Grey Borders RS

Grey Borders Reading Series proudly presents...

2009-10-17T18:39:00.000-04:00

When

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 7:00pm

Where

In the Pond Inlet
Brock University

Details

The Grey Borders Reading Series, in association with the Niagara Artists' Centre, and Brock Centre for the Arts, is proud to announce: Like Light Off Water, The Minden DUO with Daphne Marlatt.

Celebrated Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt reads passages from her classic cycle of poems Steveston with an evocative soundscape composed and performed by Robert Minden & Carla Hallett.

Daphne Marlatt is an influential and daring writer author of over twenty-five books. For over three decades, she has explored different narrative structures and experimented with language and grammar to challenge literary customs as well as her readers’ expectations. Her long poem Steveston and her novel Ana Historic are considered classics of the Canadian canon. A founding editor of the bilingual journal Tessera, she is also admired for her contribution to feminist theory. Marlatt won the Dorothy Livesay Prize for Poetry and is a Member of the Order of Canada for her contributions to literature. She has spent most of life living on Canada's West Coast, and now lives in Vancouver.
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Tickets are available at the NAC, at the venue itself (subject to availability) or email to gbetts@brocku.ca

General Admission $15 - general $10 - student

2009-06-23T16:48:00.001-04:00

From the Vaults of Failure

GBRS #21

2009-03-23T13:04:00.001-04:00

Thanks to everybody who came out and supported The Great Canadian Beaver
Ball and the Dub Revolushun! The event was a great success by all
accounts -- watch for the upcoming special issue of PRECIPICe devoted to
the event, with poetry by d'bi.young, Lillian Allen, Chet Singh, an
essay by Phanuel Antwi, photos, and an interview with Lillian Allen!

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Grey Borders Reading Series #21.... is proud to present

Oana Avasilichioaei
Jacqueline Larson

Friday 3 April 2009 7:30 pm
No Cover

Cask 22
176 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines
905-688-1118

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Please join us for this special event -- the last Grey Borders event of
the season, and the first at Cask 22, North America's only real wine bar.

greyborders.blogspot.com

Bios:
Jacqueline Larson was born in and formed by Alberta. She has a master's
degree (English) from Simon Fraser University where she also worked as
the managing editor of West Coast Line for 5 years. Her work has been
published in a number of journals and shortlisted for the National
Magazine award and Hart House Review poetry prize. Her first book, Salt
Physic, was published in November by Pedlar Press. She makes her home in
Toronto.

Oana Avasilichioaei is a poet and translator who transformed the
landscape of Vancouvers Hastings Park into an acclaimed book of poems,
feria: a poempark (Wolsak & Wynn, 2008). She has translated Nichita
Stanescu from Romanian, published as Occupational Sickness
(BuschekBooks, 2006), Louise Cotnoir and Geneviève Desrosiers from
French, created visual textworks for galleries in Montreal and
Vancouver, and has performed her work in Canada, USA, Mexico and Europe.
Her first book, Abandon (W&W, 2005) has been translated into Spanish as
Abandono and will soon appear in Mexico City. A collaborative work with
Erín Moure, involving authorial and translational impossibilities will
appear as Expeditions of a Chimæra fall 2009 (BookThug).


***********************************************************************
GBRS no-spam policy in effect: please let me know if you would like to
be removed from this mailing list.
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GB #20 -- Dub Revolushun

2009-02-18T20:53:00.002-05:00

[click on poster to enlarge]

Grey Borders Reading Series #20....

*Great Canadian Beaver Balls Multiples and the Dub Revolushun – art and culture intertwine!*

Mark Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009 on your calendar to attend a special evening celebrating DUB Revolushun and the second annual Great Canadian Beaver Ball held at the Niagara Artists’ Centre.

