Zane visited the Elora Poetry Centre on Sunday afternoon, August 10, to read from Country Music, his new book. Here’s a brief blurb from the publisher: “Zane Koss grew up listening to stories. Often these were told late at night around kitchen tables or campfires against the backdrop of rural British Columbia. The stories themselves, punctuated by the humour and violence of life in the mountains, offer a means of critiquing ‘extractiveness’–both the violence of settler-colonial capitalism and the systems of class privilege that devalue rural, working-class experience. Mining these materials for a rural poetics–a country music–Koss begins to understand both his working-class upbringing and academic surroundings.” — Invisible Publishing
Zane, a poet and translator living in Guelph, was born and raised in the East Kootenays, BC, and earned a doctorate at New York University. His delivery masterfully captured the vernacular speech of his boyhood in rural interior BC as he read the text of Country Music in its entirely, followed by a lively Q & A.
Following Zane’s performance, members of the audience were treated to Alina Hartley’s piano playing as they mingled prior to sharing a simple buffet. Alina, who hales from Georgetown, grew up studying under the Royal Conservatory program and successfully completed her Level 9 exams in performance, history, and theory. She will be completing her Bachelor of Music at Carleton University in April 2026.
The Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery once again participated in the annual global initiative 100 Thousand Poets for Change, which takes place in hundreds of international locales at the end of each September. We have been part of this worldwide celebration of poetry’s power to effect change since its co-founding in 2011 by the late Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion. As with last year’s event, we were also part of Centre Wellington Township’s Culture Days, with this year’s theme of “celebrating diversity and artistic expression in Centre Wellington” being reflected in our program featuring Kevin heronJones and Jerry Prager.
Kevin heronJones, who recently played Henry “Box” Brown in the Centre Wellington Black Committee’s production of BHM Awakened Voices Narratives at Melville United Church in Fergus, is the first writer-in-residence for the city of Brampton. An author, poet, journalist, editor, actor, and lecturer, Kevin is perhaps best known for his spoken word performances, as founder of the PoeticSoul poetry series, the Duel of the Iron Mic poetry series in collaboration with Unblind, the Iron Mic Slam at Ryerson [now Toronto Metropolitan University], the 1 Ness poetry series in collaboration with Al St. Louis, and When Words are Spoken. An exemplary Poet for Change, Kevin designed PoeticSoul as an organization dedicated to promoting the poetic arts scene, creating PoeticSoul Online Literary Journal in 2004 as the first online publication focused on the spoken word community in Canada. He also joined energies with AIM, the African Image Makers, an organization that has created scholarships for African students, organized fundraisers, and released a clothing line “with thought provoking designs and poetry that reflect the beauty of the Black Caribbean and African Community.” He writes “in the tradition of the ancient African griots who used stories and poetry to educate as well as entertain,” and his performance on Sept. 28 included both storytelling and poetry.
Jerry Prager really needs no introduction at the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery, having performed his poetry here a number of times, premiered a table reading of Covenant Chains: A New Folk Opera (with music by Peter Skoggard), and created “The Composition of Anti-slavery” from wood, salvaged from the Chalmers Presbyterian Church in Elora, the remarkable sculpture that is now mounted behind Beaver House. Having recently returned to Elora, Jerry enhances our arts community with his varied and colourful experiences as a writer, poet, playwright, sculptor, dancer, and heritage stone worker. He has published three books on the history of the Underground Railroad in Wellington County and reprised a long poem related to this subject that has become a favourite at the Elora Poetry Centre, titled “Echoes in the Timbers.” This time Jerry read this remarkable poem at dusk in a Son et Lumière setting in which the acclaimed Elora-based photographer Wayne Simpson created a backdrop by providing lighting from within Beaver House, the Elora Poetry Centre’s 1832 log house that was part of the Canadian Underground Railroad in its original locale south of Aberfoyle.
This event was in conjunction with the national Culture Days initiative, with funding from Centre Wellington Township. Additional funding of Jerry Prager’s reading was from the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts.
On 15 June 2025, Peter Bottéas and the Elora Poetry Centre organized an event featuring contemporary poetry of the Greek diaspora. Peter focused on his translation from Greek into English of recent poems by the Boston-based poet Vassiliki Rapti, collected in Bathed in Moonlight (2023). He also read poems by Despina Kaitatzi-Choulioumi and George Kalogeris, as well as a few of his own, spellbinding the audience. Prior to his reading, Georgia Perdikoulias beautifully sang a musical setting of Peter’s poem “Refuge,” as well as other verse set to music by the composer Kostas Rekleitis, with texts by Vassiliki Rapti. These were followed by 19th-century Greek art songs and some moving traditional Greek songs. Georgia was masterfully accompanied on piano by a familiar and distinguished friend of the Elora Poetry Centre, Irene Gregorio.
