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  Trace Evidence

  Charif Shanahan

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  A Chicago Review of Books Most Anticipated Chicago Book of 2023 
   
   
   
  "A truly magical achievement." —Ocean Vuong 
   
   
   
  In Trace Evidence, the urgent follow-up to his award-winning debut Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan continues his piercing meditations on the intricacies of mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, mortality, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad. At the collection's center sits "On the Overnight from Agadir," a poem that chronicles Shanahan's survival of a devastating bus accident in Morocco, his mother's birth country, and ruminates on home, belonging, and the mysteries of fate. With rich lyricism, power, and tenderness, Trace Evidence centers the racial periphery and excavates the vestiges of our violent colonial past in the most intimate aspects of our lives. In a language yoked equally to the physical and metaphysical worlds, the poet articulates the need we all share for real intimacy and connection, and proves, time and again, that the true cost of our separateness is the love that our survival requires.

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  The Ballad of East & West - A...

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai, India on 30th December 1865.   
  As was the custom in those days, he and his sister were sent back to England when he was 5.  The ill-treatment and cruelty by the Portsmouth couple they boarded with Kipling said contributed to the onset of his literary life.  
  At 16 he returned to India to work on a local paper where he was soon contributing and writing.  It also exposed him to the issues of identity and national allegiance which pervade much of his work.  
  In 1886, his ‘Departmental Ditties’, collection of verse appeared in print followed by 39 short stories for his newspaper over only 8 months.  These were then published as ‘Plain Tales from the Hills’, shortly after his 22nd birthday.  
  He continued his prolific pace of writing before being dismissed in a dispute and, taking his pay-off and the profits from the sale of some publishing rights, decided to return to London, travelling via Rangoon, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, all the while writing articles, and arriving at Liverpool in October 1889. 
  Over the next two years he saw further works published as books and in magazines, as well as a nervous breakdown for which he was prescribed a sea voyage, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India.  
  Happier times came with marriage to Caroline Starr Balestier in January 1892.  The honeymoon began in Vermont and ended in Yokahama where they heard their bank had failed.  They returned to Vermont and settled.  Caroline was now pregnant and he was planning the ‘Jungle Books’.  
  A failed arbitration between the US and England resulted in an argument between Caroline’s brother and Kipling, and then his arrest.  At the hearing he was mortified by the exposure of his private life and after settling the matter they returned to England and life in Torquay.  ‘Kim’ was published in 1902, and ‘Just So Stories for Little Children’, a year later.  
  In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with the citation “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterise the creations of this world-famous author”.   
  When the Great War erupted, he scorned those who refused conscription.  His son enlisted and was killed at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at 18, an exploding shell had ripped his face apart.  This death inspired Kipling’s writing thereafter, but the tragedy broke his life and by 1930 his prolific pen had almost ceased. 
  Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936 from a perforated duodenal ulcer.  He was 70.  His ashes are buried at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

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  The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

  William Shakespeare

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  The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a history play and tragedy by William Shakespeare first performed in 1599. It is one of several plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Roman history, such as Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra.
  Set in Rome in 44 BC, the play depicts the moral dilemma of Brutus as he joins a conspiracy led by Cassius to murder Julius Caesar to prevent him from becoming dictator of Rome. Following Caesar's death, Rome is thrust into a period of civil war, and the republic the conspirators sought to preserve is lost forever.
  Although the play is named Julius Caesar, Brutus speaks more than four times as many lines as the title character; and the central psychological drama of the play focuses on Brutus' struggle between the conflicting demands of honour, patriotism, and friendship. 
  Among the most significant works William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Orpheus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, Venus and Adonis, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale and many more.

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  Biscuits for Breakfast

  Gareth Farr

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  'If you can cook, if you know flavour and taste and texture, people will pay you to do it. People always need to eat. Always.'
  They don't seem an obvious match. Joanne is spiky, defensive, a survivor; Paul is quiet, considered – and hiding profound grief for his father. But the pleasure he takes in cooking – and the astonishing food he prepares – creates a bond between them.
  When the hotel where they both work closes and they start to spiral into poverty, it throws everything up in the air – first their plans for a cookbook and a restaurant, and, eventually, even their dreams of a future together...
  Gareth Farr's play Biscuits for Breakfast is a tender, heartfelt drama about families – the ones we inherit and the ones we create – and the struggle to survive when times get tough. It opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2023, directed by Tessa Walker.

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  The Lunch Punch Power Hour in...

  Caitríona Daly

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  'First and foremost, this is a meeting. Of which you now have the deciding vote. Which proposal will it be?'
  In the Irish offices of a corporate firm, three employees have their lunch hour to determine how best to spend their company's annual Corporate Social Responsibility budget.
  Behind a locked door and out of sight of management, the task escalates into an increasingly outlandish and hilarious debate, revealing secret passions and uncomfortable truths.
  Caitríona Daly's The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4 is a madcap, hilarious and insightful play about power structures, escapism and resistance. It premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2025, directed by Raymond Keane.

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  Rhyme A Dozen A - Roses - 12...

  Robert Burns, Hafiz, Alfred...

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  ‘A dime a dozen’ as known in America, is perhaps equal to the English ‘cheap as chips’ but whatever the lingua franca of your choice in this series we hereby submit ‘A Rhyme a Dozen’ as 12 poems on many given subjects that are a well-rounded gathering, maybe even an essential guide, from the knowing pens of classic poets and their beautifully spoken verse to the comfort of your ears. 
   
  1 - A Rhyme a Dozen - 12 Poets, 12 Poems, 1 Topic.  Roses - An Introduction 
  2 - A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns 
  3 - The Rose Has Flushed Red by Hafiz 
  4 - A Wild Rose by Alfred Austin 
  5 - Laughing Rose by William Henry Davies 
  6 - Amid the Roses by Alice Dunbar Nelson 
  7 - The Secret Rose by W B Yeats 
  8 - Sonnet 54 - O! How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem by William Shakespeare 
  9 - The Rose by John Cournos 
  10 - Roses of a Dream by Damon Runyon 
  11 - No Rose That in a Garden Ever Grew by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  12 - Where Roses Would Not Dare to Go by Emily Dickinson 
  13 - Tis the Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore

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