden, […]

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In the Beginning was the Log House

[Serai editor Kerry McElroy had the pleasure of interviewing Guy Sprung about his father, Mervyn Sprung, whose philosophical writings strike an evocative chord in our current era of extremes and hegemonized mindsets.] Kerry: You are the son […]

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A Visit to Belfast

Recently, I read a collection of reminiscences on the hunger strike of 1981 carried out by republican prisoners in the north of Ireland. The hunger strike began March 1 and ended October 3. During those seven months, 23 […]

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Lava Tube

There Was a Wind There was a wind blowing outside, a dog barking, flashing headlights. When your stomach turned black in your RV, you finally got scared. You decided the time had come to softly drift. All you needed […]

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Fear the Mirror

I will say it outright: Fear the Mirror, Cora Siré’s newly minted collection of linked short stories, is the most emotionally satisfying book that I have read in a long time. The author takes readers through the aftermath […]

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Two Poems by Elana Wolff

Concertina Think of all the times you haven’t been thwarted by your teeth and tongue, your clavicle and ulnas, femurs and gut. Body says, This one’s on me. Brain says, What’s remembered lives; It’s alright not […]

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Navigating the Climate Crisis

Ann Eriksson’s Urgent Message from a Hot Planet is a heartfelt plea for all of us to do our bit, however little, to save the planet from global warming. In fact, author Eriksson contends that the term “climate […]