Peter Bottéas
A native of Toronto, Peter holds a Master’s degree in Translation from the Université de Montreal. After a twenty-year detour as a psychotherapist in Boston, he has returned to one of his first loves: literary translation. He is co-host, with Vassiliki, of the podcast series Borders Unbound: Hellenic Poetry of the Diaspora and Beyond, as well as being an occasional voice-over artist, poet, and aficionado of French and Greek poetry set to music.
Georgia Perdikoulias
Canadian-Greek soprano and librettist Georgia Perdikoulias is an artist with a passion for storytelling through the creation and performance of new works. A graduate of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, Georgia has found equal joy and passion in performing and debuting operatic and art song repertoire. Her performances at Bard included the premiering of art songs, one of which was Peter’s “Refuge” (composed by Kostas Rekleitis), and a new opera, My Wife is a Ghost. Georgia combines her love of writing and the written word with her passion for performing, employing a text-centric approach to new and canonical works alike. Georgia is also a published poet, having co-authored the poetry collection Mythopoesis (2022). In addition to her classical music training, Georgia is a traditional Greek folk singer and dancer with a love for performing and sharing her culture.
Irene Gregorio
Collaborative Pianist and Musical Assistant
Irene Gregorio enjoys a diverse and active musical life as a pianist, educator, and music director. As a pianist and chamber musician, she has collaborated with members of the LA Phil and San Francisco Symphonies. She has served as pianist for the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, LA Opera Education and Outreach, and the University of Southern California Chamber Singers, among others. Her performances as a collaborative pianist have taken her throughout North America, Europe, Cuba, and the Philippines, and she has also appeared on PBS, CBC Radio 2, and on film soundtracks in the LA area.
Dr. Gregorio has over 15 years of experience in the university setting, serving as staff/faculty in collaborative piano at the campuses of the California State University, East Bay and Los Angeles. She earned her DMA at the University of Southern California and recently returned home to Canada, where she serves as the Director of Music Ministry at Dublin St. United Church, and Sessional Instructor of Piano at the University of Guelph. Irene was named as the TMC Collaborative Pianist in August 2021 and was the pianist of the National Youth Choir of Canada in 2022.
The programme was presented in two parts with a short intermission, after which there was a Q & A session prior to breaking for the usual finger food and drinks.
An enduring friend of the Elora Poetry Centre, Tillia Kooyman performed a selection of musical pieces, which the audience could creatively set to words to be shared with the audience. Tillia played on different instruments, providing many opportunities for interesting thoughts.
Tillia’s bio:
Tillia Kooyman is an active solo, chamber and orchestral musician, with interests in contemporary music, interdisciplinary works and acoustic ecology. An advocate for Canadian music, Tilly has premiered many new works by Canadian composers at the World Bass Clarinet Convention in the Netherlands, the international Bohlen-Pierce Symposium in Boston, ClarinetFest in Vancouver, NUMUS Concerts and the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener-Waterloo. The most significant influence in Tilly’s life has been the over three decades in collaboration with celebrated Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer on his Patria Cycle, a series of monumental works often staged in unique settings
Tillia’s education includes a Master of Music degree from the University of Western Ontario, an Associateship from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and advanced studies at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts. A former student of James Campbell and Robert Riseling, Tilly has also studied ‘Deep Listening’ with Pauline Oliveros and free improvisation with Casey Sokol.
Our most recent event was held on Saturday, September 30 as part of the “100 Thousand Poets for Change” global initiative. Sadly, Michael Rothenberg, co-founder of this unique organization, died late last year. However, his partner and co-founder Terri Carrion and all the support staff are carrying on. The Elora Poetry Centre and Gallery once again participated, this time with a reading by Khashyar “Kess” Mohammadi, a performance on the shakuhachi by Dr. Gerard Yun, and poetry, music, and dance presented by Choir in Motion.
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Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi
“Kess” is an Iranian born, Toronto based queer poet, translator and writer.
They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize, 2022’s Arc Poem of the Year award, The MalahatReview’s 2023 Open Season awards for poetry and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry chapbooks. They have released two full-length collections of poetry with Gordon Hill Press. Their full-length collaborative poetry manuscript “G” is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press Fall 2023, and their full-length collection of experimental dream-poems “Daffod*ls” is forthcoming from Pamenar Press Fall 2023.
Dr Gerard Yun
Dr. Yun teaches Community Music at Wilfrid Laurier University, specializing in, amongst other things, the Shakuhachi.
He is an intercultural, contemplative musician, teacher, and scholar. A native of the Sierra Nevada Foothills of Northern California, he is a descendant of San Francisco and Jamaican Chinese with a background rooted in various musical traditions discovered and pursued alongside his formal training and professional work as a classical conductor. These include Japanese Zen Buddhist shakuhachi, Native American flute, Asian overtone singing, didgeridoo, West African kora and drumming. His scholarly interests focus on the intersections of music, spirituality and social justice through practices such as intercultural improvisation, restorative-contemplative musical forms, and performative eco-acoustics. At the juncture of emergence from the global pandemic, he seeks to reawaken awareness of relationships between humans, the natural world, and technology by combining scientific and musical modalities. Currently, assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Dr. Yun is in demand as a clinician and workshop leader. During the pandemic, he hosted the “Authentic Voice” podcast and Martin Luther University’s “Contemplative Music Pause.” An advocate of teaching innovation, he is currently producing “The Listeners” podcast to support students and researchers seeking access and primary data into the interdisciplinary theories and practices of listening and as a precursor to a new course titled “Listening: Theories and Practice.” He teaches community music, contemplative arts, and social justice courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels for the Faculty of Music and Martin Luther University College. Former director of both the University of Waterloo Choir and WLU’s Concert Choir, he is the founder of Conrad Grebel University College’s East-West Dark Horse Ensemble and Wilfrid Laurier’s Confluence Ensemble. As shakuhachi soloist and scholar, Dr. Yun performs and records with the Earth Ether Ensemble under the leadership of James Harley. He appears on Room 217 World Music series for Music Cares and various music apps, including Plant Choir’s biosonificstion app which creates generative music directly from houseplants. His latest composition projects feature seldom noticed or unhearable (with the unaided human ear) natural sounds (macroacoustics), and bio-electrical fields to generate new musical forms and structures. Dr. Yun serves as music advisor for Canada’s Plant Choir ® and president of the Community Music School of the Waterloo Region.
Choir in Motion presents–HEARING NATURE
Poetry, Music and Dance
Sometimes in listening we build the road to change which leads us to new places, or even back to ourselves.
Diane Chapitis─Artistic Director
Peter Skoggard—Musical Director
Ardeth Jarvis—Vocal
Tillia Kooyman—Clarinet
Peter Skoggard, Diane Chapitis, and Tillia Kooyman have all performed at the Elora Poetry Centre and need no introduction, as we consider them old friends! This time they were joined by Ardeth Jarvis of the Guelph Chamber Choir.
It had been a very long three years since we had held a live event in Elora, and as enjoyable as the remote performances and panel discussion had been–even the wonderful co-sponsored live sound poetry event at Renison University College featuring bill bissett, Honey Novick, Wesley Rickert, and MLA Chernoff!–these had not been quite the same, removed from the natural setting of the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery. We were therefore very excited when, on 8 July, Karen Houle (who delivered a memorable virtual reading from The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology during the pandemic) inspired a large audience with readings from her Governor General’s Award-nominated book, accompanied by Tilly Kooyman playing Vaughan Williams on the clarinet–including Tilly’s own adaption of “The Lark Ascending”!
This was truly one of the most memorable events in the twelve-year existence of the Elora Poetry Centre, with an enthusiastic crowd spellbound by Karen’s passionate delivery of her poems, laced with fascinating narratives about their creation, and Tilly’s sensitive and beautifully complementary performance of “The Lark Ascending” as well as impressionistic melodies from Vaughan Williams’ “Six Studies in English Folk Song.”
Our thanks go to Mike Kruk for putting together the program, Max and Maureen McIntyre, Susan Thorning and Eric Oakley, and Janice Ferri for their financial contributions, the Elora & Fergus Arts Council for support, and Silk Purse Recording. The light buffet supper was supported by donations from Zehrs Fergus, Dar’s Country Market in Elora, and Angelino’s in Guelph, to say nothing of the generous, elegant contributions brought by friends of the Elora Poetry Centre.
Here are bios of Karen and Tilly:
Dr. Karen Houle is a recently retired Philosophy Professor at the University of Guelph. At this point in her life, she’s hellbent on using her immense caffeinated chaotic energy, her acquired social capital and her well-honed pragmatic attitude of “not giving a shit what people [think] anymore” to create and inspire joyful art and artful local socioecological post-humanist projects that are, as the poet Anna Bowen wrote, “tiny but everything”. Houle has 5 or maybe 6 of these projects bubbling on the proverbial stove at this very moment and would love to share the stove with others. No cooking experience necessary.
All of Houle’s projects fall under the umbrella of “The Art of Soil Collective” ART + SOIL + COLLECTIVE (where “collective” does not mean just humans in a bunch, doing human-stuff for humans). In the best of all possible worlds – which is a refrain we say in academic Philosophy all the time, but really, what we should say is: In the best possible state of the one & only world and life we have –– these efforts will combine & make good use of their solid and varied political and ethical principles, their many acquired and diverse practical skills and, most of all, the unruly passions that rule Houle including: food security, grandmothering wisdoms, plant philosophy, ecology, bush knowledge, environmental protection, organic farming, wordsmithing, crafting stuff from stuff, soil remediation, biodiversity, chopping wood, seed saving, pollinator support, composting, mental health gymnastics, bio-cultural diversity and lake swimming.
