Rose Oak

"Rose Oak" captures every part of our bravery, our fear, our regret, our turmoil, our pain, and our hope - planted at the roots of a single rose. This collection of poems incites themes that make us feel inadequate and ill equipped. Understanding our fears is a journey intended to make us stronger. For without our roots, we'd thirst and dry. Without our leaves, we'd never sway. Without our thorns, we'd be otherwise abused. Without our petals, we'd never see ourselves as beautiful.

Each piece of us, no matter the ache, no matter how broken, works to serve a purpose. This is that story.

Behzad Jamshidi is a Canadian born artist who specializes in story telling through several mediums. Jamshidi is primarily a Chef, working as the Executive Director of a cultural organization devoted to the development of socially conscious projects and businesses called Moosh. Jamshidi's Iranian background and exposure to both art and poetry from an early age inspired him to use the power of dialogue to create moments of empathy through all the various social experiences he curates. After abandoning formal education for literature & writing after high school, Jamshidi took a journey abroad, through Europe and the United States in order to better situate his culinary career. Through a chronic, life threatening illness, loss, and the difficulties of maintaining mental health, many of the themes that he has felt are less positioned as food driven narratives find their place in his poetry. By long influence of Robert Frost, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Rumi, Hafez and others, Jamshidi appreciates using certain classic elements of literature and poetry to thoughtfully capture difficult personal narratives. This is Jamshidi's first complete published piece, marking a transition into more transparency, honesty, and authenticity. At the core of his poetry is resolve and hope that experiences will challenge us, break us, and irrefutably give us agony, but enable us to become something stronger than we were — if only we are willing to let it. Jamshidi's currently splits his time between projects in New York and Los Angeles, working to foster more projects to impact our communities across America, validate social conscious creators, and carry narratives that aspire to make the United States a more inclusive country for all.Boisjoli's early love and obsession for photography came by way of her grandfather's darkroom in Montreal, her first camera from a school book fair and the alluring landscapes of the southwest. Boisjoli finds herself compelled by people and their stories, their environments and the details of those environments. Boisjoli attended the City University of New York in Documentary Studies and Social Research to augment the quality of her photographic training. She later turned to the International Center of Photography to educate herself further on documentary photography, portraiture, darkroom practices and lighting. Her underling love for photos lives within the landscapes of her adolescence and is driven by her cravings for pace and urbanity.