Dear Friends &: Klara du Plessis, Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, Sonnet L'Abbé

Description:

Produced in partnership with The Capilano Review, Dear Friends & is a monthly series showcasing the work of local and touring Canadian writers. Taking place on the first Thursday of each month, readings are hosted in the Grand Luxe Hall and made available to virtual audiences by livestream.

The series’ name draws inspiration from the salutations and sign-offs used by Roy Kiyooka in Transcanada Letters (1975), a collection which details the comings and goings of his literary sociality across Canada, the network of people and relations that enfold his writing, and the longings of his “Heart’s Geography” to be near the ones he loved. Kiyooka was an important figure for both Western Front and The Capilano Review, and this series invites his spirit of kinship, connection, and conviviality into the reading space.

The fifth event of the series included readings by Klara du Plessis, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, and Sonnet L’Abbé. Plessis began the evening with a selection of poems from her collection Ekke (2019) before being joined onstage by Mohammadi to present work from their collaborative translingual publication G (2023). Following their combined reading, Mohammadi shared work from their unpublished text “Bedfruit.” To close the evening, L’Abbé presented a twenty-minute set that included sound poems drawn from Sonnet’s Shakespeare (2019) that they performed on acoustic guitar. 

The readings unfolded against a projected image by resident artist Christian Vistan, who was invited to inhabit the peripheral spaces of Dear Friends & through a series of conceptual graphics, backgrounds, interventions, and ephemera reflecting on themes of friendship and correspondence through art. The backdrop Vistan produced reflected on Junie Désil, Tawhida Tanya Evanson, and Isabella Wang’s readings during the previous month’s Dear Friends &, and their shared acts of writing into the body from places of variousness or change. Vistan documented the water-marked backs of new paintings on puckering manila paper, alongside drawings that relayed a family story about lightning striking a coconut tree.

The evening was hosted by Lauren Lavery, managing editor of The Capilano Review, and Kiel Torres, assistant curator of Western Front.

Presented with support from Kootenay School of Writing.