Irfan Ali Writers in Residence Archives
Irfan Ali is a poet, essayist, writer, and educator. His short poetry collection, Who I Think About When I Think About You was shortlisted for the 2015 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Accretion is his first full-length work. Irfan was born, raised, and still lives in Toronto.
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July 30, 2020Mom's Turn
While Accretion, my recently published debut, is a collection of poetry, it’s also a narrative closely based on a really transformative moment in my life a few years back. Given that family and tradition ...
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July 27, 2020The Erotic and the Prophetic: A Lesson Across Centuries
I’m loathe to admit that I only became intimately familiar with the works of celebrated Black feminist theorist and poet Audre Lorde a little over a year ago, when my partner gave me a copy of Sister ...
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July 22, 2020a quick aside on breaks, interpretations, and momentum
i realized two things after my last post. first, that i was missing video games more than i’d probably like to admit. and second, that after three months of online teaching and attempts at book promo ...
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July 19, 2020Video Games as Art: A Roadmap In
Until very recently, lifelong video game enthusiasts like myself have always felt ourselves on the defensive back foot. Plagued as it was (and often still is) by sexist and racist stereotypes, painfully ...
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July 15, 2020The Most Important Books in the World
If you pick up Octavia Butler’s 1998 novel Parable of the Talents for the first time right now, you’ll share a moment with everyone else who’s only read it recently. It happens early in the book. ...
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July 12, 2020Why I've Been Waiting for Lovecraft Country
One of the most divisive and important figures in the horror canon is H.P. Lovecraft (the H.P. standing for Howard Phillip). His impact has been unmistakable, heavily influencing the work of artists across ...
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July 09, 2020
On Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city
Music has always been part of my DNA. I consumed it with the same intensity as I did literature, and at no less voracious a rate. Large swaths of my adolescence were spent lying on the floor, eyes closed ...
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July 05, 2020Chicken Little in the Time of Covid-19
It’s probably been a long time since you’ve heard the story of Chicken Little. Let me take a moment to remind you. While out walking one day, a chicken named Chicken Little is hit on the head by an ...
