The Lit Room
Wednesday April 22nd, 2026 with Susan Johnston
#24 Laurie D. Graham: Calling It Back to Me (Penguin Random House Canada, 2026)

Today, Laurie D. Graham joins me to talk about exploring her great-grandmothers' stories and tracing the links between their lives, experiences, and the lens through which she sees these histories now. Publisher's description: "A poet’s clear-eyed witnessing of familial history, this is the most personal collection yet from two-time Trillium Book Award finalist Laurie D. Graham. In these searching, spare, and resonant poems, Laurie D. Graham traces the story of her great-grandmothers’ lives before and after they left their homelands and settled on this continent, striving to understand how she came to be here and writing the act of colonization as it exists in her own family history. This collection’s fractured lines, time-weathered yet alive with detail, reflect a family’s knowledge broken by global immigration and memory loss, both individual and collective. The result is a courageous reckoning with the legacy of leaving home." Special thanks to Griffin Cribb for support with audio production.