By Holly Flauto
Permission to Settle fills in the blanks of the application for Permanent Residency with a series of memoir-based poems, capturing common aspects of immigration — the anxiety, and the bureaucracy of application, identity, foreignness, and inadequacy — all while exploring the sense of privilege that comes from the geographically and culturally close immigration journey from the US to Canada as a modern-day settler.
The poems investigate the implicit biases in the forms and the gaps between the messy reality of life lived and the structured
and colonial system of boxes and check marks that still seek to categorize “the other” and harness it in the face of reconciliation. The reader is drawn in through the guise of the familiar, while the playfulness and self-revealing tone of the work reveal a poignancy of meaning and language.
Advance praise for Permission to Settle:
“Flauto skillfully navigates the complexities of privilege, foreignness, and identity, revealing the stark contrasts between lived reality and bureaucratic structures.”
— Chelene Knight, award-winning author of Dear Current Occupant and Junie
“Flauto’s voice joins all those “seeking solace here,” reminding us that if we are not able to place all our diverse mobilities on a single spectrum, how will we ever know we are one family differently distributed and differently ensnared by bordering regimes?”
— Stephen Collis, author of Once in Blockadia
“With Permission to Settle, Flauto invites us to reclaim the possibility of collectively re-dreaming the boundaries of our contemporary world.”
— Johanna Skibsrud, author of Medium
Holly Flauto is a poet, storyteller, writer, and learner. Their writing has previously been published in The ex-Puritan, Joyland, and The Rusty Toque. They teach English and Creative Writing at Capilano University. Originally from the US, Holly currently lives in Vancouver, BC.
