September is Pop-Up Poetry Month!
Poetry Gabriola is proud to announce
POP-UP POETRY: FOUR FABULOUS SHOWS!!
Monday, September 1st - IAN FERRIER - it was a full house!
Friday, September 19th – EVALYN PARRY with BILLEH NICKERSON
Saturday, September 20th – SUSAN MUSGRAVE & STEPHEN REID
Saturday, September 27th – JEM ROLLS
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH: FROM TORONTO - EVALYN PARRY: SPIN WITH BILLEH NICKERSON
On Friday, September 19th, the innovative and award-winning Toronto artist EVALYN PARRY takes her audience on an uncommon theatrical and musical journey in SPIN, her tour-de-force performance celebrating the bicycle as muse, musical instrument, and agent of social change.
Inspired in part by the incredible true tale of Annie Londonderry – the first woman to ride around the world on a bicycle in 1894 – Parry spins a web of stories which travel from 19th century women’s emancipation to 21st century consumer culture, peeling back layers of history to ultimately reveal a profoundly contemporary and personal heart to her theme of liberation.
Parry’s co-star is a vintage bicycle: suspended in a mechanic’s stand on stage, and outfitted with electronic pick-ups, the bike is played by percussionist Brad Hart, who conjures an astonishing array of sounds on his “iron horse”, creating a richly textured and utterly unique sonic accompaniment to Parry’s songs and monologues. Learn more about Evalyn and SPIN at www.evalynparry.com .
“PART THEATRE, PART MUSICAL GIG, PART SPOKEN-WORD POETRY AND PART DOCUMENTARY…WHATEVER IT IS, IT IS BRILLIANT.” (SPIN – TORONTO STAR)
Opening for SPIN is Vancouver poet and humorist, BILLEH NICKERSON. Author of The Asthmatic Glassblower, McPoems, and Impact: The Titanic Poems and Artificial Cherry, Billeh is a poignant and hilarious performer. He is co-editor of Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets, a silver medalist at the Canadian Gay Curling Championships, and chair of the Creative Writing Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Learn about Billeh at www.billeh.com
SPIN by Evalyn Parry, with Billeh Nickerson
At the Gabriola Golf Club, 825 South Rd
7:00pm. Show is 70 minutes.
Tickets $15 at the door, or online at artsgabriola.ca, or call 247-0117
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH: FROM HAIDA GWAII - SUSAN MUSGRAVE AND STEPHEN REID
hold still steve
In this rare appearance, poet - novelist Susan Musgrave and writer- felon Stephen Reid will be reading together. They will also each be hosting a writing workshop on Sunday (space is limited so sign-up early).
When convicted bank robber Stephen Reid won the $5,000 City of Victoria’s Butler Book Prize in 2013 for A Crowbar In The Buddhist Garden, he told his wife, Susan Musgrave, that it was his “best jury decision ever.”
Stephen Reid wrote his first book, Jackrabbit Parole, during a 21-year prison sentence for bank robbery, and married his writing mentor, Susan Musgrave, in Kent Institution in 1986. Upon his release, he worked in the field of restorative justice and was a celebrated writer and creative writing teacher until 1999, when he was sentenced to a further 18 years in prison for a bank robbery in Victoria, after a prolonged bout with heroin and cocaine addiction. He was released on day parole in February, 2014 and is currently working on a second play, Heroin Elvis.
Susan Musgrave has published 30 books and been short-listed four times for the Governor General’s Award, most recently for Origami Dove, a collection of poetry published by McClelland and Stewart. Last year she won the Lush Triumphant Award for a series of poems entitled “The Goodness of this World” about her daughter’s heroin addiction.
In 2012 she won the Spirit Bear Award — a tribute that recognizes the significance of a vital and enduring contribution to the poetry of the Pacific Northwest. “Her artistic presence over the past 40 years has helped create who we are,” wrote Patrick Lane. “She is as important to us as Emily Carr.”
Her latest novel is Given, a sequel to the national bestseller, Cargo of Orchids. She lives on Haida Gwaii, where she owns and manages Copper Beech Guest House, and teaches poetry in UBC’s Optional Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing. Haida Gwaii: Foraging and Feasting at the Edge of the World will be published in the spring of 2015 by Whitecap.
At the Netloft. 1960 Murray Road.
7:00pm.
Tickets $15 at the door, or online at artsgabriola.ca or call 247-0117
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST : WRITING WORKSHOPS BY STEPHEN AND SUSAN
At the Poetry Yurt at the Commons.
WORKSHOP #1: BLURRED BOUNDARIES with Susan Musgrave
The boundaries between genres are blurred these days. Creative writing must keep leaping genre lines, in its search for new sources of energy and inspiration. Certain skills are generally useful whether your interest lies in poetry, journal writing, plays, novels with plot, character and dialogue, or imaginative personal essays. As we explore what it means to work as a poet, a novelist, a writer of children’s stories or creative non-fiction, you may well discover talents you never knew you had.
Objectives: The exercises and writing practice we do in this workshop, and the constructive feedback you will receive, will make you a better, more creative writer, no matter what kind of writing you do.
10:00am. $35. Please register early.
WORKSHOP #2: WRITING TOWARDS THE LIGHT WITH STEPHEN REID
This workshop is a series of exercises designed to get you writing from experience, not about it, and writing about what matters to you.
2:00pm $35 Please register early.
To register, email altogetherlisa@yahoo.ca or call 247-0117. Space is limited.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH: JEM ROLLS
jem rollsOriginally from the UK, performance poet Jem Rolls makes a living solely by shouting. He sells nothing – no books, CDs, ideology or merchandise of any kind. A ranter of the highest order, Jem broke out with his hit poetry cabaret at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1996, hit the Canadian fringe circuit a few years later, and now performs more than 60 shows a year. A self-described nomad, Rolls continues to amuse and amaze from coast to coast with his mesmerizing, high-energy presence and powerful wordplay. He explores the human condition in all its perplexing complexity, in language that ranges from euphonious to nerve-jangling. Jem will be performing some of his classic rants as well excerpts from his latest show, Attacks the Silence.
THANK YOU!
May thanks to the Quebec Writers’ Guild for sponsoring Ian Ferrier’s appearance, and to the League of Canadian Poets for sponsoring Billeh Nickerson’s reading. Also to Brenda Gaertner and the Netloft.
The Pop-Up Poetry Weekend was made possible by local sponsors who contributed to the Poetry Gabriola Fundraising event at the Old Crow on May 3. Poetry Gabriola sincerely thanks everyone who attended and donated to that event, with special thanks to:
The Old Crow
Gulf Islands
Cobb's Bakery
Alexa Boulton and Somerset Farms
Alex Varty
Erin Ok
Kathleen Miniely
New Society Press
Lipstick Press
Gabriola Dance & Pilates
D'Ance Glassworks
The Gabriola Arts Council
Susan Yates
Tuning In Wellness
Tammy Waibel
Mike Richards, Karyokashin Karate
Tim Harrison
Aleks Brozrozwski
The extraordinary CR Avery
… and to all our readers and volunteers (and anyone we may have missed) a very special THANK YOU.
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