APOCRIFA | A Busboys and Poets Books Discussion
Date and Time
Jul 17, 2023 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Jul 17, 2023 6:00 pm
14th & V
APOCRIFA imagines a love that sits comfortably at the crossroads of commitment and freedom. The developing intimacy between a lover and their beloved is propelled by a compendium of words for love, romance, sex, relationships, and affection that do not lend to direct translation in English. Serving as both titles and markers of the progression of time, these poetically defined words highlight the growing tension of one who claims “i cannot love you enough/to unlove the wide world” and yet is inextricably drawn to the offer of “a place of sustenance, rest, and my delight in your very bones.” Heavily inspired by the metaphors and structures of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), from the Apocryphal books of the Bible, the characters speak to each other with contrapuntal call-and-response while letting us into their private thoughts through epistles, sestinas, odes, and other poetic forms.
Jacqueline Woodson says about APOCRIFA, "An elegant, loving and lovely journey. Again and again, apocrifa lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again. Finally setting us down exactly where we need to be."
Amber Flame and Sunu Chandy are joining us on the Busboys stage to share their poetic works. Copies of their books will be available for purchase during and after the event, and the poets will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of APOCRIFA AND MY DEAR COMRADES will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and will NOT be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame’s work is published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock, with her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame’s second book of poetry, apocrifa, launches May 2023 from Red Hen Press. As Program Director of Hedgebrook, she builds events and programs that amplify the voices of women-identified writers, and continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth. In her spare time, Flame is working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.
Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney. She’s a queer woman of color and lives in Washington, D.C. with her family. Sunu is the daughter of immigrants from Kerala, India. Her collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was selected for the 2021 Terry J. Cox Prize, and published by Regal House in Spring 2023. Sunu’s work can also be found in publications including Asian American Literary Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Poets on Adoption, Split this Rock’s online social justice database, The Quarry, and in anthologies including The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood and This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Sunu is also the legal director for the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and on the board of the Transgender Law Center. Sunu earned her B.A. in Peace and Global Studies/Women’s Studies from Earlham College, her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law and later, her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Queens College/The City University of New York. Sunu was included as one the 2021 Queer Women of Washington and one of Go Magazine’s100 Women We Love: Class Of 2019. Sunu is delighted to celebrate her first collection of poetry, My Dear Comrades, with all of you and with the book's fabulous cover artist, Ragni Agarwal.
MY DEAR COMRADES
In this poetry collection, Sunu P. Chandy includes stories about her experiences as a woman, civil rights attorney, parent, partner, daughter of South Asian immigrants, and member of the LGBTQ+ community. These poems cover themes ranging from immigration, social justice activism, friendship loss, fertility challenges, adoption, caregiving, and life during a pandemic. Sunu’s poems provide some resolve, some peace, some community, amidst the competing notions of how we are expected to be in the world, especially when facing a range of barriers. Sunu’s poems provide company for many who may be experiencing isolation through any one of these experiences and remind us that we are not, in fact, going it alone. Whether the experience is being disregarded as a woman of color attorney, being rejected for being queer, losing a most treasured friendship, doubting one’s romantic partner or any other form of heartbreak, Sunu’s poems highlight the human requirement of continually starting anew. These poems remind us that we can, and we will, rebuild.
