Saturday, March 26, 2016
some author activity: Christie, Jones, Abel, Kroetsch + beaulieu,
Thursday, March 24, 2016
2016 Battle of the Bards: Best, Maguire, Pinder and Weaver
Poetry NOW: 8th annual Battle of the Bards
Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - 7:30 PM
Special Event: IFOA Weekly
Brigantine Room
235 Queens Quay West
Toronto M5J 2G8
Cost: $10/FREE supporters, students & youth 25 and under
http://ifoa.org/events/poetry-now-8th-annual-battle-of-the-bards
1 stage. 20 poets. 1 winner.
Our popular poetry competition returns in 2016 to feature readings by 20 of Canada’s upcoming and established poets. Judges Geoffrey E. Taylor (IFOA’s Director), Jen Tindall (IFOA’s Artistic Associate) and Andy McGuire (winner of 2015 IFOA Poetry Games) will select one winner, who will receive an automatic invitation to read at the 37th edition of the International Festival of Authors AND an ad for their book in NOW Magazine!
The event will be hosted by NOW’s Susan G. Cole.
Poetry NOW is presented in partnership with NOW Magazine.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
above/ground press at VERSeFest, 2016
Another VERSeFest has come and gone, with a spectacular array of readings and talks throughout the week, most of which I wasn't able to catch on film, and about half or so I wasn't even able to make it out for, given exhaustion, toddler and other distractions. But there was a ton of incredible writing, performances and writers, from performers to audience to organizers and staff, including Shannon Maguire, Phil Hall, Sandra Ridley, Caroline Bergvall, David McGimpsey, Marilyn Irwin, Frances Boyle, Pearl Pirie, Monty Reid and tons of others.
The Factory Reading Series' event, featuring lectures by Ottawa poet Ben Ladouceur and the brilliant and charming Kansas poet Anne Boyer were spectacular, and both talks were easily two of the strongest of the series so far. If you weren't there, you should really be kicking yourself. With luck, both pieces will be included in the next issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, which is due to appear this summer.
Ladouceur's talk was incredibly sharp, working through a conversation of the problems with being referred to as "brave" in his writing, and Boyer's talk was an informal and lively collage that focused on how she came to write, both generally, and specifically, including references to libraries, Smurfs and other threads. Stunning.
Of course, for the sake of my Hall of Honour induction and subsequent event (Cameron Anstee was kind enough to post this generous write-up about my activities), I produced a wee chapbook-as-handout, King Kong (Apostrophe Press), in a limited edition. I might reissue it as an above/ground press item over the next month or three, but if anyone is interested, drop $5 into my paypal and I'll slip you a copy. And of course, there was the VERSeFest special issue of The Peter F. Yacht Club produced for the festival, featuring the work of numerous performers throughout the week (as well as a number of PFYC regulars). I even produced the new issue of Touch the Donkey a few weeks early, given a couple of the contributors were part of the fest (but, apart from subscribers, you will just have to wait until mid-April).
As part of the same event, Toronto poet, editor, fiction writer and current Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke was good enough to read his poem from the anthology TEN (above/ground press, 2003), a poem and collection produced as part of the tenth anniversary of above/ground press. Of course, when he suggested I pull such out so he could read the poem, it only took me three days to find a copy in my bulging above/ground press archive (a copy I made him return, given I don't know if I have any others available). But oh, the things I found when I was looking...
Ladouceur's talk was incredibly sharp, working through a conversation of the problems with being referred to as "brave" in his writing, and Boyer's talk was an informal and lively collage that focused on how she came to write, both generally, and specifically, including references to libraries, Smurfs and other threads. Stunning.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Rebecca Anne Banks reviews Robert Hogg's from Lamentations (2016)
from Lamentations, a cinematique look at childhood and death in a Western Canadian town, a “memoir” in poetry that remembers balloons and soft edges, the romance of cowboys, inside difficult times. Robert Hogg was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He has been on the Canadian literary scene since the 1960’s, studying at the University of British Columbia he was involved with the Black Mountain poets and the Tish poetry movement. He has earned a Phd in literature and taught N.A. poetry and poetics at Carleton University in Ottawa until 2005. Poet Hogg has written 6 books.
from Lamentations, begins with a poetic prose introduction that freefalls into childhood memories of trolley rides and watching Roy Rogers at the cinema, playing “cowboys and Indians” shooting at each other with toy guns, playing dead. And how the Poet laments, as if it was all just fun and games, romance, as if no one ever really died, the fight of good vs. evil, the shooting of horses wasn’t real. A series of poems follow, pared in free verse, experiential, a brush with Imagism, Sitting on Ginger, Ahead (in memoriam, Bob Creeley), The Creative, A Fallen Wall to climax into a mix of poetic prose and free verse in Summer of Sixty three – for Jamie and Carol – on Jamie’s 70th and to end with Synapse Mid-Morning January, as if in epilogue. The short staccato lines in broken thought train are barren and lightening, the nature imagery and Zen of New Age poetry.
A Fallen Wall
Is this a little like the end of the world?
Is this a small blip on the screen called life?
Listen to the small pounding of the rain.
It make of your forehead
a fallen wall
beyond which there is no longer
a boundary to cross
only a damp ground
oozes like a wet wound
aching to be closed.
The Poet quotes “Porgy and Bess”, Nina Simone and a Black spiritual, the poetry like a reconciliation for the dead and dying, an apologia for the violence of the Western world. This poetry is written at the apex of the life of the Poet, and is reminiscent of Sailing to Byzantium by W.B. Yeats:
“That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies . . . “
The Poet is older, looking through the specter of the Spirit world that like a veil has begun to descend and enfold, a cinematic in grey sepia casting into nether worlds.
A fantastical read inside the Canadian landscape, a song of the Canadian West, an idea of celebration after a long journey. from Lamentations from Robert Hogg and above/ground press.
Monday, March 21, 2016
Sarah Mangold etc at AWP, Los Angeles CA, March 31, 2016
Poetic Research Bureau, 951 Chung King Rd., Los Angeles, CA 90012
7:00 pm to 8:45 pm
Publishers involved: Black Radish, Tinfish, eohippus labs, Staging Ground
Cost: Free
A reading at the Poetic Research Bureau with: Black Radish Books, Tinfish Press, eohippus labs and Staging Ground, Featuring: Carrie Hunter, Sarah Mangold, Valerie Witte, David James Miller, Brittany Billmeyer-Finn, Eireene Nealand, Janice Lee, Michelle Detorie, Allison Carter, Tim Dyke, Deborah Meadows, Julia Wieting, Daniel Tiffany and Will Alexander.
Organization: Small Press Distribution and Poetic Research Bureau
Saturday, March 19, 2016
some author activity: Greenstreet, Price, beaulieu + lopes,
Friday, March 18, 2016
VERSeFest Hall of Honour Inductees Announced: rob mclennan and Andrée Lacelle
mclennan is the third above/ground press author inducted, after William Hawkins (2013) and Amanda Earl (2014).
His most recent above/ground press chapbook is The Rose Concordance (2015). He will be releasing a limited-edition poetry chapbook, King Kong, for Sunday's ceremony and reading.
As the press release reads:
Ottawa, ON – Mar. 18, 2016 – VERSeFest, Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, is pleased to announce this year’s inductees to the Hall of Honour, rob mclennan and Andrée Lacelle, for outstanding service to the Ottawa-Gatineau poetry community.
mclennan and Lacelle will be inducted into the Hall of Honour 7:00 P.M., Sunday, March 20th. The ceremony will also include readings by Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke and Governor General Award winner Robyn Sarah.
For three decades, rob mclennan has been at the forefront of promoting poetry in the city of Ottawa. His literary productivity has been outstanding, with over two dozen trade books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He has demonstrated tireless community leadership in his activities as the founder of the Ottawa small press book fair, the organizer of the factory reading series, and the editor and founder of Chaudiere Books, ottawater, The Peter F. Yacht Club, and above/ground press. All of these activities, alongside the generosity of his mentorship and his editorial flair, have helped to shape the creative ethos of this city.
Born in Hawkesbury, Andrée Lacelle has published a dozen books and received numerous literary accolades. She was the first to receive the French-language Trillium Book Award for Tant de vie s’égare (Éditions du Vermillon, 1994 [2007]) and she has also been shortlisted for the Governor General Award. Instrumental to the promotion of French-language literature, she has been a long-time contributor of book reviews. She has also reviewed Franco-Ontarian literature on the show “Panorama” (TFO, 2006-2010) and on her radio program “Au cœur des mots” (2011-2014). Her literary collaborations recently included co-writing and co-editing pas d’ici, pas d’ailleurs, Anthologie poétique de voix féminines contemporaines (Montélimar, Voix d’encre, 2012). Her poems have been translated into English and Czech.
The VERSeFest Hall of Honour recognizes established poets from the greater Ottawa-Gatineau region who have produced a substantial body of work and have made a significant contribution in building the poetry community as a leader and mentor.
VENUE AND TICKETS
Knox Presbyterian Church, 120 Lisgar St. Tickets are $10 per event, $20 for a weekend day pass, or $50 for a festival pass. Available online or at the door. For more information, visit versefest.ca
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