One of Canada's most accomplished poets, Pender Harbour's John Pass, will give a first public reading of a long poem of acceptance and renewal at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt on Sept. 17.
This latest chapbook, nowrite.doc published by Leaf Press in Nanaimo, is available in a limited edition of 100 copies numbered and signed by the poet. Nowrite.doc is a poem written against the inertia of not writing, not feeling. Pass described it as a process that lifts and falls over the course of the millennial summer and autumn (to the rhythm of hot spells/summer rain) into the poet's most direct and moving declaration to date of his first loves: family, place, poetry.
A chapbook can be any collection of poetry under 40 pages, said Pass, but he hopes to present the traditional view of a chapbook that hearkens back to slim volumes of poetry produced at the beginning of the last century, when 20 to 25 poems were standard. In addition to a short reading by Pass, he has invited a newcomer to the Coast to share the stage with him.
Anik See is a writer and small press/letterpress publisher now living in Bargain Harbour. She will give a brief talk on letterpress printing in the digital age. "It adds another dimension to the reading," Pass said.
She will bring some of her own small press publications from Fox Run Press and also those of High Ground Press, run by Pass and Theresa Kishkan. Pass's most recent book, Water Stair (Oolichan Books, 2000), was short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay Award (B.C. Book Prize for Poetry) and for the Governor General's Award. The fourth and last book in a quartet of poetry, Stumbling in the Bloom, is due for release from Oolichan Books in spring of next year.
The public is invited to the reading at 7:30 p.m. at the Arts Centre in Sechelt. A limited number of copies of nowrite.doc will be available at the launch for $10. To reserve a copy, please email your request to [email protected].
