{"id":25862,"date":"2019-04-23T14:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T18:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?page_id=25862"},"modified":"2026-01-22T13:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T18:46:18","slug":"manahil-bandukwala","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/life-in-english-student-blogs\/manahil-bandukwala\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Manahil\u2019s Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-max  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n        \n                    \n                    \n            \n    <div class=\"cu-wideimage relative flex items-center justify-center mx-auto px-8 overflow-hidden md:px-16 rounded-xl not-prose  my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 bg-opacity-50 bg-cover bg-cu-black-50 py-24 md:py-28 lg:py-36 xl:py-48\" style=\"background-image: url(https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Life-in-English-Student-Blogs-768x336.jpg); background-position: 50% 50%;\">\n\n                    <div class=\"absolute top-0 w-full h-screen\" style=\"background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0.600);\"><\/div>\n        \n        <div class=\"relative z-[2] max-w-4xl w-full flex flex-col items-center gap-2 cu-wideimage-image cu-zero-first-last\">\n            <header class=\"mx-auto mb-6 text-center text-white cu-pageheader cu-component-updated cu-pageheader--center md:mb-12\">\n\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold mb-2 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] cu-pageheader--center text-center mx-auto after:left-px\">\n                        Welcome to Manahil\u2019s Blog\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                    \n\n<p><em>BA Honours English (2020); MA English (2022)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n                            <\/header>\n        <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    \n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15958\" style=\"width:259px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil.png 800w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-512x341.png 512w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-320x213.png 320w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-600x400.png 600w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-360x240.png 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\t\t\t\tManahil Bandukwala\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a id=\"Top\"><\/a>Manahil Bandukwala is a fourth-year English major in the Co-op Program. She enjoys writing and painting. Her chapbook of poetry and illustrations&nbsp;<em>Pipe Rose<\/em>&nbsp;was published in 2018.&nbsp;She is currently an editor of&nbsp;<em>In\/Words<\/em>, Carleton\u2019s in-house literary magazine. She enjoys crushing friends at Bananagrams, Scattergories, Boggle, and other word games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"w-full max-w-xl mx-auto overflow-hidden bg-white rounded-lg shadow-lg cu-stackedlist cu-component not-contained not-prose\">\n    <h2 class=\"px-6 py-4 text-base font-semibold border-b rounded-t-lg md:text-xl bg-gray-50 text-cu-black-800\">\n        Table of Contents\n    <\/h2>\n    <div class=\"grid cu-scrollto cu-stackedlist--toc cu-stackedlist--1 md:grid-cols-1\">\n            <div class=\"space-y-1\">\n                    \n            <div class=\"pl-4 text-cu-red-700\">\n                <div class=\"flex gap-2 pb-3 text-base md:text-lg\">\n                    <span class=\"font-light text-cu-black-700\">\n                        1.\n                    <\/span>\n\n                    <a href=\"#april-23-2019\" class=\"font-medium hover:underline\">\n                        April 23, 2019\n                    <\/a>\n                <\/div>\n\n                            <\/div>\n                    \n            <div class=\"pl-4 text-cu-red-700\">\n                <div class=\"flex gap-2 pb-3 text-base md:text-lg\">\n                    <span class=\"font-light text-cu-black-700\">\n                        2.\n                    <\/span>\n\n                    <a href=\"#april-5-2019\" class=\"font-medium hover:underline\">\n                        April 5, 2019\n                    <\/a>\n                <\/div>\n\n                            <\/div>\n                    \n            <div class=\"pl-4 text-cu-red-700\">\n                <div class=\"flex gap-2 pb-3 text-base md:text-lg\">\n                    <span class=\"font-light text-cu-black-700\">\n                        3.\n                    <\/span>\n\n                    <a href=\"#february-22-2019\" class=\"font-medium hover:underline\">\n                        February 22, 2019\n                    <\/a>\n                <\/div>\n\n                            <\/div>\n                    \n            <div class=\"pl-4 text-cu-red-700\">\n                <div class=\"flex gap-2 pb-3 text-base md:text-lg\">\n                    <span class=\"font-light text-cu-black-700\">\n                        4.\n                    <\/span>\n\n                    <a href=\"#january-5-2019\" class=\"font-medium hover:underline\">\n                        January 5, 2019\n                    <\/a>\n                <\/div>\n\n                            <\/div>\n                    \n            <div class=\"pl-4 text-cu-red-700\">\n                <div class=\"flex gap-2 pb-3 text-base md:text-lg\">\n                    <span class=\"font-light text-cu-black-700\">\n                        5.\n                    <\/span>\n\n                    <a href=\"#november-13-2018\" class=\"font-medium hover:underline\">\n                        November 13, 2018\n                    <\/a>\n                <\/div>\n\n                            <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"april-23-2019\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">April 23, 2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong class=\"myprefix-text-bold\">Working in web writing is a curse &#8211; a goodbye as departmental blogger<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write this as I reach the final week of my co-op work term in a web communications team and struggle to write anything longer than 25 words. I want everything to be short. Fancy vocabulary needs to go. Sentences should have one idea, and one idea only. Want to make a paragraph longer than two sentences? Cute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a problem when I need to write a 15-page paper or a short story. Flash fiction, at 500 words, seems long. I hadn\u2019t written fiction in over a year, but something changed that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I stumbled upon the English blog archives and read a post by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/undergraduate-program\/co-op-program\/english-lit-majors-on-the-job-the-co-op-option\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alicia Haniford<\/a>. Alicia mentions how everything she writes is long. This is nothing against Alicia, who is a good friend and former co-op supervisor. But most recently, she (along with former English student&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/undergraduate-program\/life-english-undergraduate\/life-english-student-blogs\/welcome-to-paiges-blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paige Pinto<\/a>) has been the reason why I have broken my fiction hiatus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alicia and Paige are co-editing an anthology of romance stories by a group of current and former members of the English Lit. Society\u2019s Emerging Writer\u2019s Circle. This idea formed during a breakfast at Elgin Street Diner. When Alicia said she always wanted to edit a collection of romance stories to two excitable people (Paige and myself), of course this became a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this is where the title of my blog post manifests. Nevertheless, through the encouragement of a strong and talented group of writers, I managed to write eight pages of scattered prose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was terrified of sending it to the group, whose work was surely leaps and bounds beyond mine. Writers like Julia Lye and Megan Waldron seem to have an infinite capacity to write. Or Ren Iwamoto and Cosette Penner-Olivera, whose writing is always so evocative and rich. Or Paige Pinto and Browen Matheson, who overflow with such interesting ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I felt my work paled in comparison. I was ready for a pile of rejections and steeled myself for a full rewrite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I shouldn\u2019t have worried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This group of writers knows how to critique. They know how to uplift your work and give suggestions to make it stronger in the same breath. I haven\u2019t written fiction in over a year, but this group of writers makes me want to get back to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the Emerging Writer\u2019s Circle, we have become the Eighteen Eleven Collective. If you\u2019re in the English department at Carleton, I\u2019m sure you can guess at what this means. It\u2019s been a couple of years since this exact group watched the sun set once a week in Dunton Tower, but we have fallen back into the comfortable excitement of surprise Timbits or the continuation of a story. I know characters like Seren and Dominick, or Helen and Mouse, or Jester, Oracle and Mute as though they are intimate friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve laughed harder than when Paige introduced a potential title of the anthology (taken from the title of Browen\u2019s story) as&nbsp;<em>You Hit Me With Your Car and Other Love Stories.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After writing all of this, I rescind my titular statement. Web writing makes me a better writer. Instead of writing four-line sentences full of nonsense and hoping the TA will think I know what I\u2019m talking about, I fill my essays with actual thoughts. I don\u2019t bury what I actually want to say under fluff. My co-op work term may not help me write novels the length of&nbsp;<em>Game of Thrones,&nbsp;<\/em>but it does help me make each word count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this said, here is my goodbye as an English blogger. I\u2019m excited to see where the rest of the year goes. Since&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/2019\/new-year-new-co-op-and-other-new-beginnings\/\">my first blog post of 2019<\/a>, most of the things I wrote about have already happened. I\u2019m finishing up my co-op work term, my chapbook,&nbsp;<em>Paper Doll,&nbsp;<\/em>has launched and is going into its third printing, and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sculpturalstorytelling.com\/\">\u201csecret\u201d project I mentioned has a website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you for following my adventures through university, Ottawa, and even Toronto at times. Have a great summer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"april-5-2019\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">April 5, 2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Versefest 2019 &#8211; A day-by-day encounter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"560\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16736\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1-512x224.jpg 512w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1-1024x448.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1-320x140.jpg 320w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1-768x336.jpg 768w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Manahil-1-360x158.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>March was a hard month, with the passing of Prof. Pius Adesanmi. This followed the news of Prof. Marc Hewson\u2019s passing in January, which left much of March with me thinking about the influence professors have and how it\u2019s easy to take what they share with us for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But with the end of March came Versefest, Ottawa\u2019s biggest poetry festival. Versefest brings together poets from across Canada, as well as on an international scale. This year, attending readings, lectures, and talks, as well as meeting literary friends and poets, offered me a chance to think about mentorship and influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Living two streets away from the Knox Presbyterian Church (where Versefest takes place) means that my attendance for the poetry festival has greatly increased. I\u2019d like to share some of my festival highlights and recommendations, and maybe convince you to attend next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Day 1: Opening Night<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Billy-Ray Belcourt read a lot of poems from his forthcoming book,&nbsp;<em>NDN COPING MECHANISMS: Notes from the Field<\/em>, coming out in September 2019. One thing to say is that September 2019 has something great to look forward to. Belcourt read a line, \u201cpoets pledge allegiance to a country I don\u2019t believe in\u201d that stuck with me throughout the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While I was already familiar with the work of Billy-Ray Belcourt (thanks to Professor Brenda Vellino\u2019s course on Indigenous Literatures, and the well-deserved success of&nbsp;<em>This Wound is a World<\/em>), I was also exposed to the brilliant work of t\u2019ai freedom ford. ford read from her books,&nbsp;<em>how to get over<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>&amp; more black\/black-ass sonnets.&nbsp;<\/em>Her final poem had the audience mesmerized with lines like \u201cthe new is skin \/ the skin is news \/ the news is brown \/ the brown is noose \/ the noose is red.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Day 2: Sawdust Reading Series<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After missing hearing Gillian Sze last April at the Ottawa International Writers Festival, I had the pleasure of hearing her read her chapbook,&nbsp;<em>Fricatives.&nbsp;<\/em>The last lines of the chapbook were, \u201cand I am surprised to know that something so large can still wander,\u201d and these stuck with me as I settled into bed that night. As a bonus, I was also able to get my own copy of&nbsp;<em>Fricatives&nbsp;<\/em>at the book table on Day 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Day 3: Arc Poetry Magazine\u2019s Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What a lineup for Arc\u2019s event at Versefest: David O\u2019Meara, Stephanie Roberts, Jenny Haysom, and Doyali Islam. Here are some of the highlights of lines from poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>O\u2019Meara, Arc\u2019s poet-in-residence, read a line, \u201cWe might have slept for years, extras in each other\u2019s grief.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haysom structured her reading around the theme of homes, from the home she lived in for seventeen years at Hopewell Avenue to Van Gogh\u2019s home in Arles. She read, \u201cHints of nicotine and yesteryear lingered in the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reading closed with Islam reading from her just-released book,&nbsp;<em>heft,&nbsp;<\/em>which Islam described as being largely about fathers. Her poem, \u201canise tea\u201d has the lines, \u201cWhen these histories have steeped enough, his right hand bears the weight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Day 4: The Ottawa International Writers Festival &amp; the Versefest Invitational Slam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Friday was the first day I attended both the 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. shows. The first event was hosted by the Ottawa International Writers Festival. Renee Sarojini Saklikar read from her books,&nbsp;<em>Children of Air India<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Listening to the Bees.&nbsp;<\/em>Out of all the readings at the festival, her voice (next to Gillian Sze\u2019s) was the nicest to hear. One of the lines she read was, \u201ccome spring we braid strands, pulp fibres, wind whispers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dennis Lee, a poet and children\u2019s writer, closed the Writers Festival event. One of my favourite parts from his reading was of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.taddlecreekmag.com\/the-notapotamus\">\u201cThe Notapotamus\u201d<\/a>, which read like \u201cI thought I saw a potamus, \/ Asleep upon a cotamus,\u201d and it had the whole audience laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then was the part I was simultaneously anticipating and dreading: Versefest\u2019s Invitational Slam. This competition, always held at 9 p.m. on the Friday of Versefest, draws the largest crowd. This year, I was invited to participate. It was my first time being part of a slam. As I expected, it was terrifying but also a great experience. It wasn\u2019t being scored that had me at the edge of my seat, as I had expected, but rather it was not knowing when my name was going to be pulled out of the hat to go up and read. I did make it through my reading, and had the chance to share the stage with some amazing poets, including Infinite Mind, Rhube Knox, Shawn K, Shery Alexander Heinis, and Danielle K. L. Gregoire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Day 5: The Factory Lecture Series, What the Poets Are Doing, &amp; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Saturday shows at Versefest strayed away from poetry readings, which was a nice break from the four consecutive days of poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Factory Lecture Series, featuring Sennah Yee and Klara du Plessis, was organized by rob mclennan. Yee and du Plessis had space to talk about their work, inspirations, and current projects. Yee focused her lecture on her background in film studies, often citing critic and scholar Laura Mulvey. Having studied Mulvey\u2019s work in several classes, it was interesting hearing Yee\u2019s talk about Mulvey\u2019s observations of how women are depicted as objects to be looked at in film. Yee\u2019s book,&nbsp;<em>How do I look?