MAINSTAGE: POETRY BASH!

September 28, 2012

8 pm – 10 pm at MTYP
These poets invent new paths through our language—and new languages for our paths…

Jonathan Ball

Jonathan Ball is a poet whose work explores the edges of language and its usage. Ex Machina considers the relationship between humans, books and machines. Clockﬁrecontains 77 scripts for conceptual plays that would be impossible to produce. Both books were published under Creative Commons licenses, so readers can remix their contents. His newest collection, The Politics of Knives (Coach House), probes the relationship between language and violence. Ball was shortlisted for the 2012 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. He teaches English, film, and writing at the University of Winnipeg.

Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier was born in Swift Current SK, and though she has lived for many years on the west coast, the prairie continues to define her work. Since the mid-1970s, she has written fifteen acclaimed poetry collections, including Apocrypha of Light and Inventing the Hawk, winner of the Governor-General’s Award. She is also an accomplished essayist and editor, and published a memoir, Small Beneath the Sky: A Prairie Memoir. Margaret Laurence called her “a poet to be grateful for” and her new collection, The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things (D&M) bears that out. Crozier lives in Victoria BC.

Sue Goyette

Sue Goyette has published a novel, Lures, and three books of poetry. Her many awards include the CBC Literary Prize for Poetry and the Earle Birney Prize, and her most recent poetry collection, outskirts (Brick Books), has won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and is on the shortlist for the Atlantic Poetry Prize. Her poem “fashion” won the annual Prairie Fire Press-McNally Robinson Booksellers literary contest; she will accept the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award—a replica of Carman’s turquoise ring—at the Mainstage Poetry Bash. Goyette lives in Halifax NS, and teaches in the Creative Writing program at Dalhousie University. The Nooner (Sept 28)

JonArno Lawson

JonArno Lawson has written several award-winning books for children, including The Man in the Moon-Fixer’s Mask, Black Stars in a White Night Sky, and A Voweller’s Bestiary. His newest, Old MacDonald Had Her Farm (Annick), shows his talent for mixing wild word play with a generous curiosity about others. His YA collection, Think Again, is a deceptively transparent exploration of the challenges of adolescence. He also brings his exuberant wit to poetry for adults, with ample evidence in There Devil, Eat That (Pedlar Press) and his brand new collection, Down in the Bottom (Porcupine’s Quill). Lawson lives in Toronto ON.

Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane is one of Canada’s most distinguished poets, with a career spanning more than fifty years. He has won nearly every major literary prize in Canada, including the Governor General’s Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and three National Magazine Awards. Lane’s most recent book, The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane(Harbour), features work from more than two dozen volumes of poetry. Lane has also published acclaimed fiction and non-fiction, including There Is a Season (McClelland & Stewart), a memoir of recovery from addiction. He lives in Victoria BC.