The DUB Revolushun, presented by the Department of English at Brock University, brings together the reggae-vibe rhythms of Caribbean Canadian poetry with the workers’ rights struggle that inspired it. The evening is part of Black History Month featuring three of Canada's top poets: two-time Juno Award winner Lillian Allen, two-time Gemini winner Clifton Joseph, and, representing the new generation of Dub poets, two-time Dora Award winner d'bi.young.

Introducing the evening is Phanuel Antwi of McMaster University, who will weave a narrative of Caribbean culture in Canada with its rich, dynamic histories. A photo exhibit by migrant workers in Ontario entitled "From One Place to Another” will also be on display. Stan Raper of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union will give a short talk on the situation of migrant workers and workers' rights in Niagara.

For a second year, more than 75 students from the Department of Visual Arts launch their annual Great Canadian Beaver Balls series of artists’ multiples Dub-inspired artworks are encapsulated in plastic balls and will be available from classic Northern Beaver vending machines for $2 each during gallery hours. The Multiples exhibit will run at the NAC until mid-March. Visit NAC's website for gallery hours at: www.nac.org

We would like to thank the following sponsors for their contributions to the event: Niagara's Best Beer, Coffee Culture, and Visiting Angels. At Brock University: the Humanities Research Institute at Brock University; the Department of English Language and Literature; the Department of Sociology; the Department of Visual Arts; Brock University Faculty Association; Centre for Great Books and Liberal Studies; and the Brock/Niagara Renaissance Group.

For an evening of dub poetry performances, photo exhibits, and a new flock of Beaver Balls, plan to join us on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009, at 7 p.m., held at the Niagara Artists’ Centre, 354 St. Paul St., St. Catharines, ON. Tickets available at the door, admission is by voluntary donation and $8 is suggested.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

GB#19

2008-11-17T23:48:00.003-05:00

Please forward widely to all who might be interested in literature in Niagara....

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The Grey Borders Reading Series is proud to announce GB#19.

Please join us for a very special evening of literature:

Tuesday 25 November 2008, doors open at 7:30 pm

David Seymour
Karen Solie
Paul Dutton

Location: The Niagara Artists' Centre, 354 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines
Time: Doors open at 7:30 pm, readings begin shortly thereafter
Cost: no cover, donations encouraged
Other details: This is a licensed event by the LCBO

More details here: greyborders.blogspot.com

************************************************************************

Full bios:

David Seymour was born in Campbellton, New Brunswick and was raised beside the Niagara Escarpment in Milton, Ontario. In the past twelve years he has lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Leith, Scotland, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Toronto, Ontario, and Rosarito Beach, Mexico. During that time he has worked as a security guard, built in-ground pools, travelled through Europe, dish-pigged, acquired two academic degrees, lectured and led tutorials for English survey courses, taught a creative writing workshop, worked as a video store clerk, a book store clerk, proofread, was a staff writer and editorial coordinator for a magazine company, freelanced as a writer, played an extra, photo-doubled for Russell Crowe, learned to set sails on a tall ship, and worked as the production assistant for a casting director on numerous films. He currently lives in Toronto.
http://www.brickbooks.ca/?page_id=3&bookid=63
http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/seymour.htm

Karen Solie's first book of poetry, Short Haul Engine (2001), won the 2002 DOROTHY LIVESAY Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Gerald Lampert Award, and the ReLit Award. One reviewer observed that her title functioned well as a comment on the lyric poem itself. However, the title more obviously alludes to the book's dominant imagery of engines, trucks, and cars, including their function and symbolism in the endless open distances of the Canadian prairies. Though these are lyric poems, they more often evade sentiment and nostalgia through images that are precise and mechanical.

