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Photo by Yuula Benivolski of the aisha of is (MAI 2017).

Aisha Sasha John’s total listening party

Doors open at 7:00 PM - Arrive early for book purchases
Conversation with Souvankham Thammavongsa starts at 7:30 PM
Somatic Listening Experience of total
Followed by book signing by Aisha Sasha John Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street (VIEW MAP)

Accessibility Info: Unfortunately the Winchester Street Theatre is not currently wheelchair accessible. There are three steps outside of the front entrance, a small platform, and then three more steps to the lobby (a straight hallway that then leads you to the theatre). To access the private gender-neutral restrooms, there are five additional steps at the end of the lobby. The seats in the theatre are on risers with stairs; please contact info@tdt.org if you have any questions regarding accessing our space.

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Come celebrate TDT Affiliate Artist Aisha Sasha John’s new poetry collection, total, in a somatic listening experience at the historic Winchester Theatre!

The event will feature a conversation with the incredible Souvankham Thammavongsa, author of four poetry books and the short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife.

Then, guests will be invited to experience total in optimal conditions: laying on the floor of a dance theatre. These poems are meant to be received with the whole body. Aisha’s editing process for total included working with dancer friends in the studio to pass the poems through their bodies — so it’s only right that the book be launched in a way honouring how it was made.

There will be copies of total available for purchase and Aisha will be signing books as well!

Photo by Francesca Chudnoff

Aisha Sasha John

Aisha Sasha John is a performer, choreographer, poet and the 2023-2025 Toronto Dance Theatre Affiliate Artist. John is interested in performance as a site of rehearsing being and in the power of reception as creative methodology.

She is the author of total (McClelland & Stewart 2025), I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017), a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, THOU (Book*hug, 2014), a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the ReLit Poetry Award, and the chapbook TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (Ugly Duckling Presse 2021). Aisha holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a B.A. in African Studies and Semiotics from the University of Toronto.

John’s most recent choreographic work, The Pool, made with the TDT ensemble, premièred in March 2025. Other choreographic works include the duet DIANA ROSS DREAM with Devon Snell, the aisha of is which premiered at The Whitney in 2017, and The Minimum, a work-in-progress.

Photo by Steph Martyniuk

Souvankham Thammavongsa

Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books and the short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife. Her stories have won an O. Henry prize and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and Granta. She has interviewed Kazuo Ishiguro, Ocean Vuong, and Sheila Heti.
total by Aisha Sasha John, McClelland & Stewart 2025.

total by Aisha Sasha John

Praise for total

“The closest thing to thinking is the fragment of pure thought. The closest thing to pure poetry is the alignment of these fragments. In total, Aisha Sasha John thinks, purely, aligns, beautifully, turning the poetry to thought and the thought to poetry. Poetry that insists itself, that sings, asides, snaps, and screams, like all pure thought.” -Vanessa Place

“There is a real brilliance here. Instead of just making poems, Aisha Sasha John is using her words to see if they vibrate with any facts or frequencies or ley lines, to see if they become more real than bricks, or just fall down having touched nothing. She is on the hunt for the blueprint of our world, the one just out of our vision and logic, wondering herself if the blueprint is ancient or in progress. This is the kind of art I need.” -Margaux Williamson, Painter

Available now for order here.

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