Sema

Sema provided an evolving space for engagement and community across form, place, and time from 2018 - 2021. Initiated as a poetry-focused reading & workshop series in Boise, Idaho, Sema has also been a podcast on grief, loss, healing, & death, and a collection of micro-interviews with writers.

Podcast

0 / Sema

About the podcast.

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

A conversation with Ann O’Leary Young, M.S.W., LCSW, on the early deaths of her father and brother, how grief gets passed through families, and the complex roles associated with being a therapist.

2 / Writing, Detachment, & Ritual w/ Rushi Vyas

Poet Rushi Vyas discusses his father's death by suicide, writing after loss, the wisdom of detachment, and his exploration of ritual as a tool for healing and decolonization.

3 / Boise, Friendship Loss, & Time w/ Tyler Brewington

A conversation with poet Tyler Brewington that considers place, grief rhythms, the comfort of geologic time, and the link between friendship and the formation of self.

4 / Bridge + Practice

Bridge episode exploring episodes 1-3 + attention practice.

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

Poet and botanist Cedar Brant on newborn loss, the role of place in her healing process, and the erasure of self that can accompany both deep grief and parenthood.

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

A conversation with writer, editor, and teacher Erinrose Mager on the unknowingness associated with adoption and parental estrangement, the interplay between potentiality and failure, and ritual as a presencing practice.

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

Writer and professor Camille T. Dungy on loss as an ambient presence, climate change, cross-generational relationships, and connecting individual loss with global crisis.

8 / Relationality, Embodiment, & Suicide w/ Mairead Case

A conversation with writer, teacher, and editor Mairead Case that explores relationality in life and after death, embodiment, and grieving and writing about suicide.