Sharon Engbrecht is a PhD Candidate in Literary Studies at the University of British Columbia. Their dissertation, “Challenging the Scripts of Romantic Love: British and Canadian Women’s Critical-Romance Novels,” focuses on women’s writing as a form of queer knowledge production in response to the “straightening” narratives of romantic love. They are currently an in-house student-staff writer at Canadian Literature.
Article
Verse Forward: A Canadian Literature Poetry Reading Series
Abstract
This contribution reviews the history of poetry at Canadian Literature, through CanLit Poets and now Verse Forward: Poetry on the Front Lines, a poetry reading series. Looking at the first two Verse Forward events, Sharon brings out the urgent work the poet-activists do, calling on readers to meditate on the multiplicity of meanings in each poem. Drawing from the authors’ conversations with Phinder Dulai, series creator and emcee, Sharon considers how we arrive at alternative connectivities during the COVID_19 pandemic.
Canadian Literature issue 245, Pandemics, is available to order through our online store at https://canlit.ca/support/purchase/single-issues/.