Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    6 Essential Questions
    6 Essential Questions
    6 Essential Questions
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    6 Essential Questions

    By Priscila Uppal

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    6 Essential Questions tells the story of Renata as she travels to Brazil to reunite with the mother who abandoned her when she was just five years old. In Rio, Renata discovers more than she bargained for in her quest to uncover the truth of who abandoned whom. She is continually tossed about by her undead grandmother and a semi-invisible uncle as they choreograph the ultimate dance of mother and daughter, both of whom must confront their dreams before they can ever attempt to confront each other. Imaginations run wild in this strangely beautiful and funny story loosely based on Uppal’s critically acclaimed memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, a finalist for both the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPlaywrights Canada Press
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9781770914322
    6 Essential Questions
    Author

    Priscila Uppal

    Priscila Uppal was an internationally acclaimed poet, prose writer, and playwright. A York University professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she was the author of Ontological Necessities and Cover Before Striking. Her memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and a Governor General’s Award.

    Read more from Priscila Uppal

    Related to 6 Essential Questions

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      In A New Memoir In Verse, Alora Young Traces The Lives Of Generations Of Black Women

      Aug 1, 2022

      Alora Young is the 2021 Youth Poet Laureate of the Southern United States. Her debut poetry collection Walking Gentry Home is a memoir written in verse.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Unraveling the Landscape

      Jul 25, 2019

      In December 2017, as rehearsals began for He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box at Theatre for a New Audience, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins spoke by phone with Adrienne Kennedy from her home in Virginia. BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS: How did this play em

      8 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2019

      Don’t go to discover your roots, Ladybug says. If you want to look for roots, go and look at a tree.Another day at a cafe, avoiding. Pretending to— Why did you come here Tell me whyIf you want to die go ahead and die do it quicklyIf you want to be de

      4 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Feb 26, 2023

      Writer Eva delivers a February to remember Pop music lovers who remember the ’90s are going to get a huge hit of nostalgia while reading this novel. Set in London, it brings the era and its sounds alive vividly. However, it is billed as a feel-good

      3 min read

    • Article

      Musings On My Father

      Aug 8, 2022

      Musings On My Father
      5 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Feb 26, 2023

      Writer Eva delivers a February to remember Pop music lovers who remember the ’90s are going to get a huge hit of nostalgia while reading this novel. Set in London, it brings the era and its sounds alive vividly. However, it is billed as a feel-good s

      3 min read

    • Article

      In The Palace Of Forgetting

      Jan 1, 2023

      In the spring of 2019, poet Matthew Kelsey suffered the loss of his mother. Less than a year later, he would lose his father to COVID-19. The following is a poem-interview between Keith Leonard (questions) and Matthew Kelsey (answers) that began in J

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Little Love

      Apr 5, 2023

      A Little Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Because the Story Was Mine

      Sep 4, 2018

      Because the Story Was Mine
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tinder Cindy

      Aug 17, 2022

      Tinder Cindy
      1 min read

    • Article

      Tinder Cindy

      Aug 17, 2022

      Tinder Cindy
      1 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Letterbox

      Mar 1, 2020

      Dear Cricket, Hello! I absolutely love the one and only Cricket magazine. My little sister gets them, and I like to read them to her. I’ve always wanted to publish a story in your magazine, but my older sister (I have six) says I’d have to be older.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      We went to visit our brother.They had a special, blue roomfor the purpose of waiting.A counselor came over andcalled my sweater “too provocative.”Nora started laughingand then I started laughingand then our brother came outand told us about the squir

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Inherited Imagination

      Aug 18, 2020

      The Inherited Imagination
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Cause

      Dec 6, 2020

      A Lost Cause
      9 min read

    • Article

      DEFINING Memories

      Aug 5, 2021

      DEFINING Memories
      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2022

      If I call myself unlovable, I am, practically; if I say itenough times: unlovable. Then, like practical magic, I’m hollow as old garlic; I’m distance-skinned.I’m a long, mean package, a terror-dyke, a nag, a squinting, slut-spun hag—it’s easy, really

