The Writers' Collective

Sally Ito is the first speaker in the Collective’s 100 Minutes with an Author series and I’m so disappointed that I can’t go. (I made a promise to my mother that can’t be rescheduled. Really.)

I first encountered Ito’s poetry when she was a featured reader for Speaking Crow. This was some time ago, when the Crow first came to roost at Aqua Books. I was captivated by the religious imagery, references and reflections woven through her poetry.

and like the soundless urge
that wells in the bird’s breast before
the first burst of light on the horizon

your breath is filled
with the inescapable charm of His command

(“To Adam, the First Poet”)

Bible stories are some of my oldest knowledge – they are bred in the bone. Although I’ve left “the church”, I still have this knowledge, this way of looking at the world, to reconcile with my current beliefs. That first night I heard Sally Ito read, I bought her book Season of Mercy (the source of the excerpts in this post), and grew more captivated as I read. I liked the way she used Biblical stories as analogy and metaphor for the human condition.

We are all like that eunuch
sitting in a chariot,
reading difficult texts,
wondering what meaning is,

(“Philip and the Ethiopian”)

I want to know what Ito will have to say about her relationship to religion and Christianity and how it informs her writing. Somebody go and ask her for me, would you?

What: 100 Minutes with Poet Sally Ito

When: Saturday, March 13, 1:30 p.m.

Where: Carol Shields Auditorium, Millennium Library

Hilary Friesen