26 May 2018
A big thank you to those who attended our annual Environmental Sculpture Day and the Elora Puppets who, even though en route they lost Sir Arthur Montgomery-ffinch, who was to have been the attending art critic, still performed their version of Stone Soup. Soup, focaccia and drinks, plus goodies supplied by guests, followed the work of the day! Janice Ferri and Peter Skoggard sent some of the photographs of the day which are posted elsewhere on this site.
Skullduggery (Signal, 2011) by Asa Boxer
The poems in Skullduggery, Asa Boxer’s masterful new book, have a simple warning: trust nothing. Like the book’s hilarious final poem, which recasts Canada’s discovery as a hoax from the Middle Ages-Boxer transforms shortfalls of perception into tour de force performances. Drawing on a deepened range of forms [comic set-pieces, verse-plays, dramatic monologues] Skullduggery embraces deception as both theme and tactic. In poem after poem, encounters test the threshold of what’s real and what’s not; turns of phrase appear to say one thing, but really mean another. What is without doubt, however, is that Boxer strengthens his status as one of our most gifted young poets.
The Mechanical Bird (Signal, 2007) by Asa Boxer
An old idea of reality animates the poems in The Mechanical Bird: things are never what they seem. Opening with a quick-talking disquisition on lying [“Keep it simple, tidy, / take a noncommittal stance”] and ending with masterly mediation on the workshop and its “drawing-board dreams,” Asa Boxer’s debut constantly tests the claims of authenticity over artifice. Objects, settings and everyday details are swept up in an imagination that can never quite shake the sense of the visible world-even nature itself-as an artful mixture of fact and invention. As suggested by the eponymous metal songster, these poems are exquisitely crafted, infused with a sense of kinetic spell-making, and sing with an exuberant trust in their own guile.
Friar Biard’s Primer to the New World (Frog Hollow Press, 2013) Poetry by Asa Boxer Illustrations by James Hillis
Inspired by the medieval journeys of Sir John Mandeville–Endmatter. “In which is mapped the kingdom of the New World, its five Great Lakes, its inhabitants, perils and wonders”–Added title page. “Book design: Caryl Wyse Peters”–Final leaf recto. Published in a limited edition of 150 hand-numbered copies.
Etymologies by Asa Boxer and David-Antoine Williams
Asa Boxer’s poetry has garnered several awards and his work is widely anthologized. His books include The Mechanical Bird (Signal, 2007), Skullduggery (Signal, 2011), and an illustrated chapbook entitled Friar Biard’s Primer to the New World (Frog Hollow Press, 2013).
David-Antoine Williams teaches at St Jerome’s University in the University of Waterloo.
Field Notes from the Undead, (The Elora Poetry Centre ) by .Asa Boxer
Montreal poet Asa Boxer returned to the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery for the fourth year on Sunday, July 30, at 4:00 PM to read from his series of poems about the undead: zombies, vampires, and ghouls, including the poem “Zombie Apocalypse – after Solzhenitsyn.” With mischievous humour, these poems examine cruelty, brainwashing, and just plain stupidity.
Asa Boxer’s poetry has garnered several prizes and is included in various anthologies around the world. His books are The Mechanical Bird (Signal, 2007), Skullduggery (Signal, 2011), Friar Biard’s Primer to the New World (Frog Hollow Press, 2013), and Etymologies (Anstruther Press, 2016). He is also a founder and manager of the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Asa Boxer is the son of the well-known poet Avi Boxer, who with others, such as Irving Layton, formed the poetry scene in Montreal.
Tilly Kooyman performed on the clarinet, accompanying Asa’s reading.
Asa Boxer’s Notes from the Undead, published by The Elora Poetry Centre/Interludes.
The son of a judge, bill bissett, poet, artist, performer, publisher (b at Halifax, NS 23 Nov 1939), ran away from home several times as a child, once to join a circus, looking to escape conventional middle-class life. In 1958-59 he moved to Vancouver, where he spent 2 years at the University of British Columbia before dropping out to pursue writing and painting. Although his poetics harmonized with the experimental creativity of the TISH movement, he was unable to find a publisher for his concrete and visual poetry. As a result, he founded blewointment magazine in 1962 to promote his own poetry and that of similar writers, such as bpNichol and Steve McCaffery. bill bissett is known for his distinct spelling, for combining lyric, visual, and sound poetry with drawing and collage, and for a deceptively naïve voice that masks the personal and political perceptiveness of his work. Continue reading at http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bill-bissett/
Saturday 24 June—4.00 p.m. Di Brandt read from her work. Here is a brief biography.
Di Brandt is the author and editor of more than a dozen books of poetry, fiction, creative essays and literary criticism. She has received numerous recognitions and prizes for her writing, including the Gerald Lampert Award for “best first book of poetry in Canada” for her bestselling debut collection questions i asked my mother (which was recently re-issued in a 30th anniversary tribute edition with afterword by Tanis MacDonald); the McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award for Agnes in the sky; the CAA National Poetry Prize for Jerusalem, beloved; the Foreword Gold Medal for Watermelon Syrup: A Novel (with Annie Jacobsen and Jane Finlay-Young), and the Gabrielle Roy Prize for “best book of literary criticism in Canada” for Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women’s Poetry (with Barbara Godard). Now You Care was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Trillium Ontario Book of the Year, and the Pat Lowther Award.
Di Brandt’s collaborative multimedia works include Emily, the Way You Are, a one woman chamber opera about the life and works of Emily Carr, with composer Jana Skarecky; and Awakenings: Poetry and Music in Four Voices (with Dorothy Livesay, Rebecca Campbell and Carol Ann Weaver). Di Brandt has taught at five Canadian universities including the University of Alberta, the University of Windsor, Ontario, and Brandon University, Manitoba, where she held the first Canada Research Chair in the Creative Arts, and developed an innovative multimedia creative arts program that was emulated in new interdisciplinary programs across the country. She has given readings, lectures and workshops around the world, and held guest fellowships in Scotland, New York, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Japan. She currently lives in Winnipeg.
Two young cellists, Gillian and Rachel Young, played after the reading. Following this there was, of course, the usual finger food and drinks so that we could exchange ideas and experiences.
The Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery 