Biographie

Salima Tourkmani-MacDonald is from Riverview, New Brunswick. She received her BA in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing from St. Thomas University, and her MA in English in the Field of Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. Much of her poetry is inspired by lived experience, and hinges on themes of race, identity, and family. Her work has been published in The Dalhousie Review, Echolocation Magazine, and her poem "Obituary for a Love Affair With a Girl" was shortlisted in Eavesdrop Magazine's Queer Joy poetry contest. She is also a volunteer reader at The Fiddlehead.

Entrevue

Lisiez-vous de la poésie quand vous étiez à l'école ? Y a-t-il un poème en particulier dont vous vous souvenez ?

Yes! The first book of poetry I ever bought was Danez Smith's Don't Call Us Dead. Two of my favourite poems of all time are in this book, "summer, somewhere" and "dream where every black person is standing by the ocean." To this day, Danez Smith is my favourite poet.

Quand avez-vous commencé à écrire de la poésie ? Et quand avez-vous commencé à vous considérer poète ?

I started writing poetry in my grade 12 creative writing class. I remember my teacher crushing an orange with his bare hands on the first day. Then, he instructed us to write down all the sensory details we noticed — the squelching sound it made when he crushed it, the piercing smell of citrus, the texture of the broken peel — and turn it into a poem. This lesson taught me that poetry is all around us, if you look for it. 

I knew I was a poet when I got my first acceptance letter from a small literary magazine.

Comment voyez-vous le « travail » des poètes ?

To preserve the fleeting.

Si vous deviez choisir un poème à mémoriser dans notre anthologie, lequel serait-ce ?

"1992" by Liz Howard. I love how the lack of punctuation mimics the scramble to write down every detail of a memory before it fades.

Publications

Titre(s) du ou des poème(s)
Coal Mine Canary
Titre
The Dalhousie Review
Maison d'édition
Dalhousie University
Date
15 June 2024
Type de publication
Périodique/revue
Titre(s) du ou des poème(s)
To My Ancestors on the Ocean Floor
Titre
Echolocation Magazine
Maison d'édition
The University of Toronto
Date
Autumn 2024
Type de publication
Périodique/revue
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