CBC Poetry Face-Off Winners http://www.cbc.ca/poetryfaceoff/

This week’s podcast features interviews with three of the authors up for the Best of the Booker Prize

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the Man Booker Prize is inviting people to vote for their favourite novel out of a shortlist of six past winners. The poll for the Best of the Booker Prize is open until noon on June 8, 2008.

According to one of the world’s leading bookmakers, William Hill, the odds favour Salman Rushdie, Pat Barker and Peter Carey. This week’s Words at Large podcast features interviews with all three.

The six books were selected by a jury chaired by biographer Victoria Glendinning:

Pat Barker, The Ghost Road (Booker winner in 1995, Penguin)
Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda (1988, Faber And Faber)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1999, Vintage)
J.G. Farrell, The Seige of Krishnapur (1973, New York Review Of Books)
Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist (1974, Penguin)
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981, Vintage Canada)

It seems appropriate that Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, a novel about gamblers, has a good shot at the prize. Shelagh Rogers spoke to Australian Peter Carey about Oscar and Lucinda in 1988.

Paul Kennedy spoke to English writer Pat Barker in 1996 just after she won the Booker Prize for The Ghost Road. They spoke about the many ways that winning the award affected her.

[more]

Robin Blaser continues to reap rewards for an impressive career in poetry. This week he became the 2008 Canadian recipient of the Griffin Poetry Prize, the world’s most lucrative poetry award for a single book.

Blaser won for his collection The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser (University of California Press), which includes poems written over 50 years. He accepted the $50,000 prize at a gala event in Toronto on Wednesday, June 4, and CBC Radio’s Sharon Farrell spoke with him just after the announcement was made.

Born in the U.S. in 1925, Blaser became part of the San Francisco Renaissance movement after the war. He moved to Canada in 1966 to teach at the newly opened Simon Fraser University. Now 83, he only recently retired as professor emeritus.

Alongside his writing and teaching, Blaser has mentored and influenced many younger poets in Canada. Among other honours, he has received the Order of Canada, as well as the 2006 inaugural Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry’s Lifetime Recognition Award.

The Griffin Poetry Prize was founded by businessman Scott Griffin eight years ago, and has grown by leaps and bounds. This year, 509 books were submitted from 31 countries. The 2008 judges were George Bowering (Vancouver), James Lasdun (Woodstock, New York) and Pura López-Colomé(Cuernavaca, Mexico).

This year, the Griffin Poetry Prize for an international book published in English went to another poet with a long and illustrious career: American John Ashbery. In addition, Korean poet Ko Un was honoured with the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry’s third Lifetime Recognition Award at a reading event the previous evening.

Sharon Farrell began her interview with Robin Blaser by asking how it felt to win this prize after having received the Lifetime Recognition Award.

Ken Alexander, one the founders of The Walrus magazine, has resigned as editor of the five-year-old general-interest publication, it was announced Tuesday.

Alexander, who has served as editor since 2004, said he was leaving to pursue other interests and spend more time with his family, according to a news release.

Alexander was a high school English and history teacher and later senior producer of the CBC Newsworld current affairs show counterSpin. He is author of Toward Freedom: The African-Canadian Experience.

At the recent National Magazine Awards, The Walrus won six golds and four silvers in a variety of categories.

“The mandate of the Walrus Foundation is to extend public discourse on matters vital to Canadians,” said Shelley Ambrose, executive director of the non-profit foundation and publisher of The Walrus. “As editor, Ken succeeded in doing exactly that — and more. He will be an extremely hard act to follow.”

A search committee of board members and the publisher has been struck to seek a new editor.

Alexander will stay on until July 4 to put out the September issue.

[more]

James Deahl

The Art Bar Poetry Series takes place at

Clinton’s, 693 Bloor Street West, (Toronto), right by Christie Subway Station.

Click for map:  http://www.artbar.org/artbarmap.jpg

Every Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. sharp.

Free, but we pass the hat for donations.

TUESDAY JUNE 17, 2008

James Deahl was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He moved to
Canada in 1970. He is the author of seventeen literary titles, most recently
When Rivers Speak (Unfinished Monument Press); The River’s Stone Roots:
Two Dozen Poems by Tu Fu (Serengeti Press); If Ever Two Were One
(Aeolus Press). He lives in Hamilton.

