Daniel Sarah Karasik on why writing that counters oppression is more important than ever this Pride

Daniel Sarah Karasik is a poet and author based in Toronto. Their newest poetry collection, Plenitude, was published this spring.

Karasikis the author of five books of poetry, drama and fiction, includingthe poetry collection Hungry and the short story collection Faithful and Other Stories.

Karasik has received the Toronto Arts Foundation's Emerging Artist Award and the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Award. They won the 2012 CBC Short Story Prize for the storyMine.

Shaped by Karasik's experience of grassroots social and political advocacy, the poems in Plenitude are an offering to those engaged in struggles for a better world and an acknowledgement of the sometimes contradictory meanings of those struggles. How might we dream of a more humane future, and work towardbuilding it, without minimizing the challenges that stand in our way?

Karasik spoke to Gloria Macarenko on CBC Radio's On the Coast about the inspiration behind Plenitude, being a LGBTQ+ writer in Canada and LGBTQ+ representation inliterature.

CBC Books8:03Daniel Sarah Karasik talks to Gloria Macarenko about Canadian LGBTQ+ literature for Pride Month

Daniel Sarah Karasik spoke to Gloria Macarenko on CBC Radios On the Coast about the inspiration behind their newest poetry collection, being a LGBTQ+ writer in Canada and LGBTQ+ representation in Canadian Literature.

Your new poetry collection, Plenitude, was recently released. Could you tell us a bit about it?

Plenitude is a collection of poems, mostly in verse, some of them in prose, about different kinds of social and political struggles. It's about trans liberation, climate justiceand labour justice struggles happening inside and outside traditional labour-movement spaces.

And of course, it's a book of poetry, not a book of essays or political polemic. It's a record of me as an individual grappling in different ways with those politics and trying to also make a pleasurable song that I can then offer to my friends and comrades that can be comforting or inspiring.

What made you want to put this collection together?

I was excited by poetry I was reading already that was taking an explicitly anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-oppressive and socialist perspective, butI didn't find a lot of it. I wanted to lean on these sorts of lenses and see what happens.

It was very much about wanting to communicate something to people who I know or might know in the world and wanted the same future as me.

Part of it was writing a book that I wanted to read and see in the world. And part of it was also wanting to be in conversation with people who I was working with in the social movement space and offer something fun and hopefully useful to my friends and comrades. It was very much about wanting to communicate something to people who I know, or might knowin the world and wanted the same future as me.

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Your book at times seems bleak, discussing how oppression and destruction are reinforced in our present time. What allows you to stay optimistic about the future?

This old Italian communist Antonio Gramsci has this famous line, "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." I think that's where I land. I feel quite pessimistic when I think intellectually about what is happening in the world. There's a lot of horrible stuff and it's not clear that things are getting better.

There is a certain I don't know if optimism is quite the word for me hope that's generated through people's constant ongoing experiments to find ways to resist the forces of domination, oppression and violence, and tobuild alternatives and mitigate the worst sort of damages of the forces of exploitation. There's creativity in people to find solutions that are a real source of hope in the face of a broader situation that offers lots of ground for pessimism. And that's okay if that's where some people land we shouldn't be shamed for that.

As a LGBTQ+ writer, what does Pride Month mean to you?

There are so many versions of Pride months that happen simultaneously. The version of Pride month that's the most exciting to me is the one that prioritizes opposition to, for example, state violence and police violence which draws connection to the Stonewall Riots. One point of today's Pride is looking at that history, not just as museum pieces.This kind of opposition didn't occur just once.

One point of today's Pride is looking at that history, not just as museum pieces.This kind of opposition didn't occur just once.

We are still struggling against many of the same, if not all of the same, forms of state violence, oppression, the rise of the far right and homophobic and transphobic violence. Also against the police and police violence those two words are synonymous. That kind of work is exciting to me and is the version of Pride month that I want to put my time and energy into.

What stands out to you about the work that's emerging right now from other Canadian LGBTQ+ writers?

There's an abundance of really excellent and useful literary writing coming out of our demographic much of which is mobilized and politically committed in the ways that I am describing, which is so exciting.

I'll rattle off a list of names that any listeners can look up if they're interested. Billy-Ray Belcourt;Rinaldo Walcott;the editor of Plenitude, A. Light Zachary;John Elizabeth Stintzi;Kai Cheng Thom;Jody Chan; and Bahar Orang.

There's an abundance of really excellent and useful literary writing coming out of our demographic much of which is mobilized and politically committed, which is so exciting.

These are all writers who are working in ways that are critical. I think of the structures of violence that make some of our lives more difficult than others, like Canadians who are Black and Indigenous; or who are disabled. I think these writers are leaning in very different ways on those questions.

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Do you think there is enough diversity within LGBTQ+ literatureto accurately represent the entire LGBTQ+ community?

No. Especially when it comes to the experiences of Black and Indigenous trans women and disabled members of the LGBTQ+ community, especially during an ongoing pandemic.

The more that the publishing infrastructure in Canada can centre around those experiences and have a fuller understanding of what is happening, the better off we are and the more able we are to find ways to push back.

There's an inherent value in [ensuring that diversity]and it's a useful and productive understanding of how violence and oppression are working structurally in our society and what we can do about it.

The more that the publishing infrastructure in Canada can centre around those experiences and have a fuller understanding of what ishappening, the better off we are and the more able we are to find ways to push back.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.