 |
 |
READERS DEBATE!
Anyone who listens to CBC Radio knows about the Canada Reads competition. But did you notice that the books are always prose? Now here's something new and fitting for this Poetry Month: Why not have a Battle of the Books that highlights five books of poetry?
The question was no sooner asked than organized by Angela Leuck and the Lennoxville Library. Lennoxville Reads...Poetry is planned for Wednesday, April 28, at 7 p.m. via Zoom (find the link at bibliolennoxvillelibrary.ca/activities/). The evening will be emceed by the journalist Helga Loverseed, and five articulate local readers will champion five gutsy books by Quebec English-speaking poets.
Here's what they are plotting for us.
A COMMON NAME FOR EVERYTHING. This is an 80-page book of poems by Sarah Wolfson. Originally from Vermont, she teaches English at McGill University.
Her poems are earthy and quirky, about life that inhabits rural places. One observes ewes and music; another an ant colony; still another serves "soup and small theories of holiness."
"An entirely uncommon talent for precise and defamiliarizing observation," observed poet Phillip Crymble. Wolfson's book won the Quebec Writers' Federation's A.M. Klein prize last year.
Her champion, Steve Luxton, lives in Hatley, Quebec. He has published six volumes of verse, with a new one, The White Weasel, to be published this summer by Shoreline. He is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Lennoxville Library.
GHOST FACE is the fourth book by Greg Santos, who has Cambodian, Spanish and Portuguese roots. "A uniquely playful and self-reflective series of poems that pay moving homage to his adoptive parents, and explore the fantasies of a lost family and life in Cambodia," says Goodreads. Santos lives in Montreal where he teaches creative writing. He is editor-in-chief of the Quebec Writers' Federation's online literary journal, Carte blanche.
Ghost Face is to be defended by Charity Kerrigan, an Early Childhood Education Specialist at Champlain College.
GONE MISS NG. Yes, the "I" is missing! Antony Di Nardo's poignant exploration of dying was triggered by the death of his friend, Susan Briscoe. She died three years ago from cancer at the age of 52, but not before creating a widely read blog, The Death Project.
This is Di Nardo's fifth collection of poetry, and it explores rituals of loss with wit and humour, "in language that surprises as well as juxtaposes the mundane with the ecstatic," says Amazon.
Gone Miss ng will be championed by Jerome Krause, retired Concordia University art professor. Living in Way's Mills, he possesses an uncommon measure of wit and humour, too.
MEMORIAL SUITE. Author Jocelyne Dubois has bipolar disorder, and in these courageous poems of "at times searing clarity" she "takes us on a harrowing journey through breakdown, hospitalization and recovery," says Goodreads. The book "is lucid and compelling," in the words of writer Maxianne Berger.
Dubois is an exhibiting artist, and her novella, World of Glass, was shortlisted for the 2011 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest. Defending Memorial Suite will be Lizanne Ryan, retired adult educator who is presently writing a book about her journey as a caregiver.
THE ELEVENTH HOUR is Carolyn Marie Souaid's eighth book of poetry. What matters in the end is not the "finish line" but the human spirit "orbiting the nucleus of time," and "bridges connecting life and death," in the words of Arleen Paré. "This collection is a harbinger; it is the eleventh hour, the language so accurate and clear. And yet it is also a solace, balm for our uneasy twenty-first century hearts."
Souaid has received a bunch of awards, including a top prize in the 2012 Zebra Poetry Film Festival for Blood is Blood, a videopoem written with Endre Farkas. She lives in Montreal.
The Eleventh Hour will be championed by Louise Baldwin, a woods-bather, poetry reader, and lifelong Townshipper.
The debate promises to be lively. Which book will prevail? It will be up to the audience!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
National Poetry Month
Canada April 2021
This years theme is "Resilience"
The League of Canadian Poets invites you to celebrate the 23nd National Poetry Month this April 2021 with the theme of resilience.
What does it mean to be resilient? We meet resilience in every corner we’ve been backed into, every hardship that we endure. Resilience is geographical, spiritual, historical. It’s the fight against climate change, the inner battle with mental health, the outcry for human rights and an end to systemic racism. Resilience is the backbone of generations of trauma, the silence at the dinner table, the bow to culture’s violin. Resilience is the courage to start each day anew. This NPM 2021, we celebrate, reflect on and respect the resilience that has made us who we are.