Karen Solie's second book of poetry, Modern and Normal (2001), was shortlisted for the 2006 Trillium Book Award and longlisted for the ReLit Award. She has confessed to being interested in how language often "gives itself away," how seemingly innocent language can resonate with dark, psychological innuendo. From this interest, Solie includes six examples of "found poetry" taken directly from such sources as a bibliography from the British Columbia Provincial Museum, to math text-books, to the writing on beer cans on Air Canada flights. Other poems contain sketches of narratives or snippets of suggestive overheard conversations from a diverse range of settings across the continent. Modern and Normal presents a contemporary version of the lyric that evades the maudlin by presenting tightly-composed and wickedly wry snapshots of the strangeness of contemporary life in North America.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010516
http://www.brickbooks.ca/?page_id=5&authorid=100

Paul Dutton is a poet, novelist, essayist, and oral sound artist who is
internationally renowned for both his literary and musical performances.
Throughout the last four decades he has published, recorded, and performed
his work in various contexts, solo and collaborative, in print and film, on
TV, radio, and the Web. He has taken his art to festivals, clubs, concert
halls, and classrooms throughout Canada and across the United States,
Europe, and South America.
Dutton¹s artistic focus continues to be the
exploration of consciousness and perception through the creation of
multisensory works, employing written poetry and prose, visual poetry, and
the sonic dimensions of language and oral expression.
He was a member of the
legendary Four Horsemen sound poetry quartet (19701988), along with Rafael
Barreto-Rivera, Steve McCaffery, and the late bpNichol. He joins his
soundsinging oralities to John Oswald¹s alto sax and Michael Snow¹s piano
and synthesizer in the free-improvisation band CCMC (1989 to the present).
He recently formed Quintet à Bras in company with two French poets and two
French instrumentalists. The most recent of his six books is a novel,
Several Women Dancing (Mercury Press, 2002). The latest of his five solo
recordings is the CD Oralizations (DAME Records, 2005).
http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/dutton_pa/
http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/dutton.htm

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mailing list **

--
Gregory Betts
Curator
greyborders.blogspot.com

The spectacle of life is always new because the spectators are always
new -- Goethe

Images from Grey Borders

2008-11-11T11:17:00.002-05:00

Aaron Giovannone and Terry Trowbridge

Umm... wine?

David McFadden

Catherine Owen

Jason Heroux

The Buffalo Invasion: Grey Borders #18

2008-10-21T19:43:00.001-04:00

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The Grey Borders Reading Series is proud to announce...

The Buffalo Invasion: Grey Borders #18

Please join us for a very special evening of literature:

Tuesday 28 October 2008, doors open at 7:30 pm

The Buffalo Invaders include:
Alessandro Porco
Lisa Forrest
Andrea Strudensky
and Geoffrey Hlibchuk.

Location: The Niagara Artists' Centre, 354 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines
Time: Doors open at 7:30 pm, readings begin shortly thereafter
Cost: no cover, donations encouraged
Other details: This is a licensed event by the LCBO

************************************************************************

Full bios:
Alessandro Porco is a poet, critic, and scholar. His most recent collection of poetry is Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems (ECW Press, 2008). He is also the author of The Jill Kelly Poems (ECW Press, 2005). Currently, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Porco is completing a dissertation on the subject of hip-hop poetics. His monthly hip-hop column, “In Extremis,” is available at Maisonneuve Magazine Online (www.maisonneuve.org).

Originally from Montreal, Andrea Strudensky is currently living in Buffalo studying poetry.

Born in the small town of Cottonwood, MN, Lisa Forrest has made many stops along the way to her current home of Buffalo, NY. After a hitch in the Army studying Counter Intelligence and eight years as an Occupational Therapist, Lisa found she was much more interested in deciphering verse and rehabilitating her own sentences than anything else. She's currently a Senior Assistant Librarian for SUNY College at Buffalo and the founding member of the school's Rooftop Poetry Club. A 2007 Pushcart prize nominee, Lisa's poetry has appeared in a variety of local and national publications, including Artvoice, Buffalo News, eco-poetics, foursquare, Lake Affect, Not Just Air Literary eJournal, and WordWrights. Lisa's scholarly work has been published in American Libraries magazine and Urban Library Journal, and her essays have been featured on WBFO, Buffalo's local National Public Radio station. Lisa's first collection of poems, To the Eaves, is available now from BlazeVox Books.

