Poets Corner Reading Series

NEWS

NEWS ABOUT POETS CORNER and OTHER IMPORTANT POETRY-RELATED INFORMATION

#CanadaPerforms

2020-04-16 NEWS , ,

Poets launching their new collections this Spring can now apply for inclusion and financial support on the National Arts Centre #CanadaPerforms platform:

The National Arts Centre (NAC) is adding writers to their #CanadaPerforms initiative. Canadian authors who have had book tours and launch events cancelled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic can apply to participate. #CanadaPerforms is designed to support artists during the COVID-19 pandemic. Artists, including actors, dancers, musicians and children’s entertainers, share their work online through livestreams on social media and are supported financially through a relief fund. The #CanadaPerforms series has already supported more than 100 artists, and their performances have generated more than 1.7 million views. “Since we launched #CanadaPerforms two weeks ago, we’ve received many proposals from authors, poets and writers who have seen their book events cancelled, and are looking at ways to connect with their readers,” said Heather Gibson, the executive producer of popular music and variety at NAC, in a statement. The addition of authors to #CanadaPerforms is possible thanks to a $100,000 donation by Facebook Canada. The expansion will kick off with Margaret Atwood in conversation with Adrienne Clarkson. —2nd April 2020, CBC

Upcoming livestream events are being announced at the National Arts Centre #CanadaPerforms site here.

Poetry in the time of COVID-19

2020-03-27 NEWS , ,

Many awesome poets have had to cancel their reading tours + launches due to COVID-19. Here’s a video from Catherine Owen, reading from her new book, Riven  (ECW Press, 2020). Here’s a description of Riven:

In 2010, Catherine Owen’s 29-year-old spouse died of a drug addiction. A year later, she relocated to an apartment by the Fraser River in Vancouver, B.C. As she moved beyond the initial shock, the river became her focus: a natural, damaged space that both intensifies emotion and symbolizes healing. In a sequence of aubades, or dawn poems, Owen records the practice of walking by or watching the river every morning, a routine that helps her engage in the tough work of mourning. Riven (a word that echoes river and means rift) is an homage to both a man and an ecosystem threatened by the presence of toxins and neglect. Yet, it is also a song to the beauty of nature and memory, concluding in a tribute to Louise Cotnoir’s long poem The Islands with a piece on imagined rivers. While Designated Mourner honors grief, Riven focuses on modes of survival and transformation through looking outward, and beyond.

Riven will appear 14 April 2020.

css.php