Wednesday, November 21, 2007

OPEN TEXT READING: RITA WONG

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Capilano College Creative Writing Program

The FALL 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College concludes on Monday November 26th, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver poet and critic Rita Wong.

Monday, November 26th
Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver


RITA WONG’s book of poems, monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), received the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop Emerging Writer Award. Currently she is Assistant Professor in Critical & Cultural studies at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. Her second book, entitled Forage, is forthcoming with Nightwood Editions in 2007.


achtung!


with crumpled deutschmarks in my pockets…


choke on gucci and starbucks as you tread towards checkpoint charlie

the fiscal year of the living dead

caveat emptor in the trauma room

lederhosen, lederhosen, let down your girth

the streets are alive with the sound of money, podcast

or ac/dc: back in black down memory lane in melbourne, berlin, calgary

skins & masks, still

don’t want to be someone's escape fantasy nor their fear of invasion

nor their model majority

pudendum, addendum, memorandum: what’s your agenda, pussycat?


-- from “forage” (Nightwood, 2007)


For more info, contact:
Roger Farr, Capilano College
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: THREE NORTHERN POETS

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the
Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College


"The north moves north. / The song is an article of evidence."

– Ken Belford


The FALL 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on November 20th, 2007 with a reading by three Northern poets: Ken Belford, Rob Budde, and Si Transken.

Tuesday, November 20th
Library 197 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver


KEN BELFORD was born to a farming family near DeBolt, Alberta, and grew up in East Vancouver. For 35 years he lived in the remote, unroaded Nass River headwaters at Damdochax Lake. His gaze is of subsistence and the other, in that he looks out at the consumptive habits of western culture from the mountains. In addition to 15 chapbooks. he has published four books of poetry; Fireweed, The Post Electric Caveman, Pathways Into the Mountains, and ecologue. His most recent chapbook, from Nomados, is When Snakes Awaken. Difficult to categorize, Belford's poetics blend borders. He is a self-educated land(d)guage poet who mixes a learned pre-industrial knowledge with the push and pull of the questions, conversations, and what he sees as new linguistic possibilities.

ROB BUDDE teaches Creative Writing at the University of Northern BC. He has published five books (two poetry - Catch as Catch and traffick - two novels - Misshapen and The Dying Poem - and, most recently, short fiction - Flicker). In 2002, Rob facilitated a collection of interviews (In Muddy Water: Conversations with 11 Poets). Finding Ft. George (Caitlin 2007) is a collection of poems about Rob's growing relationship with Prince George and Northern BC. He lives in Prince George with his partner, Debbie Keahey and four children: Robin, Erin, Quinlan, and Anya. Check out his online literary journal called stonestone <
http://stonestone.unbc.ca> and his poetry blog writingwaynorth <http://writingwaynorth.blogspot.com>.

SI TRANSKEN uses her creative writing to educate, vent, stir up troubles and joys, have fun and accomplish solidarity. She reads at Gay Pride, Women's fundraisers and other social justice events. She has been an activist in these movements for more than two decades. Si works at a shelter with drug addicted/ homeless/ survival sex trade workers. In her ivory tower roles she teaches for two universities in sociology, women's studies and social work. Entirely unbelievably she gets people laughing. Her work has been published in scholarly contexts such as Cultural Studies & Critical Methodologies, Atlantis, Canadian Women's Studies and her funky stuff has been published in contexts such as This Ain¹t Your Patriarchs' Poetry Book; Groping Beyond Grief; Stress (Full) Sister (Hood); and Battle Chants.


For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

Monday, November 12, 2007

OPEN TEXT READING: JEFF DERKSEN

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College



The Fall 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on November 19th, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver poet and critic Jeff Derksen.

LIBRARY 195 @ 12:30
2055 Purcell Way

North Vancouver

JEFF DERKSEN's first book Downtime (Talon, 1991), received the Dorothy Livesay B.C. Poetry Prize. Other works include Until (Tsunami, 1987), Dwell (Talonbooks, 1993), and Transnational Muscle Cars (Talonbooks, 2003). A founder of the Kootenay School of Writing in Vancouver, Derksen is also a highly regarded critic of globalization, culture and urbanization. He teaches writing and literature at Simon Fraser University.


"Phatic Weather"

I just want
the connection to be
inked in or intruded
on. So I can enter

an individual history
of my group.

The truck driving
beside the bus
appears not to move, mimicking
a model of one culture
viewing another.

Here the light
of heavy industry
doesn't mar the river
as much as it now
makes it.

New. Compensation's body
is a green image, arms
filled with lumber. But production's
miracle is its occurrence, oiling
a century. Our role
is the crisis. Sliding
so I can clarify
a centralized management

in this continuous present
of product, "excess," resource.

A company's head office
puts down roots: "Caring Hands
Extended out to Our Multicultural
Community." The question

of "also" is contextual.


-- from "Dwell" (Talon, 1993)


For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)