Tilly Kooyman is an active solo, chamber and orchestral musician, with interests in contemporary music, interdisciplinary works and acoustic ecology. An advocate for Canadian music, Tilly has premiered many new works by Canadian composers at the World Bass Clarinet Convention in the Netherlands, the International Bohlen-Pierce Symposium in Boston, ClarinetFest in Vancouver, NUMUS Concerts and the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener-Waterloo. The most significant influence in Tilly’s life has been the over three decades of collaboration with celebrated Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer on his Patria Cycle, a series of monumental works often staged in unique settings.
Tilly’s education includes a Master of Music degree from the University of Western Ontario, an Associateship from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and advanced studies at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts. A former student of James Campbell and Robert Riseling, Tilly has also studied ‘Deep Listening’ with Pauline Oliveros and free improvisation with Casey Sokol.
bill bissett and MLA Chernoff performed live on Wednesday, Nov. 16, in the Chapel of St. Bede, Renison University College, University of Waterloo. This event was co-sponsored by the University of Waterloo and the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery, with support from the Arts First Pedagogical Enhancement Fund at University of Waterloo, the League of Canadian Poets, and Canada Council for the Arts. It was linked to the annual 100 Thousand Poets for Change global poetry initiative organized by Michael Rothenberg, held in over 700 international locations. Sadly, Michael died immediately after the event, so we were unable to send him the link to view it.
Described by Jack Kerouac as “one of the great poets,” bill bissett is an internationally acclaimed language poet, artist, and musician. He is the author of more than 60 books of poetry. Safia Southey observes, “bissett dispenses with standard written English (initial capitals, spelling, and punctuation), connecting with language on an elemental level that some reviewers have considered shaman-like.” Frank Davey has described him as “rejecting the conventional or ‘straight’ world . . . not only in lifestyle but in ruthless alterations to conventional syntax.” bill is a spellbinding performance artist who had delighted audiences at the Elora Poetry Centre on two previous occasions coordinated with 100 Thousand Poets for Change. This time bill was accompanied by Metroland Media 2021 Urban Hero winner Honey Novick, poet and singer, as well as writer, director & producer Wesley Rickert, who gave virtuosic performances of sound poetry.
billbissett1_sm-2
Gordon Hill Press, publisher of MLA Chernoff’s recent collection [Squelch Procedures], notes on its website that “MLA Chernoff (they/ them/@citation_bb) was born at Women’s College Hospital in December of 1991–oops. They are a six-hundred-year-old Jewish, non-binary pome machine, a Postmodern Neo-Marxist, and (somehow) a PhD Candidate of the Neoliberal University of York University, where they once held a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship–no kidding.” MLA had delivered a stunning virtual performance for students at Renison University College and friends of the Elora Poetry Centre back in January 2022, but seeing him perform live was truly memorable. He was introduced by Jeremy Luke Hill, his publisher, who recollected how bowled over he had been the first time he heard MLA give a live reading, and everybody in the audience soon understood why.
Although staged for ARTS 130 at University of Waterloo, the event was open to the Renison and University of Waterloo communities, friends of the Elora Poetry Centre, and general public. It was filmed by Robert Laurin of Waterloo Studio and can be viewed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Ppud6GPQw&list=PLxaW0IcKekckyGxSmT2K0mfVi-5n3_R3j
Renison University College and the Elora Poetry Centre co-sponsored, with funding from the League of Canadian Poets and Canada Council, a virtual poetry performance by MLA Chernoff
1.00—2.20 p.m. Monday 31 January 2022
MLA CHERNOFF (they/them/@citation_bb) was born at Women’s College Hospital in December of 1991––oops. They are a six-hundred-year-old Jewish, non-binary pome machine, a Postmodern Neo-Marxist, and (somehow) a PhD Candidate at the Neoliberal University of York University, where they once held a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship––no kidding.Their first chapbook, delet this, was released by Bad Books in 2018. Their second collection, TERSE THIRSTY, was released by Gap Riot Press in 2019. Their debut full-length collection of poetry, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], is now available from Gordon Hill Press.
In [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], MLA Chernoff contemplates the ways that trauma, poverty, and strict gender norms rupture the concept of childhood. The tension of multiple meanings in the word “squelch” acts as a guide to Chernoff’s unique voice, which uses language to swaddle intrusive thoughts and mimic defense mechanisms such as avoidance, depersonalization, and derealization. [SQUELCH PROCEDURES] is an ambitious attempt to show how healing and regression are often indistinguishable, while the past is always predisposed to happen more than once: first as tragedy, then as farce.
The Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery 