Aisha Sasha John, Canada

Aisha Sasha John, born 1980 in Montreal, is a poet, choreographer and dancer. The poetry in her most recent collection I have to live (2017), nominated for the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize, is honest and bare, placed in survival mode and woven into a web of intersectional theory. Aisha Sasha John was 2018 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto (Scarborough) and 2019 guest lecturer for the Writing Studio Residency Programme at The Banff Centre. She is currently Dancemakers’ Resident Artist 2019–2022; her solo the aisha of is, premièred in 2017 in the Whitney Museum, was set to be revived in March 2020.

Publications:
The Shining Material. Book*hug, 2011
THOU. Book*hug, 2014
I have to live. McClelland & Stewart, 2017

Prices (Selection):
2014: Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Finalist
2014: ReLit Award, Finalist
2018: Griffin Poetry Prize, Shortlist
2018: Writer-in-Residence an der University of Toronto
2019–2022: Dancemakers’ Resident Artist