online reading in october 2020 Part one

(click here for Part two)

You can join us (FREE) on Fridays by registering through Eventbrite. 

open mic as usual — click here between tuesday and Friday noon to sign up

UPCOMING READINGS

friDAY, october 16, 2020

Allan Briesmaster 

Allan Briesmaster has been a readings organizer, freelance editor, and a founding partner in Quattro Books. Currently he runs his own literary press, Aeolus House. The author of eight books of poetry, he has read his work, given talks, and hosted literary events across Canada. He lives in Thornhill, Ontario.

The Long Bond is a gathering of the finest work from six books over four decades by a widely respected and remarkably versatile poet. It spans a massive range of subjects and styles, encompassing the Canadian landscape, music and art, love and family, science, technology, and the manifold challenges to a questioning mind on our anxious planet.

thursDAY, october 22, 2020

NOTE time: 4:30pm PT

EMAIL the Victoria Arts Council here to receive the Zoom link. (or subscribe to our weekly newsletter at the bottom of the page to receive all the links every week.

Sponsors: Victoria Arts Council, BC Arts Council with the Province of BC, League of Canadian Poets, The Writers’ Union of Canada, The Malahat Review, CRD, The Canada Council for the Arts

bill bissett garnered international attention in the 1960s as a pre-eminent figure of the counter-culture movement in Canada and the U.K. In 1964, he founded blewointment press, which published the works of bpNichol and Steve McCaffery, among others. bissett’s charged readings, which never fail to amaze his audiences, incorporate sound poetry, chanting and singing, the verve of which is only matched by his prolific writing career—over seventy books of bissett’s poetry have been published.
A pioneer of sound, visual and performance poetry—eschewing the artificial hierarchies of meaning and the privileging of things (“proper” nouns) over actions imposed on language by capital letters; the metric limitations imposed on the possibilities of expression by punctuation; and the illusion of formal transparency imposed on the written word by standard (rather than phonetic) spelling—bissett composes his poems as scripts for pure performance and has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, honing a synthesis of the two in the medium of concrete poetry.
Whether paying tribute to his hometown lunaria or exercising his native tongue dissent, bissett continues to dance upon the cutting edge of poetics and performance works. Last year Talonbooks released bissett’s most recent collection, breth – th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu pomes n drawings, 1957–2019.

bissett has contributed to concrete is porous which is co-curated by Hart Broudy, Brian Dedora, and Daniel F Bradley.

Christine Walde is a writer, artist and librarian whose work combines library and archival research with interests in experimental prose, poetry, visual poetry, performance, and the visual arts.  Walde's latest body of work, In a New Order, is on view in the Victoria Arts Council VAULT as part of concrete is porous.In A New Order is a series of visual poems, including remixes and reinterpretations, of Joy Division's iconic song from 1980, "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Printed and then torn apart by hand, divided, and separated, the lyrics are then rearranged and recomposed, but in a new order, referencing the rebirth of Joy Division as the band New Order, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis. In every poem, each word appears the same number of times as in the original song, however there are variations. In some poems, the words are randomly selected, following the same order of consonants in each stanza while strictly adhering to the same consonants and line breaks. In other poems, lines are composed in a kind of free verse, using only the words from the original lyrics, and arranged in a multiplicity of ways, including by order and repetition, cluster formation, as well as by mirroring each corresponding stanza.

concrete is porous is designed to be an exploration and celebration of the wide spectrum of visual poetics of newer and older Canadian works to raise an awareness of and act as an introduction to this form of poetics. Concrete poetry distinguishes three types: visual, phonetic, and kinetic which are optic, sound, and movement in succession, all of which are represented in this exhibition.
Special additions to this presentation of concrete is porous include Michael Morris’s City De Luxe suite of concrete poems originally produced in the 1960s, bpNichol’s 1984 computer poem chapbook First Screening, and a limited edition print by Aram Soryan, along with excerpts of new work by Jordan Abel printed in large format and placed in the vestibule.

Victoria Arts Council (1800 Store Street)
4 September–24 October
Tuesday–Saturday, 12–5pm

FULL STANZAS E-BROCHURE: https://indd.adobe.com/view/99939f08-1908-4ff8-9ee0-51fa956f48eb

Planet Earth Poetry is pleased to announce that, through a generous gift from Lorna Crozier, we have two sets of numbered limited edition prints of Patrick Lane’s original work from the early 1980s that we will be offering for sale as of March 15, 2020.

Prints are $250 each, payable to Planet Earth Poetry. Shipping costs will be the responsibility of the purchaser. The prints are unframed (protected by a plastic sleeve) and are 15 x 22 inches. Order and pay by e-transfer in an email to Planet Earth Poetry. Please indicate which print or prints you wish to purchase in the email body and use the subject line Lane Prints.  

All proceeds from this sale will go toward the on-going work of Planet Earth Poetry.
Thanks to DC Reid for the images of the prints that are posted.