launch of rumi roaming

Please join us at Take Cover Books for the launch of the multidisciplinary, multi-platform and multi-language anthology "rumi roaming: contemporary engagements and interventions," with curator and editor Gita Hashemi, poetry and translation editor Elena Basile, and contributors Carly Butler, Ehab Lotayef, Jayce Salloum, and Nogojiwanong resident Zainab Amadahy, with special opening performance by Naandewegaan Singers.

About the book:
rumi roaming juxtaposes new translations of some of Rumi's ghazals with contemporary creative non-fiction, poetry, scholarly essays, photo essays, and performance and art videos that engage with his work through decolonial reflections on language, human relations, connections to land and water, and spirituality. A SubversivePress publication with Guernica Editions (2025).

About the presenters:

Iranian-born Gita Hashemi is a refugee, an artist, activist, curator, and writer who works from T’karonto, the “Dish With One Spoon Territory,” the lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, and most recently the Mississaugas of Credit. She lives near Wonscotonach (burning bright point, aka Don) River. Her home in Shiraz was near Khoshk (dry) River. She has created and curated many generative and multi-platform projects. rumi roaming is her first anthology.

Carly Butler (she/her) is a settler artist in Canada of British and Iranian descent. She currently lives and works on Vancouver Island in Ucluelet on the traditional territory of the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ. Her interdisciplinary practice reinterprets nautical knowledge around navigation and survival to reflect on longing, regret, and nostalgia.

Ehab Lotayef is an IT Manager, poet, writer, and activist. He moved to Canada in 1989 with a degree in electrical engineering from Egypt. He has volunteered with and served on the boards of local and international social justice NGOs for decades. His publications include the bilingual poetry collection To Love a Palestinian Woman (2010), the play Crossing Gibraltar (CBC, 2006), and numerous op-eds in Canadian papers.

Elena Basile, born and raised in Italy to an English mother and an Italian father, writes, researches, and teaches in Tkaronto, Treaty 13. She has spent most of her life writing about the entangled layers of language, culture and place that make belonging possible, collaborating with artists and writers along the way. She is currently working on decolonizing her own approach.

Jayce Salloum, as if an itinerant geographer of conflicted territories, observes the world and creates/collects images/texts to make meaning from. A grandson of Syrian immigrants, raised on Sylix land, now on the territories of the Xʷməθkʷey̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Səíl̓wətaʔł. Recognizing and acting on this is an everyday practice, but let’s face it, he could do a lot more.

Zainab Amadahy lives in Nogojiwanong, Ontario, Canada and has authored works of fiction and nonfiction including Wielding the Force (2012), Resistance (2013) and Life on Purpose (2017), and published in magazines including Muskrat. Now semi-retired, she has worked in community arts, nonprofit housing, Indigenous knowledge reclamation, women’s services and migrant settlement.

Naandewegaan Singers (Healing With Drums) is an Indigenous Woman's Hand Drumming Group based in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, ON) and features Janet McCue, Mshkiki Gitigaan Kwe, Serene Brennan and Zainab Amadahy. This powerhouse singing and drumming quartet gathers once a week in the community to offer an Open Drum Circle at Right To Heal for all who feel drawn to the healing power of the drum and vocal harmonies.

Date: April 04, 2025

Time: 6:30-8:30PM

Location: Take Cover Books
59 Hunter Street in East City
705-772-4280
Free parking on the street
Accessible space.
Washroom not accessible.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Take Cover Books, 59 Hunter Street East, Peterborough, Canada