Geoffrey Hlibchuk recently graduated from SUNY Buffalo where he studied poetics, and currently lives in Toronto, Canada. His work has appeared in PRICIPICe, Queen Street Quarterly, and Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry; and critical articles have recently been published in Studies in Canadian Literature, and Open Letter. His new collection of poems—Variations on Hölderlin—recently won the 2008 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and is forthcoming from Snare Books in Fall 2008.

Grey Borders #17 -- Wednesday at Strega

2008-10-11T17:36:00.001-04:00

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The Grey Borders Reading Series is proud to announce the second event of
the Fall season...

Please join us for a very special evening of literature:

Grey Borders #17
Wednesday 15 October 2008, gather at 7:30 pm and the reading starts at 8:00pm

Readers include:
David McFadden
Jason Heroux
Alice Burdick

Location: Strega Cafe, 19 King Street, St. Catharines -- www.strega.ca
Cost: PWYC, donations for artists and PRECIPICe encouraged
Other details: Strega now has Bring Your Own Bottle ($5 corkage)!

Send an email to gregory.betts [at] brocku.ca to receive announcements
about upcoming readings.

************************************************************************

Full bios:
David W. McFadden has published over twenty books of poetry and prose, including Gypsy Guitar, nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 1987 and The Art of Darkness, nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 1984. He lives in Toronto.

Alice Burdick has been involved with the small press community in Canada since the early 1990's, when she was co-editor, with Victor Coleman, of The Eternal Network. This very small ongoing imprint produced chapbooks, including several of her own works, such as Signs Like This, Fun Venue, and Voice of Interpreter. Her work has been published by other small presses in Canada, including: Proper Tales Press (a Time, My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush); Letters Press (Covered); and BookThug (The Human About Us). It also has appeared in various magazines, such as Dig, What!magazine, subTerrain, fhole, This Magazine, and Who Torched Rancho Diablo?. From 1992-1995, Alice was assistant coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair. She has also done numerous readings over the years in many different venues, including the Ottawa International Writers Festival, The Scream in High Park in Toronto, and the Halifax Word on the Street.

In his debut collection, Jason Heroux describes the atmosphere of a world that is both realistic and bizarre. His simple, clear poems capture the strange and mysterious absurdity of everyday life. The world becomes a place where shadows are kept in jars, where a frightened spoon begs for its life, and a man falls in love with the contents of his briefcase. Paradoxically, it is also a place where everything feels oddly at home, with "clear-headed raindrops rushing full speed into this one and only world." A poet of keen observation and unusual imagery, Jason Heroux writes spare, haunting poems that exist in the intersection of reality and dreams.

Grey Borders #17 and #18 -- Upcoming!

2008-10-02T16:17:00.001-04:00

Wednesday 15 October 2008: Grey Borders Readings Series #17 is proud to present David McFadden, Jason Heroux, and Alice Burdick. Gather at 7:30 pm and the reading begins at 8:00 pm at Strega Cafe, 19 King Street in St. Catharines. No cover. Licenced by the LCBO. Come join us for a very special literary evening of world class poetry and prose. www.greyborders.blogspot.com

Tuesday 28 October 2008: Grey Borders Reading Series #18 is proud to present The Buffalo Invasion: Alessandro Porco, Lisa Forrest, Andrea Strudensky, and Geoffrey Hlibchuk. Gather at 7:30 pm and the reading begins at 8:00 pm at The Niagara Artists' Centre, 354 St. Paul Street in St. Catharines. No cover. Licenced by the LCBO. Come join us for a very special literary evening of world class poetry and prose. www.greyborders.blogspot.com

David W. McFadden has published over twenty books of poetry and prose, including Gypsy Guitar, nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 1987 and The Art of Darkness, nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 1984. He lives in Toronto.

