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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 10d

as if the poet broke through the veneer of market and policy terminology to remake its words into lines of remembrance and connection.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 10d

Reading SCAR/CITY + then being in conversation about it with @danielaelza.bsky.social has given me - paradoxically! - the feeling of connection + livability Vancouver constantly tells me I can't have. Also, Daniela's poetics of wordplay has an unusually deep, searching quality, (cont'd)

Daniela Elza @danielaelza.bsky.social · 10d

First review of SCAR/CITY <3
thebcreview.ca/2025/09/27/2...

Jane Frankish reviews SCAR/CITY, by Daniela Elza

Jane Frankish reviews SCAR/CITY, by Daniela Elza (Montreal: McGill Queen’s UP, 2025) $19.95 / 9780228023739

thebcreview.ca

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Reposted by Rahat Kurd

Talonbooks @talonbooks.bsky.social · 20d

The new #poetry collection The Book of Z by @rahat.bsky.social is here! Kurd writes from the imagined voice of Zulaykha, “the wife of Aziz”/“wife of Potiphar" as she reflects on what consolations human desire and divine longing might offer our shared present tense. 💙📚

talonbooks.com/books/the-bo...

The Book of Z by Rahat Kurd (cover description: black background, giant gold sparkly Z spanning the majority of the cover with the title and author name above and below the Z respectively in turquoise serif font) sits between two mossy, thick tree branches as the sun beams down, illuminating it. In the background, moss-covered stones and a river.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 26d

Yeah, I refuse to stop sharing them and I refuse to be overwhelmed alone. I live in a state that ships arms to the terrorists who enforced this state of siege and famine onto Palestinian families. I will not let them forget that what they are doing is illegal, immoral, and does not represent me. 🍉✊

الكسندرا ميراي @lexialex.bsky.social · 26d

If you're overwhelmed by the amount of Gaza fundraisers flooding your TL just imagine how overwhelmed they are getting the 25th evacuation order while being starved to death and terrorized with bombs paid by our tax money. Choose 3 fundraisers and give $5 to each...even that can save lives. 🙏🏼

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 26d

Please keep sharing and keep demanding systemic change for Palestinian freedom from your elected officials.

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Reposted by Rahat Kurd

Talonbooks @talonbooks.bsky.social · 26d

Help us celebrate the release of

📚 The Book of Z by @rahat.bsky.social
📚 th book uv lost passwords 1 by bill bissett
📚 No Depression in Heaven by @ryanfitzpublic.bsky.social
📚 Stigmata by @scottjackshaw.bsky.social and
📚 tours, variously by @drewmcew.bsky.social!

See you there! 💙📚

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 26d

Vancouver folks, you're invited 🙂 💜

Talonbooks @talonbooks.bsky.social · 26d

You're invited to the Talonbooks Fall 2025 Launch on October 24! Join us at the Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall to celebrate the release of five fantastic poetry collections. Attendance is free!

Get all the details here: talonbooks.com/events/talon...

A lightly gradiated seafoam green at the edges to light turquoise in the centre background. The text reads "Talonbooks Fall 2025 Launch, Oct. 24, Vancouver, BC, Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall, 1955 McLean Drive, Venue is wheelchair and scooter accessible." Followed by the five launching book covers with author headshots in circles above. From left to right, Rahat Kurd and The Book of Z, bill bissett and th book uv lost passwords 1, ryan fitzpatrick and No Depression in Heaven, Scott Jackshaw (attending virtually) and Stigmata, and Drew McEwan and tours, variously.

The text underneath reads "Light refreshments will be served. A live stream will be available on the Talonbooks YouTube channel. Doors open at 7 p.m., readings begin at 7:30 p.m. Hosted by Danielle LaFrance."

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 28d

Everyone in the world who has not lost their humanity is now talking with pleasure and excitement about this image, which makes it - as stain, in shadow - even more hopeful and excellent

ScribbleJotterAmy @scribblejotter.bsky.social · 28d

Found an even better image of it on face thing:

Photograph of a screenshot of the erased banksy image with shadows of iron bars/railings projected on it posted by Lesley @lesthecroc with the comment “they removed it” quote posted by the archbishop of banterbury with the comment: “The Shadows of those bars are so Symbolic”

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 29d

What about seizing all Lockheed Martin assets to fund affordable housing in perpetuity for everyone right now?

