Skip to main content

Nicole Brossard At Foyles Bookshop 31 March

MARCH 31 – NICOLE BROSSARD & TODD SWIFT AT FOYLES BOOKSHOP

Acclaimed Montreal-based poet, novelist and essayist Nicole Brossard will tour the UK and Ireland this spring. In addition to participating in the British Association for Canadian Studies’ annual conference at Oxford University, the author of Mauve Desert and The Aerial Letter will read and sign books in London.

On 31 March, Foyles, the London bookstore, will hold an event entitled 'In Conversation With Nicole Brossard.' The event will be hosted by Montreal anglophone poet Todd Swift -- now living in London -- who will also read from his newest book, Seaway. Two-time Governor General's Award winner Nicole Brossard will read excerpts from her novels and poetry, including Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon and Notebook of Roses and Civilization. Audience members are encouraged to bring their questions for the Q&A session that will follow the readings, and to purchase books for signing. The event will be followed by a book signing session.

IN CONVERSATION WITH NICOLE BROSSARD
with readings by Nicole Brossard and Todd Swift
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Foyles Bookshop, 113 - 119 Charing Cross Road
6:30 p.m.
Free

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".