Reading/Writing Workshop May-June 2009
Kootenay School of Writing
with Meredith Quartermain
Tics That May Tick You Off: Poetics and Politics
Do politics kill a good poem? Vancouver poets are renowned for their political poetry, yet many argue that politics and poetry can’t mix. Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov famously fought over the issue.
This reading/writing workshop will focus on how Duncan and Levertov and many other poets have negotiated the intersection between poetry and political action. We will read and discuss poetry and statements of poetics by Marie Annharte Baker, William Blake, Robin Blaser, Nicole Brossard, Jeff Derksen, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Rita Wong, and others. We will also spend time responding to writing by participants in the workshop.
We will meet Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 12 noon for 6 weeks from Saturday, May 2 to Saturday, June 13 (Victoria Day Saturday, May 16 we will not meet).
If you are interested in participating, please send your application with 6-8 double-spaced pages of your writing to Meredith Quartermain at mquarter [at] interchange.ubc.ca no later than April 25, 2009.
The course fee is $50.00 (or $20 to $50 if you are strapped) payable to the Kootenay School of Writing on the first day of the workshop (May2). We will limit the number of participants 12.
visit the website of the Kootenay School: http://www.kswnet.org/
Meredith Quartermain’s Vancouver Walking won the 2006 BC Book Awards Poetry Prize. Nightmarker, which continues her work on Vancouver, appeared in 2008 from NeWest, along with Matter from BookThug. Other books include Terms of Sale, A Thousand Mornings and Wanders (with Robin Blaser). Her work has appeared in The Walrus, CV2, Prism International, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, filling Station, Raddle Moon, Canadian Literature and other magazines. With husband Peter Quartermain, she runs Nomados Literary Publishers in Vancouver.