Margaret Christakos read at AB series from What Stirs as well as a number of her books, including Regreen. You can read The problem of confessionality [here] but to hear her cast it in person was even better. A great presenter and her writing is a good density. The timeslot meant she could read a few ten minute poems which is a treat. You can sit back for a bit. One poem was towards lyric. As she explained, (something like) the membrane of boundaries is always shifting so long as one lives.
Her Influency of cross-matching poets of Influency is already in a spin off. It had me looking at the plausibility of commute…
Next up for the AB Series is Joe Rosenblatt.

It’s already most of a week ago that Barry Dempster did his reading at Tree from is two new books this year… Ivan’s Birches (Pedlar Press, 2009) and Love Outlandish (Brick, 2009). He writes pretty tightly. A high density of skull pings. I like these books better than the one of his I already have, The Burning Alphabet.
Next up for the Tree reading is Erin Moure. Her translation of Chus Pato’s famed m-Tala was released simultaneously in Canada and the UK in spring 2009, and a book of collaborations with poet Oana Avasilichioaei, Expeditions of a Chimæra, will be published in the fall of 2009. Moure’s next solo book of poetry, O Resplandor, will be released in April 2010. The night has two readers…Oana Avasilichioaei, of the Atwater Poetry Project reading series in Montreal. This fall she is the writer-in-residence at Green College, UBC, in Vancouver. Moure and Avasilichioaei will read from Expeditions of a Chimæra (BookThug, 2009), a collaborative book of poems that explores and provokes authorial and translational impossibilities.

For secondary school students in the National Capital Region…
Win $100 in music or books.
Enter the Think Ink Poetry Contest.
To enter send 1 poem no longer than 45 lines and 250 words to think.ink[at]bywords.ca by December 31, 2009.
Winner chooses prize of either an IPOD Shuffle or a $100 Chapters gift certificate.
Runners up receive a $25 ITunes or Chapters gift certificate.
Winners and runners up will
read at the spring 2010 Ottawa International Writers Festival;
be published in the spring issue of the Bywords Quarterly Journal;
receive festival swag bags.
You must be a secondary school student in the National Capital Region to be eligible. You must provide your name, address, school name and address, your telephone number and e-mail address.
Contest judged by the Bywords’ selection committee and sponsored by Bywords and the Ottawa International Writers Festival.
Contact: Amanda Earl, managing editor, Bywords
Tel. 613 868 1364
e-mail: amanda[at]bywords.ca
www.bywords.ca

[via David Silverberg]
The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word is returning on Nov. 10 to 14, touching down in lovely Victoria, B.C.
We encourage you to come on out and support your local slam team, or just come and check out the daytime and evening festivities.
There’s also a last-chance slam on Nov. 10, for anyone to compete to be on the final team in the competition.
Instead of listing all the awesomeness that will be making Victoria THE place to be in November, check out the new CFSW website

The Arts Calendar lists that John Barlow and I will be the AB Series on Dec 11th. Full info here. Oh, and not that haikuist John Barlow, this poet of Exile Editions.

Following Al Purdy’s death in 2001, The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust was formed in order to save the poet’s home in Ameliasburgh, Ontario from the wrecking ball by transforming it into a writer-in-residence retreat. This retreat will offer Canadian authors and critics a secluded, historical setting in which to develop the manuscripts that will shape the next generation of Canadian literature. Towards this end, the After Al Purdy Poetry Contest offers poets the chance to engage textually with the legacy of one of Canada’s most important poets, while also contributing to the fundraising initiative to save the A-frame.
The Contest: We are seeking poems that engage in some direct way with Al Purdy’s poetry, poetics, and/or poetic legacy. There is no limit on the length or number of poems submitted as long as the appropriate entry fees are included. The judges will select the top three poems in each category (see Categories, below). Event, The New Quarterly, and The Antigonish Review will each publish two of the winning poems in 2010. The winners will also receive a selection of titles from Harbour Publishing (including Paul Vermeersch’s forthcoming The Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology) and Freehand Books.
Categories: Entries will be judged under one of two categories: emerging poet or established poet. An established poet is someone who has published a book of poetry (longer than a chapbook), or has one forthcoming with a confirmed publisher.
Contest Fee/Donation: Entry fee is $10/poem, with all monies thus collected going directly to The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust. Further donations to this initiative are welcomed and encouraged. Tax receipts will be issued, upon request, for any submission fee/donation of $50 or more. Cheques and money orders must be made out to The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust.
How To Enter: Send a cover letter identifying under which category your poem(s) is/are to be judged, along with one hard copy of each poem, and the appropriate entry fee ($10/poem) to:
After Al Purdy Poetry Contest, Department of English, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB. T2N 1N4
Please include your contact information, including your name and email address at the top right-hand corner of each submitted poem. Email submissions will not be accepted. Please keep a copy of poem(s) submitted; entries will not be returned.
Contest Closing Date: Entries must be post-marked by Friday, November 13, 2009. Winners will be announced by January 1, 2010, and will have their winning poems published in 2010. Entries will be judged by University of Calgary English Department graduate students and faculty:
Suzette Mayr, Owen Percy, Robyn Read, and Tom Wayman.
Sponsored by the English Department at the University of Calgary, Freehand Books, Harbour Publishing, The Antigonish Review, Event, and The New Quarterly.
Visit After Al Purdy Contest on the web at http://www.english.ucalgary.ca/afteralpurdy
More information on The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust can be found at http://www.alpurdy.ca