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Letterbox

      May 1, 2019

      Dear Everybuggy, Last time I wrote to you, I lived in North Carolina, but we have moved. We live in Virginia now. I love Cricket! I like space. I’m homeschooled and like to look at our map. I’ve discovered towns like Philadelphia in Mississippi! Phil

      7 min read

    • Article

      How Sandra Cisneros Found Space To Be 'Barefoot' And 'Rude'

      Jul 27, 2021

      On the latest episode of Code Switch, Cisneros talks about why she became obsessed with houses, what it was like to finally buy one, and—spoiler alert—what it felt like to fall out of love with it.

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for 6 Essential Questions

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      6 Essential Questions - Priscila Uppal

      6

      essential

      questions

      priscila uppal

      playwrights canada press

      toronto

      contents

      introduction

      production history

      characters

      invocation

      customs

      like mother, unlike daughter

      all about mother

      siesta

      teacups and silver spoons

      first course: o passado, the past

      a private tour

      the language of fantasy

      like mother, like daughter

      boys learn to fight, girls learn to dance

      a bedtime story

      the will

      second course: o presente, the present

      every day is mother’s day

      all about daughter

      the language of memory

      essential questions

      third course: o futuro, the future, or bon voyage

      dedication

      acknowledgements

      about the author

      also by Priscila Uppal

      copyright

      Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.

      Edgar Cayce

      introduction

      Since I am a poet, I hope you won’t mind if I begin this introduction with a poem.

      I’m Afraid of Brazilians or Visiting the Ancestral Homeland is Not the Great Ethnic Experience Promised by Other Memoirs

      Against all political correctness,

      I must say it,

      I must admit:

      I’m afraid of Brazilians.

      I don’t like them.

      I don’t like this country.

      I don’t like this language.

      I don’t even like this currency.

      And not in the mystical sense.

      Or the abstract.

      Or the perfectly hypothetical.

      I can’t blame this fear

      on movies, or television programming,

      or the front covers

      of Time magazine.

      No.

      I’m afraid of Brazilians.

      I am visiting Brazil

      (my mother’s country)

      and I’m afraid, truly afraid

      of every Brazilian I meet.

      This is not something you can say

      in a poem, you tell me.

      Please don’t compose this poem

      here: in broad daylight

      where any self-respecting Brazilian

      could feel perfectly justified

      peeking over your shoulder

      to see what you’ve written.

      Please, not so loud, you say.

      You haven’t given them a chance.

      You’re right, I admit.

      (I can certainly admit it.)

      I’ve given them no chance

      to please me. Don’t you

      understand, this is the nature

      of being afraid, and this is

      the nature of the poem

      I am writing, which must

      get written, no matter

      what the climate

      or the reception

      (here, in my mother’s country

      or abroad

      or in my own ears).

      —from Ontological Necessities (Exile Editions, 2006)

      There are so many things we are not supposed to talk about. So many things we don’t want to talk about. So many things no one wants to hear.

      And then there are essential things that must be said. Essential things that must be acknowledged. Essential things you dream one day you will hear.

      I wrote this poem after meeting my mother for the first time in twenty years. She abandoned my brother, me, and our quadriplegic father in Ottawa, leaving me and my brother to basically raise ourselves. I didn’t hear from her or know where she was until I accidentally stumbled upon her personal website. Even though I was in shock, I contacted her and planned a trip to Brazil, the land of her birth, and the place she ran to after running away from us.

      What does it mean to be a mother when you haven’t seen your daughter in twenty years? What does it mean to be a daughter when you know almost nothing about your mother? What does it mean to be Brazilian when you know almost nothing about Brazil? What does it mean to have DNA or memories?

      Most people dream of family reunions as blissful affairs of reconnection and reconciliation. For most people this dream remains a fantasy—a lovely one, but a fantasy nonetheless.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1