&nbsp;<\/em>looks at these depictions of women and racialized bodies in pop culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Du Plessis talked about her practice of \u201cdeep curation,\u201d in which she compares a literary curator to a curator for a gallery. The literary curator invites readers to perform, but does not usually have a say in what the reader performs. The art curator considers how work is in conversation with other work, and has a comprehensive view of the tone of the exhibition. Du Plessis\u2019s concept of deep curation takes cues from the practice of art curation. She says, \u201cThe process of reading and selecting becomes writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a quick lunch break, I was back at Versefest for a launch of&nbsp;<em>What the poets are doing: Canadian poets in conversation.&nbsp;<\/em>The book consists of twelve pairs of Canadian poets talking about poetry. The editor of this book, Rob Taylor, described the process as being like \u201ca cat caf\u00e9, except the people who work there are also cats.\u201d Speakers at this event included Armand Ruffo, Linda Besner, and Phoebe Wang. Each read parts of their own conversation, parts of others\u2019 conversations, and poetry from their conversation partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leanne Simpson performed with her band at the 9 p.m. show, and it was wonderful. Simpson performed songs that I had first been introduced to in Indigenous Literatures, such as \u201cHow to Steal a Canoe.\u201d She also gave her bandmates, Ansley Simpson and Cris Derkson, space to perform solo. The band closed the night with the song, \u201cThis Accident of Being Lost,\u201d which shares a title with Simpson\u2019s book. I have also listened to this song every day since first hearing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Day 6: In\/Words Magazine &amp; Blue Mondays<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last day of Versefest arrived, and I was hosting an event for In\/Words Magazine with UOttawa\u2019s reading series, Blue Mondays. I find something fun about two \u201crival\u201d universities hosting a literary event together each year. I was also excited to introduce Tess Liem and Ren Iwamoto. Liem\u2019s debut poetry book,&nbsp;<em>Obits<\/em>, is a phenomenal look at death, obituaries, and mourning. One of the lines she read was, \u201cI write zero to describe grief and to me it means I had more than a pen to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Iwamoto\u2019s first chapbook,&nbsp;<em>Travelling Trauma Museum,&nbsp;<\/em>was the first chapbook I had worked on as an editor with In\/Words. Introducing them, as well as hearing new work, was wonderful. They read from a series of poems about Medusa, with one of the lines being, \u201cHelen\u2019s face launched 10,000 ships but yours could have sunk them in a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six days of a variety of poetry later, I feel satiated, and also ready to sleep. Versefest is always great for introducing me to new poets, such as from t\u2019ai freedom ford, Stephanie Roberts and Linda Besner, or giving me a chance to meet poets I admire in real life, such as Sennah Yee and Tess Liem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"february-22-2019\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">February 22, 2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Visiting three museums in one week\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An especially exciting part about getting my Canadian citizenship is the free access I get to museums and art galleries for a year. I fully made use of this access over the winter break, during which I visited three museums in a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ontario Science Centre: Science museums are usually the best museums to visit because everything is so hands-on. The Ontario Science Centre takes the prize for best science museum visited so far (sorry, Ottawa). Even my thirteen-year-old sister, who is at that point where her room is the best possible place she can be, thoroughly enjoyed herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The exhibits at the museum had lots of games to demonstrate the science. To explain the Schrodinger\u2019s Cat theory, there was a version of the game \u201cAngry Birds.\u201d Instead of launching birds, you launch cats. Each level applied quantum theories to how you could launch the cat. In one level, for example, you launch a cat in a box. While the box is in the air, you tap it, and the cat may come out either dead or alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A much-appreciated exhibit in the cold December weather was in \u201cThe Living Earth\u201d section. You enter a space that simulates a rainforest, complete with heat and humidity! But one of the highlights is a whimsical display of sculptures made out of found objects. Each sculpture has a wacky name, like \u201cFlying Tea Machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Aga Khan Museum: This museum opened a few weeks after I moved to Canada, and has been on my go-to list ever since. The free entry was enough to convince my mum to drive me out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I felt a sense of familiarity in the Aga Khan Museum. I remembered names like Mahmud of Ghazni, Muhammad bin Qasim, and Avicenna from my history classes in Pakistan. The stunning calligraphy showed how different Arabic scripts developed, including Persian, which influenced Urdu, Pakistan\u2019s national language. Another point of resonance was the Shia and Sufi influences in the calligraphy. My family\u2019s sect of Islam is under Shi\u2019ism, and I\u2019ve never seen the branch in this sort of spotlight before (given that Pakistan has a Sunni majority).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Aga Khan Museum was an especially cool place to visit because I was seeing things that I had only seen in textbooks on display. One of these artifacts was a standard used in a battle in Islamic history. I had memorized that Hazrat Ali (nephew of the Prophet Muhammad) was renowned for his strength, and his service as standard-bearer was proof of it. I pictured the standard as a lightweight flag, and never questioned why one would need strength to carry one. The standard in the Aga Khan Museum was like a metal sculpture, with intricate calligraphy carved into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost two months after visiting the Aga Khan Museum, I still can\u2019t forget the awe and wonder of the exhibits I experienced there. The visit has inspired me to start a project involving a study of the Mughals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/AGO-Manahil-Feb-2019-400x533.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16520\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Art Gallery of Ontario: The AGO was the last museum\/gallery I visited. I\u2019ve been here before, but the architecture of the place always makes me marvel at its beauty. The gallery\u2019s special exhibition showcases the work of Mickalene Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas\u2019s paintings include different types of materials. She embeds rhinestones in a lot of her work, making it very striking. The exhibit, titled \u2018Femmes noires,\u2019 puts black women in the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Thomas\u2019s \u201cliving-room installations,\u201d she arranged couches and piles of books by black authors. I recognized a number of names from classes, including Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, and Washington Black by Esi Edugyan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This exhibit was a great way to invite people to sit down and absorb the installations while also giving them something to do in the form of reading the books. The common \u201cDo Not Touch\u201d rule in art galleries can also create tentativeness in visitors. Turning this on its head by encouraging people to \u201ctouch the artwork\u201d made this a very comfortable space to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These museums are all larger-than-life, and the time needed to go through each one thoroughly surpassed the energy I had each day. I\u2019m still thinking about the exhibits at each museum, and they continue to influence my literary and artistic work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"january-5-2019\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">January 5, 2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>New year, new co-op, and other new beginnings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On December 31<sup>st<\/sup>, 2018, I asked my friends, \u201cwhat are you sure will happen in 2019?\u201d I wanted to celebrate what we knew was happening rather than lament what might (not) happen. For 2019, I am sure that I will start a new co-op work term at the International Research and Development Centre and that I will have my second chapbook published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write this blog post at the end of my third day at IDRC. I was quite giddy about this job over the winter break, mostly because you must be a Canadian citizen to work in the position. I was still a permanent resident during the job searches for my last two co-ops, so after getting my citizenship this summer, my job search opened up to the many positions that require Canadian citizenship. Being able to enter this space that I previously couldn\u2019t is exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>IDRC funds research in developing countries, with a focus on partnering with local workers. Since working there, I\u2019ve come across work that they do in Pakistan, such as funding women-only spaces on public transit to make navigation easier for women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Working in web writing and development has a surprising benefit for my poetry \u2013 I am far stricter in editing and cutting down unnecessary content. I am a harsher critic, which makes my writing (both technical and creative) focused on the main subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the workplace itself, I have one lament: the microwave is four floors down from my office. However, the ten-minute walk to my new office from my apartment is a huge plus, and I suppose this makes up for the absent microwave. Copper Branch, the vegan restaurant in the building, is also a significant benefit of the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starting a new job comes with a specific feeling that appears regardless of how many first-days-of-work you have. I felt nervous about the small things. How would I greet new people on my floor? Would I be given any tasks on my first day? How do I politely ask what my lunch break is like? When should I mention that I need to take time off in March to go to Toronto for my chapbook launch?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My second chapbook,&nbsp;<em>Paper Doll,&nbsp;<\/em>was accepted by&nbsp;<em>Anstruther Press<\/em>&nbsp;in the summer of 2018 and will be launched this March. I\u2019ve edited and polished the manuscript, invited friends to the March 1<sup>st<\/sup>&nbsp;launch in Toronto, and am coming up with ideas for the cover.