The Canada Council Poetry Reading Series
How "real live poets" come to read at Redeemer!
Did you know that many well-established and rising stars from all across Canada come to read their work at Redeemer?
Thanks mainly to an annual grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and in collaboration with the Hamilton Poetry Centre, we’ve had the honour over the last six years of hosting a number of Canadian poets. Several of the poets have been winners of the Governor General's Award for Poetry; all of them have won various other poetry awards across Canada.
Upcoming Poetry Readings for 2011-2012
September 29, 2011
Steve McOrmond
October 20, 2011
Lorna Crozier
November 24, 2011
Richard Greene
January 26, 2012
Terry Ann Carter
March 29, 2012
Phil Hall
It is a great privilege for us to host these poets, most of whom our students have previously met only as names in books. Meeting these people "in the flesh" and finding out from the writers’ own lips about their working style, their influences, their hopes, and their struggles has been enormously exciting and encouraging, not least to our Creative Writing students.
These poets have typically come on a Thursday afternoon, given a reading of their poetry, signed their books, and interacted in question-and-answer sessions with students, professors, and others from the community. Some of the visiting poets have been extremely helpful in providing links to publishers, graduate programs, and other reading series, and even in offering advice on an individual basis to budding poets at Redeemer.
These readings have sometimes been attached to a senior-level course in the English Department (e.g. ENG 425, Studies in Canadian Literature). Sometimes students from first- to third-year have been asked to report on the readings as part of a course assignment.
We very much hope that this series will continue as a fruitful partnership with HPC and the Canada Council for years to come!