Total - by Aisha Sasha John (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"John is brilliant at communicating. She's also really funny. Poems don't get more direct and precise and unforgettable than this." --National Post

total is a work of contemporary mysticism, a lunar erotics of rage and grief. Here the glory of the quotidian is balm, study, and companion for the poet's pilgrimage across deserts of loss and absence. total is prayerfulness as claws out, eyes wet, throat open, eyes turned up and in.

Review Quotes

Praise for Aisha Sasha John and total

"The closest thing to thinking is the fragment of pure thought. The closest thing to pure poetry is the alignment of these fragments. In total, Aisha Sasha John thinks, purely, aligns, beautifully, turning the poetry to thought and the thought to poetry. Poetry that insists itself, that sings, asides, snaps, and screams, like all pure thought." --Vanessa Place

"There is a real brilliance here. Instead of just making poems, Aisha Sasha John is using her words to see if they vibrate with any facts or frequencies or ley lines, to see if they become more real than bricks, or just fall down having touched nothing. She is on the hunt for the blueprint of our world, the one just out of our vision and logic, wondering herself if the blueprint is ancient or in progress. This is the kind of art I need." --Margaux Williamson, Painter

About the Author

AISHA SASHA JOHN is the author of i have to live (2017), a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize; THOU (2014), a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the ReLit Poetry Award; and The Shining Material (2011). She choreographs and performs in the feminist collective WIVES as well as solo performances (The Aisha of Oz, VOLUNTEER). Aisha's video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries) and installed at Union Station in Toronto (Art Metropole). She was born in Montreal.