Adebe DeRango-Adem: Vox Humana

In and through literary experiments with word and sound, utterance and song, Vox Humana considers the different ways a body can assert, recount, and proclaim. Born from the polyphonic phenomenon of the author’s multilingual upbringing, these poems are autobiographical and alchemical, singular and plural, but, above all, a celebration of the (breath) work required for transformation of society and self.

“This is poetry that scans like lightning across a slate-blue sky, slashing the page with its power. Through its measurements of Blackness, miscegenation, migration, identity, the body, and the body politic, Vox Humana is the voice you have been waiting to hear. An incendiary cri de coeur for our times.” —Wayde Compton, author of The Outer Harbour

Adebe DeRango-Adem is a writer and former attendee of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (Naropa University), where she mentored with poets Anne Waldman and Amiri Baraka. She is the author of four full-length poetry books, most recently Vox Humana (Book*hug Press,2022), recipient of the 2023 Raymond Souster Award. Her poem “Vox Genus / Provectus” was selected by Sonia Sanchez as the winner of the 2021 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest.

Adebe DeRango-Adem will be in conversation with Michael Fraser

Michael Fraser has published three books of poems, most recently, The Day-Breakers, a fictional retelling of Black soldiers’ experiences during the American Civil War. A Toronto-based poet, he is the recipient of numerous awards, including  the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize, Freefall Magazine’s 2014 and 2015 poetry contests. His work appears in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2013 and 2018.

This virtual event is streamed via Zoom.

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