No fighter jets for you!

Edge O. Erin @edgeoerin.com · Sep 9

🇨🇦, cancel the F-35 "deal."

"F-35 flying into more delays and cost increases, U.S. government report says."
www.msn.com/en-ca/news/c...

MSN

www.msn.com

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 29d

It has translated itself into the bitter bile of knowing another summer is ending here in the northern hemisphere, when genocide still is not.

Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 29d

I've only ever had this bitter bile collect in my throat before waking on days when I've had to get ready to leave #Kashmir

Photograph of a tiny lone figure sitting in a small wooden rowboat, called a shikara, in silhouette against a brilliant golden sunset on Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir, under heavy grey clouds.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · 29d

Really looking forward to this one! I'll be reading from THE BOOK OF Z 💜

Talonbooks @talonbooks.bsky.social · 29d

On Sept 17, head to the Britannia Branch of the Vancouver Public Library to enjoy poetry from @rahat.bsky.social, Evelyn Lau, and @danielaelza.bsky.social! The event begins at 6. Don't miss it!

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 6

Here's a pink heart inscribed with the word "Dosti" = "Friendship" in Urdu script.

Be a friend for Gaza, where Zena needs milk and food.
Keep sharing and keep protesting.

#CeasefireNOW #DisarmIsFake #StopArmingIsFake #FeedGazaNOW

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

The painting is held in the National Museum in Delhi, India. Sharing the pre-order link from @talonbooks.bsky.social here. A special request in this time of legislated scarcity for artists and writers: ask your favourite libraries to order it 💜

talonbooks.com/books/the-bo...

The Book of Z » Books » Talonbooks

talonbooks.com

Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

This detail from a 19th century (late Mughal-era) Indian painting of a particular scene from the Persian poet Jami’s late 15th century epic, “Yusuf and Zulaykha”, shows how the painter (whose name is unrecorded) imagined this mytho-poetic heroine.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

The Book of Z is a persona poem, written in the imagined voice of a contemporary Zulaykha.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

this is amazing, Okka. your care work here expands what it means both to read, and to honour your reader.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

As one of the co-contributors to the anthology RIVER IN AN OCEAN: ESSAYS ON TRANSLATION (trace press, 2023) I've had the pleasure of reading Okka's work & meeting her online. Her amazing essay in RIVER similarly constitutes an expression of #care for the translator, as here, for the #reader 💜

Okka (Khairani Barokka; she/her/dia) @mailbykite.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is my Content Warning that begins ANNAH, INFINITE. It was v impt for me to include encouragement for ppl to take breaks, take care of themselves, and to know that I black out words and that this is an escape story.

If you included a Content Warning in yr book, pls let me know/share 🤍 #CripLit

CONTENT WARNING
This is an escape story. There are vast fields of intertwined kinds
of violence to pass through, and I try my utmost to reference
them without sinking you, to allude to them without being ex-
plicit where possible. I have tried to keep you here with gen-
tleness, without gratuitousness, undue explicitness. Though of
course my attempts may have differing outcomes for each of us,
my intention is for this book to be about the peace on the other
side, rarely thought of by many, for Annah, for many of us. We
can return and return to that peace for the stretch you are here
with me.
Many forms of violence are present in the possibilities for
who Annah la Javanaise depicts. But there are also many possibili-
ties to escape every single one of them. Possibilities that exist, that
are always already here. I use this brushstroke over words, where
I feel it may be needed for us: for instance, [assault]. It is impossi-
ble, of course, to gauge every reader’s zone of safety, but I have
tried my best.

