Join Shelf Life Books for an evening with Ayesha Chatterjee as she reads from her latest collection of poetry, Bottles and Bones. Ayesha previously published The Clarity of Distance in 2011. Born in India, Ayesha currently lives in Toronto.

Launch of new Bayeux title, “From Cell to Sanity” on March 15 at St. Mary’s University, Calgary

Rats!

They fought the dogs and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles,

George Eliot Clarke, Canada’s 7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate has selected a poem by Ayesha Chatterjee from her “Clarity of Distance” published by Bayeux Arts.

The French President, Françoise Hollande has described the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday 9/13 an ‘act of war’ and called upon France to unite in the face of this tragedy. Is it possible to unite in hatred and loathing?

Slowly but surely, some of us think that something akin to a revolution is shaping politics around the world. I can already hear scornful, skeptical laughter greeting this tentative assertion. But hear me out.

Pope Francis in our midst in North America reminded me of a moment of contemplation I was engrossed in in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi about a year ago.

We fled our homes
Fierce fighting broke out on our streets.
Now there’s no turning back,
Bombs turn homes to rubble.

We wandered for shelter for weeks,
My wife and I, two small kids.
We couldn’t take the stench in the camps,
Squeezed by thousands, hungry.
People going to Germany.