Reading with Lisa Lopez Smith for her debut poetry collection, Hallelujah Anyhow, followed by a Q&A Moderated by paulo da costa.
About the book:
Debut collection of lovingly attentive poems about life in kinship with the land and cohabitants in little known corners of Mexico.
Rural Mexico is practically a co-author of Hallelujah Anyhow, a debut collection that is quietly observant and raw, in which gritty reality lives side by side with delights and transcendence. López Smith pulls on the threads that bind everyone and everything together, whether it be migrants on the borderlands, the majestic wilds or her own small farm. This poetic offering sees the sacred and relational in everything—with sleeves rolled up and dirt under the fingernails—and embraces a tender caregiving toward the land, the creatures, children and community. With gratitude in one hand and a broken heart in the other, these poems are suffused with daily miracles and loving attention to both the horror and the grace of being alive.
About the authors:
Born in British Columbia on the traditional lands of the syilx people, Lisa López Smith has lived and worked in Italy, Uganda, China, the USA, Ireland and Brazil, but Mexico has her heart. Along with her Tapatío husband and kids, she raises livestock on their small biodynamic farm, which is an endless source of inspiration for her poetry and fiction and where she practices slow living, contemplation and everyday revolution. She has a BA from the University of Calgary and an MA from Royal Roads University in subjects unrelated to writing or farming. Originally from Kelowna, BC, she and her family now live in Jalisco, Mexico. Born in Angola and raised in Portugal, paulo da costa is a writer, editor, and translator living in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. He is twice the recipient of the 2020 James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction (in 2020 and 2023), the 2003 Commonwealth First Book Prize for the Canada-Caribbean Region, the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize, and the Canongate Prize for short-fiction.