Alice Burdick has been involved with the small press community in Canada since the early 1990's, when she was co-editor, with Victor Coleman, of The Eternal Network. This very small ongoing imprint produced chapbooks, including several of her own works, such as Signs Like This, Fun Venue, and Voice of Interpreter. Her work has been published by other small presses in Canada, including: Proper Tales Press (a Time, My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush); Letters Press (Covered); and BookThug (The Human About Us). It also has appeared in various magazines, such as Dig, What!magazine, subTerrain, fhole, This Magazine, and Who Torched Rancho Diablo?. From 1992-1995, Alice was assistant coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair. She has also done numerous readings over the years in many different venues, including the Ottawa International Writers Festival, The Scream in High Park in Toronto, and the Halifax Word on the Street.

In his debut collection, Jason Heroux describes the atmosphere of a world that is both realistic and bizarre. His simple, clear poems capture the strange and mysterious absurdity of everyday life. The world becomes a place where shadows are kept in jars, where a frightened spoon begs for its life, and a man falls in love with the contents of his briefcase. Paradoxically, it is also a place where everything feels oddly at home, with "clear-headed raindrops rushing full speed into this one and only world." A poet of keen observation and unusual imagery, Jason Heroux writes spare, haunting poems that exist in the intersection of reality and dreams.

Alessandro Porco is a poet, critic, and scholar. His most recent collection of poetry is Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems (ECW Press, 2008). He is also the author of The Jill Kelly Poems (ECW Press, 2005). Currently, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Porco is completing a dissertation on the subject of hip-hop poetics. His monthly hip-hop column, “In Extremis,” is available at Maisonneuve Magazine Online (www.maisonneuve.org).

Originally from Montreal, Andrea Strudensky is currently living in Buffalo studying poetry.

Born in the small town of Cottonwood, MN, Lisa Forrest has made many stops along the way to her current home of Buffalo, NY. After a hitch in the Army studying Counter Intelligence and eight years as an Occupational Therapist, Lisa found she was much more interested in deciphering verse and rehabilitating her own sentences than anything else. She's currently a Senior Assistant Librarian for SUNY College at Buffalo and the founding member of the school's Rooftop Poetry Club. A 2007 Pushcart prize nominee, Lisa's poetry has appeared in a variety of local and national publications, including Artvoice, Buffalo News, eco-poetics, foursquare, Lake Affect, Not Just Air Literary eJournal, and WordWrights. Lisa's scholarly work has been published in American Libraries magazine and Urban Library Journal, and her essays have been featured on WBFO, Buffalo's local National Public Radio station. Lisa's first collection of poems, To the Eaves, is available now from BlazeVox Books.

Geoffrey Hlibchuk recently graduated from SUNY Buffalo where he studied poetics, and currently lives in Toronto, Canada. His work has appeared in PRICIPICe, Queen Street Quarterly, and Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry; and critical articles have recently been published in Studies in Canadian Literature, and Open Letter. His new collection of poems—Variations on Hölderlin—recently won the 2008 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and is forthcoming from Snare Books in Fall 2008.

2008-09-26T15:27:00.002-04:00

Just some links:
A review of derek beaulieu's Flatland

The Canadian Portal

A brief review by The Talons of the Octopus

A brief review by Drippy

PRECIPICe Launch -- Featuring Roo Borson, Joanne Page, and Douglas Smith

2008-09-02T11:58:00.002-04:00

Click on image to see full size. Print image and distribute widely -- free!

2008-08-13T22:15:00.006-04:00

Audio Files of Grey Borders Reading Series
5 June 2008

Recorded by Adam Richards

Click on link and either hit play or download.