Lisa Pasold

Lisa Pasold recently returned to Toronto after living in Paris, France for
the past decade. Last winter, she spent three months in Dawson City, Yukon,
as the Berton House writer-in-residence. As a journalist, she has worked in
such places as Belarus, Marrakech and Kenya. She is the author of two books
of poetry. Weave (Frontenac House) was a finalist for the Alberta Book Award.
A Bad Year For Journalists (Frontenac House) appeared in 2006.

Pier Giorgio di Cicco

Pier Giorgio di Cicco has authored seventeen collections of poetry since
1976 and was a seminal figure in Canadian multiculturalism with his
edition of the first anthology of Italian-Canadian writers. In 1984 he
removed himself from the world of letters and became an Augustinian
Brother, and was subsequently ordained to the Roman Catholic Priesthood.
He returned to the world of literature in 2000 with four successive
volumes of poetry including The Dark Time of Angels (The Mansfield Press)
which was nominated for the 2004 Trillium Award. He is the Poet Laureate
of the city of Toronto.

The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology (2007) http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=1160 A Selection of the Shortlist Karen Solie

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured each year with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s richest and most prestigious literary awards.

The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology: A Selection of the 2007 Shortlist includes poems from the exceptional books shortlisted by jurors John Burnside, Charles Simic, and Karen Solie for this year’s two $50,000 awards.

The poems in the 2007 anthology are selected and introduced by Solie, the Canadian member of the jury. Royalties from the sales of the anthologies are donated to UNESCO’s World Poetry Day, created to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard in their communities.

wish to advertise with us?

the Canadian Poetry Association Lit-serv blog has received over 10,000 visits in the past year, and our viewership increases by leaps and bounds each month.

our publisher River Bones Press has over 8000 members alone on Facebooks Poets & Writers Registry, so don’t delay send us your ad today!

here are our ad rates. our terms are very flexible and we are NOT opposed to bartering!!!

Quarter page: $15
Half page: $25
Full page: $40
Half page w/ online banner ad (2 issues)-$50
Full page w/ online banner ad (2 issues)-$60

if interested, please contact me at info@canadianpoetryassoc.com or River Bones Press.
thanks for your time!

donna

POEMATA editor

for a free issue online go to http://riverbonespress.ning.com

Headline:

Only a Few Weeks Left to Apply for the Victoria School of Writing’s Summer School Intensive Program.

Registration is now open for our 13th annual intensive summer session, July 20 – 25, 2008. We’re proud to introduce the seven accomplished Canadian authors who will lead our workshops this year:

Steven Galloway— “Fiction and the Truth”
Sarah Leavitt— “Developing a Graphic Narrative” (Graphica)
Curtis Gillespie— “Why Memoir?”
Rita Moir— “Writing Deeply” (Creative Non-Fiction)
Rosemary Neering— “Getting Published: From Idea to Proposal to Manuscript to Book”
Kathy Page— “The Lovely Hybrid” (Short Fiction)
Susan Stenson— “When the Shadows of the Heart Lift” (Poetry)

For more information, please visit our website: vswblog.wordpress.com
For questions, please email: coord@victoriaschoolofwriting.org

Below is info our TO event which includes acclaimed Toronto author Sylvia Fraser.

Toronto, May 2008 When Nobody’s Looking
An evening of film, shared personal experiences & candid discussions about sexual abuse

– May is sexual assault awareness and prevention month. To help raise awareness and encourage dialogue around this issue, The Women’s Support Network of York Region and the Sexual Assault Centre London are presenting a screening of Maureen Judge’s award winning film When Nobody’s Looking , and presentations from two authors, Sylvia Fraser and Donald D’Haene, who will share their own personal experiences of hurt and healing.

WHERE: National Film Board Mediatheque
150 John Street, Toronto

WHEN: May 31, 2008

HOURS: 7 – 10 p.m.

TICKETS: Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door. Proceeds will go to the Women’s Support Network of York Region and the Sexual Assault Centre London.

For more information: dedonald@sympatico.ca

Donna, thought this might be of interest:

http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/press_releases.php?t=31

The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry: Press Releases - Al Purdy - A Permanent Tribute

http://www.griffinpoetryprize….

The Griffin Poetry Prize, worth C$80,000 is an annual international and Canadian literary award for poetry written or translated into English. Griffin trustees are: Margaret Atwood, Carolyn Forche, Michael Ondaatje, Scott Griffin (Chairman), Robert Hass, Robin Robertson and David Young.