16 February 2008

Just West of Unruly Reading Series--times and places

--Roger Farr
Thursday, February 28
1:00 pm
UNBC Room 5-155

completed his BA (Hons.) and MA at SFU, where he worked closely with George Bowering, Roy Miki and Jerry Zaslove, studying avant-garde poetry and poetics and literary theory. For several years he worked as the Managing Editor of the cultural studies journal West Coast Line, joining the faculty at Capilano College in 2001, where he teaches a range of first and second year English courses, specializing in creative writing, contemporary literature, and literary theory. He is a Board Member of the Capilano Review Press Society, was guest editor of The Capilano Review (“Six Cities”; 2:48), and is the editor of the journal PARSER: New Poetry and Poetics. His book Surplus “is embedded into a vital moment of poetry and poetics in North America where the very conditions that culture (and history) are produced under – the astonishing meanness and destructivenes of neoliberalism – calls daily for a poetics to roughen up the surface of the present and to ask the fundamental questions concerning where social change has and will come from. Surplus is an important book in the growing cultural front.” – Jeff Derksen. Farr is currently completing a book of essays, Protest Genres and the Language of Dissent (forthcoming 2008) and a second book of poetry, Homage to Charles Fourier. Farr teaches English and Creative Writing at Capilano College.

--Fred Wah
Tuesday, March 11
1:00 pm
UNBC Room 5-155
&
7:30 pm
CNC Room 1-309


poet, theorist, and editor, has published 17 books of poetry, including the Governor General Award-winning Waiting for Saskatchewan (Turnstone 1985) and Diamond Grill (NeWest 1996). Both works operate as “biotexts”—investigations through prose poems of how personal history is grounded in place, even as genealogy transcends locale. Wah co-founded the prominent poetry newsletter TISH with George Bowering, Frank Davey, and others in 1961. One of the founders of the formative non-profit writing association, the Kootenay School of Writing, he has also been an editor of the literary journal West Coast Line, as well as contributing editor to Open Letter since 1965 when Open Letter succeeded TISH as a renowned forum for discussions of contemporary poetics. His series of critical essays —Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity: Critical Writing 1984-1999 (NeWest, 2001) won the Gabrielle Roy Prize for Criticism (2001). The chapbook Articulations is his most recent book. He also has a book of poetry (Sentenced to Light) coming from Talonbooks in 2008.

--Rita Wong
Monday, March 31
1:00 pm
UNBC Room TBA

Rita's first book, monkeypuzzle, was published by Press Gang in 1998 and received the Asian Canadian Writer’s Workshop Emerging Writer Award. She lives in Miami and Vancouver and teaches Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr Institute. She has published prose works and poems in Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury 2006). Companions and Horizons: an Anthology of SFU Poetry (West Coast Line 2005), Ribsauce: a CD/Anthology of Words by Women (Véhicule 2001), The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War (Three Squares 2003), and Swallowing Clouds: An Anthology of Chinese-Canadian Poetry (Arsenal Pulp 1999). Her newest book is Forage from Nightwood Editions.

ALSO, watch for the final line-up & list of readings for the UNBC Aboriginal Writers and Storytellers Festival March 5 - 9.

08 February 2008

Two Local Literary-related Videos

both by On-Reel Productions (Steph St. Laurent):

Lynda Williams launchs a new Okal Rel anthology at the PG Public Library.

Jeremy Stewart (also a poet) and Erin Arding (also a visual artist)
with a performance of the song "Green".

02 February 2008

A Few Great American Poetry Sites

San Fransisco State University Poetry Center
University of Pennsylvania Pennsound
SUNY Buffalo Electronic Poetry Center

01 February 2008

Just West of Unruly Reading Series

Visiting authors this winter/spring include:

--Fred Wah, poet, theorist, and editor, has published 17 books of poetry, including the Governor-General-Award-winning Waiting for Saskatchewan (Turnstone 1985) and Diamond Grill (NeWest 1996). Both works operate as “biotexts”—investigations through prose poems of how personal history is grounded in place, even as genealogy transcends locale. Wah co-founded the prominent poetry newsletter TISH with George Bowering, Frank Davey, and others in 1961. One of the founders of the formative non-profit writing association, the Kootenay School of Writing, he has also been an editor of the literary journal West Coast Line, as well as contributing editor to Open Letter since 1965 when Open Letter succeeded TISH as a renowned forum for discussions of contemporary poetics. His series of critical essays —Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity: Critical Writing 1984-1999 (NeWest, 2001) won the Gabrielle Roy Prize for Criticism (2001).

--Roger Farr completed his BA (Hons.) and MA at SFU, where he worked closely with George Bowering, Roy Miki and Jerry Zaslove, studying avant-garde poetry and poetics and literary theory. For several years he worked as the Managing Editor of the cultural studies journal West Coast Line, joining the faculty at Capilano College in 2001, where he teaches a range of first and second year English courses, specializing in creative writing, contemporary literature, and literary theory. He is a Board Member of the Capilano Review Press Society, was guest editor of The Capilano Review (“Six Cities”; 2:48), and is the editor of the journal PARSER: New Poetry and Poetics. His book Surplus “is embedded into a vital moment of poetry and poetics in North America where the very conditions that culture (and history) are produced under – the astonishing meanness and destructivenes of neoliberalism – calls daily for a poetics to roughen up the surface of the present and to ask the fundamental questions concerning where social change has and will come from. Surplus is an important book in the growing cultural front.” – Jeff Derksen. Farr is currently completing a book of essays, Protest Genres and the Language of Dissent (forthcoming 2008) and a second book of poetry, Homage to Charles Fourier. Farr teaches English and Creative Writing at Capilano College.

--Rita Wong's first book, monkeypuzzle, was published by Press Gang in 1998 and received the Asian Canadian Writer’s Workshop Emerging Writer Award. She lives in Miami and Vancouver and teaches Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr Institute. She has published prose works and poems in Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury 2006). Companions and Horizons: an Anthology of SFU Poetry (West Coast Line 2005), Ribsauce: a CD/Anthology of Words by Women (Véhicule 2001), The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War (Three Squares 2003), and Swallowing Clouds: An Anthology of Chinese-Canadian Poetry (Arsenal Pulp 1999). Her newest book is Forage from Nightwood Editions.

re: diversification

A brief but generally positive review of The Forestry Diversification Project (UNBC Press).