Gregory Betts and Gary Barwin

Canadu
Niagara (Orig. by Ersnt Jandl)
Chora

Adeena Karasick

intro.html
Amuse_Bouche
Amuse_Bouche_2
Christian_Bok
for_bill_bissett

Jaap Blonk

Intro_to_Jaap
Hugo_Ball
Letter_Sound_Images
Rottig
Are_You_Listening
Lets_go_out
The_Fury_of_Sneezes__Schwitters
Ursonate
Artaud_and_Rottig
Cheek_Synthesizer

Encore: BeBop

The Grey Borders Reading Series presents

2008-08-08T09:03:00.001-04:00

Kid 4 by Ernest Harris Jr, on the cover of the upcoming PRECIPICe

The Launch of PRECIPICe 16.1

Tuesday 30 September
Doors Open 7:30
Niagara Artists' Centre, 354 St. Paul Street

Come join us for an evening of literature, prizes, art, and more.

To help us celebrate the new issue, there will be featured readings by

Roo Boorson
Winner of the Griffin Prize and the Governor-General's Award

Joanne Page
Reading from her new book Watermarks

and Douglas Burnet Smith
Reading from his new book Sister Prometheus: Discovering Marie Curie

Jaap Blonk, Adeena Karasick, Gary Barwin, and Gregory Betts

2008-07-24T20:37:00.004-04:00

Some images from the last Grey Borders. I have audio files, which I'll post as soon as I figure out how to get them online.

Adeena Karasick

Gregory Betts and Gary Barwin

Jaap Blonk in Niagara

Jaap Blonk

2008-06-04T16:14:00.001-04:00

Click on image for greater clarity...

2008-06-04T16:05:00.003-04:00

Some images from the last Grey Borders, back on 10 April at the Niagara Artist's Centre

Adam Getty

Stan Dragland

Domenico Capilongo

Keith Inman and partner

Aaron Giovannone, having a quiet moment reading after the reading

The Grey Borders Reading Series presents

2008-05-21T15:45:00.002-04:00

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The Grey Borders Reading Series presents

a very special evening of theatrical, performative, political, and revolutionary readings featuring an allstar international cast:

Jaap Blonk (Netherlands)
Adeena Karasick (New York)
Gary Barwin and Gregory Betts (Hamilton and St. Catharines)

No cover, donations encouraged. Doors open at 7:30. Performances start at 8:00 sharp.

Please join us for a very special literary evening at St. Catharines' centre of avant-garde activity, Niagara Artists' Centre.

Niagara Artists' Centre
354 St.Paul Street
St.Catharines, ON L2R 3N2
905.641.0331 www.nac.org
www.greyborders.blogspot.com

For more on Jaap Blonk: http://www.jaapblonk.com/
For more on Adeena Karasick: http://www.adeenakarasick.com/
For more on Gary Barwin: http://hsclink.hillstrath.on.ca/~barwinga/
For more on Gregory Betts: ask him why he doesn't have a website

**********************************************

We gratefully acknowledge the following for their support of this event: The Royal Netherlands Embassy, The League of Canadian Poets.

Grey Borders Reading Series presents...

2008-04-09T15:08:00.002-04:00

The Launch of PRECIPICe 15.2

The PRECIPICe launch is imminent, and unlike the February reading, the new issue of the magazine will be an immanent part of the festivities. Please join us here in St. Catharines for a literary evening to mark the end of terminal winter and the beginning of the zephyral spring. **************************************************************** You are invited to the launch of PRECIPICe 15.2 including new writing by Richard Kostelanetz, Jay MillAr, Maureen Hynes, Kate Eichhorn, Stephen Cain, Camille Martin, derek beaulieu, and morewww.brocku.ca/precipicePlease join us for a reception to celebrate the launch of the new issue on Thursday 10 April 2008 at 7:00pm. It will be an evening of readings and stories from a diverse selection of some of Canada's best contemporary writers in print and in person. Featured authors reading at the event include: Adam Getty, Keith Inman, Elizabeth Woods, Stan Dragland, and Domenico Capilongo. Where: The Niagara Artists' Centre: 354 St. Paul Street in Downtown St. Catharines (905) 641.0331 When: Thursday 10 April 2008 at 7:00pm Cost: None or by donation if you are feeling generous*****************************************************************

