Poets Don McKay and Stevie Howell to read as part of UNB Saint John s Lorenzo Reading Series
Author: Communications
Posted on Sep 22, 2014
Category: UNB Saint John
Poets Don McKay and Stevie Howell will read from, Angular Unconformity: The Collected Poems and ^^^^^^ [Sharps], respectively on Thursday, October 2 at 7 p.m. in the Ganong Hall Lecture Theatre on the Saint John campus.
Don McKay
After more than 40 years of writing, editing, teaching and publishing, Don McKay is one of Canada’s most significant contemporary poets. He has won two Governor General’s Awards, a Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Order of Canada, among a plethora of other awards and accomplishments.
His poetry joins philosophical musings with scientific observations to offer insights through the delicate interplay of humans and nature. Angular Unconformity is a major retrospective that draws on McKay’s 10 previously published books of poetry together with a selection of new work. It includes poems from Long Sault (1975), Lependu (1978), Birding, or Desire (1983), Sanding Down This Rocking Chair on a Windy Night (1987), Night Field (1991), Apparatus (1997), Another Gravity (2000), Strike/Slip (2006), The Muskwa Assemblage (2008), and Paradoxides (2012). The almost 600 page tome concludes with a witty insightful Afterword, in which McKay shares insights into his personal philosophy and poetic inspirations.
Stevie Howell
Stevie Howell has released two chapbooks, Royal and Ringsend, and a pamphlet called Looting the Museum. Her poetry has appeared in Descant, Eighteen Bridges, Hazlitt, Maisonneuve, The Walrus, and numerous other journals and periodicals. She was a finalist for the 2013 Montreal International Poetry Prize and for the 2012 Walrus Poetry Prize, and was long-listed for the 2013 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize.
Her literary criticism has been published in The Globe & Mail, National Post, Ploughshares (US), The Rumpus (US) and Quill & Quire. In 2013, she won the Arc Poetry Journal Critic’s Desk Award for Brief Review.
Stevie Howell owned a small-town bookstore in her 20s; she now studies neuropsychology and works as an editor. Her new book ^^^^^^ [Sharps] is named for an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph that was used interchangeably to represent “waters,” the letter N, and all prepositions in a sentence; it is the most common symbol on the Rosetta Stone. Due to the somewhat problematic title, the book is referred to as [Sharps].
The reading is hosted by the Lorenzo Reading Series and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.
For more information contact Alison Hughes at (506) 654-3753 or email aehughes@unb.ca.