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total

total

poems

About the Book

"John is brilliant at communicating. She's also really funny. Poems don't get more direct and precise and unforgettable than this." —National Post

total is a work of contemporary mysticism, a lunar erotics of rage and grief. Here the glory of the quotidian is balm, study, and companion for the poet’s pilgrimage across deserts of loss and absence. total is prayerfulness as claws out, eyes wet, throat open, eyes turned up and in.
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Praise for total

Praise for Aisha Sasha John and total:

"The closest thing to thinking is the fragment of pure thought. The closest thing to pure poetry is the alignment of these fragments. In total, Aisha Sasha John thinks, purely, aligns, beautifully, turning the poetry to thought and the thought to poetry. Poetry that insists itself, that sings, asides, snaps, and screams, like all pure thought." --Vanessa Place 

"There is a real brilliance here. Instead of just making poems, Aisha Sasha John is using her words to see if they vibrate with any facts or frequencies or ley lines, to see if they become more real than bricks, or just fall down having touched nothing. She is on the hunt for the blueprint of our world, the one just out of our vision and logic, wondering herself if the blueprint is ancient or in progress. This is the kind of art I need." --Margaux Williamson, Painter
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About the Author

Aisha Sasha John
AISHA SASHA JOHN is a performer, choreographer, and poet. She’s the author of I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart, 2017), a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, THOU (Book*hug, 2014), a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the ReLit Poetry Award, The Shining Material (Book*hug, 2011), and the chapbook TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021). As a dance artist, Aisha is interested in performance as a site of rehearsing being and in the power of reception as creative methodology. She’s the inaugural Affiliate Artist at Toronto Dance Theatre where her work The Pool, made with the TDT ensemble, will premiere in winter 2025. Aisha’s duet DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-Cité 22), performed with Devon Snell, has been presented in Montreal, Vancouver, and Rouyn-Noranda, and was developed during her 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency. Aisha’s first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at Montréal, arts interculturel (MAI) and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. Winter 2026 will mark the debut of a co-creation with fellow choreographer/performer Clara Furey. Aisha holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a B.A. in African Studies and Semiotics from the University of Toronto. She was born in Montreal. More by Aisha Sasha John
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