The Great Canadian Surreal Beaver Ball

2008-03-21T14:55:00.009-04:00

Keri Cronin (photo courtesy Clelia Scala)

Lisa Betts (photo courtesy Clelia Scala)

The Virgin Mary meets filthy lucre -- Organizer and saint Linda Steer

On Wednesday 5 March 2008, in downtown St. Catharines, deep in the throes of a snowstorm, approximately 200 people gathered to celebrate the launch of the Beaver Ball art project and hear readings by Ray Ellenwood, Beatriz Hausner, and Stuart Ross. The event was organized to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Refus Global, the influential manifesto of les Automatists of Montreal, the avant-garde forerunners of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

With support coming from all manner of folk -- from the academic community through Brock University, the English, Visual Arts, Art History, and Drama departments, the Faculty of Humanities, and the HRI; from the corporate community through the Northern Beaver Corp and Niagara's Best beer; and from the art community through the Niagara Artists Centre and local theatre troupe Suitcase in Point (who produced an original representation of Claude Gauvreau's "In the heart of the bulrushes" for the event) -- the event brought together all manner of folks. All reports have come back positive, with lots of lovely stories about people's personal experiences with the evening.

Some photos from the event are included below:

Lisa Betts

Aaron Giovannone and Adam Dickinson

Volunteers Kate Siklosi and Sarah Purdy

Ray Ellenwood

Organizer and Queen of the Beaver Balls, Catherine Heard

Beatriz Hausner

Stuart Ross

Lisa Betts (sporting an original Clelia Scala mask)

The Others Raisd in Me

2008-03-11T16:23:00.003-04:00

A new chapbook -- from Trainwreck Press out in Newfoundland!

I've also got some poems up here.

2008-02-19T20:31:00.001-05:00

The Great Canadian Surreal Beaver Ball
Refuse Locale: An Evening of Surrealism in St. Catharines

Join us on Wed., Mar. 5, 2008, for a very special evening celebrating the ongoing legacy of surrealism in Canada at the Niagara Artists' Centre at 7 p.m.

Featuring readings by contemporary surrealist poets Stuart Ross and Beatriz Hausner, and acclaimed Automatist scholar Ray Ellenwood reading from his recent translation of Thérèse Renaud's /The Sands of Dream/ (the first book of Canadian surrealist poetry), the evening will also include surrealist games, films, art, and activities.

The evening will see the launch of the Great Canadian Beaver Balls Multiples installation. Great Canadian Beaver Balls is an exhibition of 1600 artist multiples created by 120 Brock University students from five different classes, representing three disciplines in the Humanities department: English, Art History and Studio Art. Encapsulated in plastic balls and sold from a classic Northern Beaver Vending machine, artworks include: miniature bookworks, temporary tattoos of concrete poetry and sculptural explorations in a wide range of media. Beaver Balls will be available from vending machines for $2 each during gallery hours. The Multiples exhibit will run at the NAC until Mar. 15, 2008. Visit NAC's website for gallery hours at www.nac.org

To cap off the evening, theatre company Suitcase in Point will present an original interpretation of Claude Gauvreau's remarkable "In the Heart of the Bulrushes."

Join us for an evening of Canadian Surrealism on Wed., Mar. 5, 2008 at 7 p.m. at the Niagara Artists’ Centre, 354 St. Paul St., St. Catharines, ON. Tickets available at the door: $8 adults | $5 students/seniors/artists.

For more information or to set up interviews contact:
Marie Balsom, School of Fine and Performing Arts,
T: 905-688-5550, ext. 4765 | E: mbalsom@brocku.ca | W: www.brocku.ca/finearts

Howling at the Moon

2008-02-12T00:21:00.000-05:00

Filmed by Lisa Betts at Strega Cafe, this piece was inspired by Claude Gauvreau's "Jappement a la lune."

