Sema

Sema is an evolving experiment in shared attention and community-making across form, place, and time. Initiated as a poetry-focused event series in Boise, Idaho, Sema has also been a virtual space for micro-interviews and a set of experimental conversations.

Sema Podcast

Loss, Being a Therapist, & Intergenerational Grief w/ Ann O’Leary Young

A conversation with Ann O’Leary Young, M.S.W., LCSW, my mother, on the early deaths of her father & brother, how grief passes through families, and being a therapist.

Writing, Detachment, & Ritual w/ Rushi Vyas

Poet Rushi Vyas on writing after sudden & unexpected loss, the wisdom of detachment, and ritual as a tool for healing & decolonization.

Boise, Friendship Loss, & Time w/ Tyler Brewington

Poet Tyler Brewington on place, grief rhythms, the comfort of geologic time, and the link between friendship & formation of self.

Newborn Loss, Place, & Deep Grief w/ Cedar Brant

Poet & botanist Cedar Brant on newborn loss, the role of place in healing, and erasure of self in deep grief and parenthood.

Adoption, Potentiality, & the Loss of Unknowing w/ Erinrose Mager

Writer, editor, & teacher Erinrose Mager on the unknowingness associated with adoption and parental estrangement, the interplay between potentiality & failure, and ritual as a presencing force.

Ambient Loss, Having Children, & the Necessity of Storytelling w/ Camille T. Dungy

Writer & professor Camille T. Dungy on loss as a continuous presence, cross-generational relationships, and climate crisis.

Relationality, Embodiment, & Suicide w/ Mairead Case

Writer, teacher, & editor Mairead Case explores relationality in life & after death, embodiment, and grieving & writing about suicide.

“BOISE” WORK : record 1 : Karena Youtz

conversation with Karena Youtz on 01.16.2025 — record of 01.11.2025 grief release, release 1 + 2 context, ritual, care

“BOISE” WORK : record 2 : Tyler Brewington

conversation with Tyler Brewington on 01.23.2025 — record of 01.11.2025 grief release, time, poetry, reckoning with place

“BOISE” WORK : record 3 : Blake Hunter + Taylor Rico-Pekerol

conversation with Blake Hunter and Taylor Rico-Pekerol during the opening of INTERCHANGE (Caroline Earley + Kate Walker) at The Common Well on 02.07.2025; follow-up conversation with Blake Hunter on 02.14.2025 — desettling, science fiction, fear, connecting with place through care, ritual, ancestry, language

“BOISE” WORK : record 4 : Ryan Simmons + Drone Bath

conversation with Ryan Simmons on 04.11.2025 at The Common Well — connection and exchange with nonhuman entities toward relationships of care, sound, projection, impulses to make/record/translate/share, 03.11.2025 river drone bathfull drone bath begins 01:39:31

“BOISE” WORK : record 5 : Ceci Richardson-Salvador + Teal Gardner

conversation with Teal Gardner and Ceci Richardson-Salvador on 05.09.2025 at The Common Well — making work rooted in love with land, finding unification through care, Earth as a neutralizing force; Ceci + Teal 's artist talk on 04.15.2025 (begins 01:16:58)

Sema Boise

2018 - 2019

READINGS + EVENTS

WORKSHOPS

Micro-Interviews

Huma Aatifi
Hanif Abdurraqib
Stephanie Adams-Santos
Eloisa Amezcua
Kristen Arnett
A. H. Jerriod Avant
Colleen Louise Barry
Tyler Brewington
Abigail Chabitnoy
Sylvia Chan
Richard Chiem
Camille T. Dungy
Cass Eddington
Shira Erlichman
Milo Gallagher
Lyd Havens
Denise Jarrott
Simone John
Adrian Kien
Cole Konopka
Erinrose Mager
Melissa Matthewson
Tony Mancus
Finn Menzies
Alicia Mountain
David Mucklow
John Myers
Lillian Ruth Nickerson
Tommy Pico
Emily Pittinos
Kylan Rice
Cedar Sigo
Emily Skillings
Sasha Steensen
Mathias Svalina
Caroline O’Connor Thomas
Fran Tirado
Stacey Tran
Rushi Vyas
Michael Joseph Walsh
Lisa Wells
Karena Youtz