Max introduced Joe Rosenblatt Nov 13th at the at artist-run Gallery 101. (Art in the background is by Roger Crait.) From youtube, here is one poem from the reading.
About 35 attended this AB Series event. Joe Rosenblatt has been publishing poetry for over 40 years. Prof. Alfredo Rizzardi, translator of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.C.Williams and Irving Layton, published his Madre Tentacolare (Tentacled Mother). Rosenblatt had a few copies for sale of his Mental Moonlight, a CD of his poems against the “quirky contrapuntal music” of Anna Baignoche.
Rosenblatt read in part from Dog, the collaborative book of sonnets on dogs with Catherine Owen (Mansfield, 2008) as well as a few other collections and took requests. There was a pattering of chuckles throughout and people and healthy applause. A lot of happy campers. It was interspersed with a lot of anecdotes of the origin of the poems and protest for freedom to read poetry in the park in Toronto, (achieved, sort of, with official permission in advance). Previously only preachers were allowed to do public gatherings in Sunday parks.
The next night, in Quebec, was a collaborative reading with his French translator, Andrée Christensen. This is at the coreading of ‘Parrot Fever / Le perroquet fâcheux’ (Les Editions du Vermillon) at the AB Series Nov 14. (Art in the background is by Isabelle Dubois.)
He expounded, theatrically dramatically in his deep voice then she would read the translations in her musical lilt. He also read from his other works.
Joe Rosenblatt and Andrée Christensen in the Alliance Francaise Gallery where her collage art is on exhibit in November.
She translated to French his book Parrot Fever into Le perroquet fâcheux in 2002 by email correspondance, but this was their first face-to-face meeting.
Vermillon is publishing English Canadian poetry for the French market, including Lorna Crozier, Nadine McInnis and Archibald Lampman.
Andrée Christensen is the recent author of Depuis toujours, j’entendais la mer, her first novel and a Trillium Award finalist. She has published 11 collections of poetry, a narrative history, five literary translations, and five livres d’artiste in collaboration with artists from Ontario and Quebec.