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Last Updated: Apr 13th, 2012 - 14:30:08 |
Essays
Anne Cimon: Irving Layton: Healing Force
In an interview reprinted in the non-fiction book Taking Sides, Irving Layton spoke of the element of surprise in poetry which underlines author and therapist John Fox's statement that surprise is part of the healing quality of the art form.
Jan 25, 2012, 08:13
Essays
Introduction to Balls For A One-Armed Juggler
Today, poets must teach themselves to imagine the worst. To apprehend the enormity of the filth, irrationality, and evil that washes in on us from the four corners of the earth, they must have the severity to descend from one level of foulness to another and learn what the greatest of them had always known: there is, of course, no bottom, no end.
Jan 17, 2012, 22:22
Essays
Introduction to Fornalutx
Fornalutx is Irving Layton's last collection of poems published in 1992. This a retrospective collection of the poems of Irving Layton.
Jan 17, 2012, 09:14
Essays
Revisiting the Crown of Literature
Poets are not readily recognized at galas and award ceremonies; their works are not featured in newspapers or discussed at book clubs. Rarely are they studied in depth in high school. In Canada, the media further exacerbates the problem by giving the winners of fiction prizes top billing over those who write in other genres.
Mar 15, 2011, 21:10
Essays
Anne Cimon: Treasures from the Poetic Store (tribute to Sonja Skarstedt)
As a poet, Sonja Skarstedt was present, open to the now in the material world that she observed so minutely. She recorded people, places and things in a rhythmic style, a knowingness of where she was. Joy and good humour in her poetry gave a lift to the reader.
Jul 28, 2010, 05:18
Essays
Stephen Morrissey: A Poet's Journey
My test of poetry has always been when hearing or reading someone else’s poems, am I moved to want to write a poem of my own? If I am, then the poem is a source of inspiration for me. Inspiration means that the poem is inspiring, it breathes Spirit into the reader. The experience of writing poems is life affirming and it is always exciting to begin writing a new poem.
Jul 28, 2010, 05:18
Essays
Louis Dudek: The Role of Little Magazines in Canada
The little magazine is a recognizable and peculiar phenomenon associated with the growth of the modern poetry movement in this century. In Canada, this type of magazine can be said to have appeared only after 1940, although a number of forerunners having some claim to be ranked as little magazines appeared earlier. It is with the period after 1940 that the kind of literary activity and movement‑poetry that had arisen in England just before World War I and in America during the 1920s began to flourish in Canada.
Jul 28, 2010, 05:17
Essays
Louis Dudek: Canada’s “Ideogram of Reality
In the final analysis, it is lucidity and concreteness that most readily manifest themselves in Dudek’s work, hence my subtitle, “Ideogram of Reality,” a phrase which comes from his essay “T. S. Eliot.” Finally, to capture both the range and immediacy of Dudek’s thought, I have sprinkled the interview with quotations from a few of his many books of poetry and criticism.
Jul 28, 2010, 05:17
Essays
Louis Dudek: The Ego in History
The Egyptians in their mythology had a visual organ, an Eye, moving about the universe: so that the Eye of God, however you spell it, comes before the “I” of man. In fact, it is some time before the individual poet and artist learns to say “I”.
Jul 28, 2010, 05:17
Essays
Louis Dudek: Functional Poetry
Tell em to open their mouths, you want to see their back teeth, their tonsils. Tell em to say AHHHH. Most Canadian poetry is written with the mouth closed. Ask them to write again when they think they’ve said something straight from the shoulder, no monkey business. Goddamm decoration. All icing and no cake. All cake and no meat. We want something to chew into in a poem, not just words.
Jul 28, 2010, 05:17
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