4 February 2008

A Divine Night without PRECIPICe

2008-02-09T15:19:00.002-05:00

Some photos from the 8 February 2008 reading, which was, ostensibly, the launch of the next issue of PRECIPICe. The reading featured four authors in the next issue. The books, however, are as of yet en route, somewhere between Winnipeg and St. Cats.

Geoffrey Hlibchuk

Hlibchuk on Adorno's life in Hell

Stephen Cain -- for some reason, no reason, there are no pictures of Stephen from this event. He put on a fantastic show, which probably locked our humble photographer in his tracks. In any event, this photo was taken by John W. MacDonald back in 2005. Check out John's website for a wealth of excellent literary photos.

Camille Martin

Aaron Giovannone

The after-hours scene at Strega

Divine Italian Poetry this Friday

2008-02-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

from http://www.pulseniagara.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3750

Divine Italian Poetry

Local Poet Aaron Giovannone sipped on San Pellegrino as he explained how he came to write the collection, Little Italies, which he will read from this Friday at Strega Café as part of the Grey Borders Series. “It’s about finding the Italian in everyday,” Aaron says, amused for realizing both his beverage and choice of meeting place to further illustrate the theme of his new collection.

“I was looking for places where Italian erupts in everyday language, literature and culture. I would go to places like Starbucks and realized I see Italian everywhere: in hip–hop, movies and television.” Shuffling through his manuscript, Aaron pulls out a photocopied receipt that serves as a clever example of his conceptual poetry.

“It was a horribly depressing day outside and I was trying to figure out where I’d end up,” Aaron elaborates, “I ended up at Wal–Mart.”

Inspired somewhere between the greeter and the dark abyss, he created a type of poem called a terza rima out of arranging the shortened Italian names assigned to certain items on the receipt. Portfolia, Bon Jovi, umbrella all neatly displayed down the left column. “A terza rima for $61.15,” Aaron laughs. “It was actually less. I returned the portfolio and the Bon Jovi CD.”

For those of us who are unfamiliar with the term, terza rima is an Italian stanzic form of poetry used by Dante in his Divina Commedia. Aaron worked in this fixed form, using Italian words that are common in English. His poems are riddled with pop culture references: Godfather or Rocky clichés, Tony Danza and singing chefs. He is playing with language and our common usage as a way to create critical distance. “It’s a fun form to work in, I suppose, because I invented it.”

Influenced by the avant–garde, Aaron’s poetry is both innovative and fun. “I think it’s important that the work is accessible to people who just like poetry. You don’t need a graduate degree to enjoy it.”
Aaron does, in fact, hold a graduate degree from the University of Calgary and plans to further his studies in poetry. He currently teaches at Brock University in St. Catharines alongside the poetry series coordinator, Professor Gregory Betts.

“Greg has made Grey Borders one of the best things going for literature in St. Catharines,” Aaron says. Obtaining funding through the Canada Council for the Arts, Betts has been able to more fully develop Grey Borders as a showcase of professional talent. Indeed, Betts has been able to attract some impressive poets to the area such as Alberta Literature Prize recipient Shane Roads [sic] and the darling of the 1960s avant–garde movement, Bill Bissett. The University has attracted its own, with Professors Adam Dickinson and Tim Conley reading their work in the series as well. “I’ve lived in Montreal and Calgary and never thought that I’d be involved in a lit scene here,” Aaron says. “And now, I am.” P

[ANABELLE LEE]

Aaron Giovannone
w/Geoffrey Hlibchuk, Camille Martin, Sharon Harris [read: Stephen Cain]
@ Strega Cafe
19 King St. St. Catharines
Friday, February 8. 7:30pm
greyborders.blogspot.com

2008-02-06T23:18:00.000-05:00