4 Annah, Infinite
Gift yourself as many breaks as you need. Writing this re-
quired breaks of me, often. Then again, also, jags of delving into
worlds where none of these modes of violence exist, when time
is no object, time becoming an enveloping warmth.
No content warning, to my knowledge, exists in others’ pre-
sentations of, or writing on, Annah la Javanaise, the painting or
the figure.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

Not saying guerilla tactics *require* black tie. But ahhh, how nice it is to see them align. So very nice. 🍉 ✊

Lilly ⭐️ @mothcub.bsky.social · Sep 4

Iconic moment at the Downton Abbey premiere

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is not my campaign! I voluntarily shared the direct GFM link to a fundraiser for a family in Gaza. Thanks.

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is Dina and her children in Gaza. Please keep sharing, donate if you can, and tell your elected officials their inaction is complicity & complicity is unacceptable

gofund.me/972ab97fd

Donate to Help Dina and her children buy food, clothes, and milk, organized by Arwa Shaheen

I am Dina from Gaza, married with four children. Over the course o… Arwa Shaheen needs your support for Help Dina and her children buy food, clothes, and milk

gofund.me

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 2

I suggest my local hot dog stand in front of English Bay Beach in Vancouver, as the location for this. The vibe at sunset is unbeatable. And I think the guy who runs it makes his own garlic sauce.

Emma Bolden @emmabolden.bsky.social · Aug 31

i want a tv series called “werner herzog eats a hot dog” in which werner herzog just eats a hot dog and talks about life for an hour

Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 2

So, to sum up, "Fuck You, teenagers" is the messaging City of Ottawa officials decided would strike the right tone for September 1st?

Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 1

Ottawa is apparently run by people who hate kids and/or who prefer to fund police on the backs of kids?

A climate justice strategy would pay people to take transit as much as possible, and responsible officials worthy of their damn pay checks would have started to do this in 2010.

Erica Ifill @wickdchiq.bsky.social · Sep 1

But our mayor has decided to give the police gobs of money

CTV News Ottawa @ctvnewsottawa.bsky.social · Sep 1

End of the road for OC Transpo youth passes, teens now pay $135 a month for transit pass

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Rahat Kurd @rahat.bsky.social · Sep 1

Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · Aug 31

Jeremy Tiang really hits the nail on the head here (as would be expected).

Translation is caught between two forms of capitalist exploitation: using a per-word freelance structure to provide a bare minimum fee, and playing on its artistic nature to compel free ancillary labor alongside

Tiang: As Maureen alluded to, when we sign a contract, we get paid for our translations. But, in fact, we’re also doing a lot of other labor that is expected but not compensated. This can start way before the contract is signed. Many of us are pitching books to publishers, and to do that, we have to be reading wisely. We have to be making contact with authors and publishers to make sure that the rights are available. We have to do sample translations and synopses, for free, and we have to email them to publishers that we have taken care to build relationships with. All of this is unpaid until a publisher accepts the book, at which point you are negotiating for money after having done a lot of labor. And then there is, as Adam has pointed out, a power differential where the only power the translator has is to say, “This is what I would like.”

Beyond that, all you can do is accept what you’re offered or walk away. In one sense, you’re being paid for the labor of your translation. But in another sense, you’re an all-around concierge who, in my case because many of my authors do not speak English, is expected to translate emails between the author and the publisher, to act as a kind of go-between: an agent, a rights agent, and a publicist all in one. We do what has to be done in order to get the translation to market, and often we are the only person in the equation with access to both languages and both cultures and both literary scenes, so we’re the only person who can do this work. But it’s not in our contracts, and we’re not getting paid for it. But it’s what has to happen to keep everything running.

Tiang: Honestly, any kind of disruptive solution would be great. I am someone who makes the majority of my income from literary translation, even though my language isn’t particularly in demand. I do this by pitching a lot, generating a lot of my own work, never taking a day off, not sleeping. And that’s not really sustainable. The question for someone like me, who is relatively established and working constantly translating three to four books a year, is: Should I not be making a living? The fact that I am not suggests a problem with sustainability in the industry. It can’t just be people with outside sources of income. But I will say that this conversation has been hugely generative, and I’m going to suggest we start a group chat and continue it.