&nbsp;<em>Anstruther<\/em>&nbsp;is a pretty big Toronto-based press, and sometimes I\u2019m floored that my work will be joining their impressive line-up of poets, which includes Tess Liem, Klara du Plessis, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Aaron Boothby, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first chapbook\u2019s publisher,&nbsp;<em>battleaxe press,<\/em>&nbsp;is based in Ottawa where I currently live. It\u2019s fitting that my second chapbook\u2019s publisher is in Toronto, a city that I first hated when I moved to Canada but have slowly come to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have another big literary and visual arts project in the works. I\u2019m too superstitious to mention more about the project. I will say that Carleton professors were very helpful and responded promptly to my emails over the winter break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new year did come with some sorrowful news. Professor Marc Hewson passed away. I took \u201cWriting an English Essay\u201d with him back in my first year. I\u2019ve continued to use his teachings in my 3<sup>rd<\/sup>&nbsp;and 4<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;year classes. He was a fantastic professor and his passing is shocking and saddening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2019 has been pretty steady so far. Thanks to co-op extending my degree by a year, I\u2019ve escaped the graduation panic that has set in for many of my friends. The prospect of leaving the world of schooling that marks our entire lives is quite daunting. In addition to the worry of finding a job, we must contend with the loss of our student discount. From grocery shopping to visiting museums and using public transit, our lives are defined by being students. I\u2019m happy to put off this panic for another year. In the meantime, this may be the reason I consider grad school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"november-13-2018\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">November 13, 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Night at the Ottawa International Writers Festival<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saturday, October 27<sup>th<\/sup>: Halloweekend. With parties happening all over the city, where should one go? To the Ottawa International Writers Festival, of course. The night featured not one, but two powerful authors: Dionne Brand and Vivek Shraya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/The-Blue-Clerk.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"296\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/The-Blue-Clerk.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16089\" style=\"width:164px;height:auto\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Brand read from her new poetry collection,&nbsp;<em>The Blue Clerk<\/em>, followed by a one-on-one conversation with Adrian Harewood of CBC. The following quote from their exchange sums up how amazing it was to hear Brand speak:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat do you use language for?\u201d<br>\u201cTo make the next moment different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brand talked about her early education in a post-colonial Trinidadian school where she learned literature by rote. Sitting there, I was taken back to my similar schooling experience in Karachi. I didn\u2019t realize then that literature and writing could be such a powerful tool for change because we focused so much on memorizing content and regurgitating it for the teacher. Now, studying literature in university means that literary analysis goes beyond surface elements of rhyme and meter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a poignant and hard-hitting talk by Brand, Vivek Shraya performed her song, \u201cI\u2019m Afraid of Men,\u201d and read from her memoir of the same name. An interrogation of masculinity, the book takes as its point of departure Shraya\u2019s observation that when \u201cyou talk about fear, what the oppressors hear is hate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Im-Afraid-of-Men.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"342\" height=\"499\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Im-Afraid-of-Men.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16088\" style=\"width:140px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Im-Afraid-of-Men.jpg 342w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/Im-Afraid-of-Men-320x467.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 342px) 100vw, 342px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Both Brand and Shraya talk about the writer\u2019s responsibility to push readers to think. The world, as Brand puts it, is full of racism, violence, oppression, and hate. Writing might not change that completely, but it can start a conversation. Shraya hopes this will happen with&nbsp;<em>I\u2019m Afraid of Men<\/em>, a work that seeks to show how we are all complicit in inequality and oppression fostered by assumptions that convene under the ethos of masculinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Language is a powerful instrument for change and going to the Writers Festival is always an eye-opening experience. I have a number of deadlines to focus on and tasks to get done, but I often take a few moments each day to think back to what both writers said that night. As Dionne Brand said, \u201cwriting is a decision between what is told and what is withheld.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manahil Bandukwala is a fourth-year English major in the Co-op Program. She enjoys writing and painting. Her chapbook of poetry and illustrations&nbsp;Pipe Rose&nbsp;was published in 2018.&nbsp;She is currently an editor of&nbsp;In\/Words, Carleton\u2019s in-house literary magazine. She enjoys crushing friends at Bananagrams, Scattergories, Boggle, and other word games. April 23, 2019 Working in web writing is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15958,"parent":18417,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cu_dining_location_slug":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_page_type":[],"class_list":["post-25862","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25862"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27812,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25862\/revisions\/27812"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_page_type?post=25862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}