::Arc Poetry:: Log Entries - Arc 50 Summer 2003 Archive ::

Press Release: June 10, 2004

Confederation Poets Prize 2004

Given for the best poem published in Arc in the preceding calendar year, the Confederation Poets Prize goes this year to Mark Sinnett for his poem, What Separates Us from the Birds published in Arc 50, Summer 2003. The judge was Gary Geddes.

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posted by Arc on June 10, 2004 permalink
cats: Press Releases | Confederation Poets Prize | Arc 50 Summer 2003 | Arc 52 Summer 2004
tags: Mark Sinnett | poetry

Mark Sinnett

What Separates Us From the Birds

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posted by Arc on June 10, 2004 permalink
cats: Poetry | Confederation Poets Prize | Arc 50 Summer 2003 | Arc 52 Summer 2004
tags: Mark Sinnett | poetry

Press Release: April 21, 2004

2004 Summer Awards

Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry

The 19th Archibald Lampman award goes this year to David O�Meara for his book of poetry, The Vicinity (published by Brick Books). The award is given annually by Arc, Canada’s National Poetry Magazine, for the best book of poetry written in English during the preceding calendar year by a writer living in Ottawa.

Jury members Brian Bartlett of Halifax, Stephanie Bolster of Montreal, and Aislinn Hunter of Vancouver, had this to say about O’Meara’s book:

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John Barton and Rita Donovan

Back to the Future: A Foreword

Arc 50: A Don Coles Special Issue

A magazine and its audience, like any relationship, reaches landmarks in their combined history. After 25 years, Arc now has a larger, more widespread readership than ever before, bringing to that readership exciting work by an increasingly more diverse and accomplished community of emerging and established poets.

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posted by Arc on April 15, 2003 permalink
cats: Arcana | Arc 50 Summer 2003
tags: Don Coles | John Barton | Rita Donovan

Jake Kennedy and Christopher Wiseman

Introductions: Don Coles Special Issue

There is a revealing section in the late Al Purdy’s poem “On My Workroom Wall” in which (amongst cherished photographs of Margaret Laurence and Gabrielle Roy, and a “Xerox of Milosz with cigar looking cynical”) he fondly notes

Don Coles’ poem which says so much about the lost ‘Forests of the Medieval World’ it loses me in places I’ve never been.

Besides implying Don Coles’ natural membership on that wall of literary All-Stars, Purdy’s admiration for the title poem of Don’s Governor-General’s award-winning volume highlights the pressing Colesian paradox: how silent, shadowy landscapes (forests, neighbours’ rinks, steppes) are nevertheless revealed as the most enveloping, human terrains. In their own enthusiastic way, each of the editors, writers, and visual artists gathered here fetes (and marvels at) the absorbing vastnesses of Don’s poetry and translations.

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posted by Arc on April 15, 2003 permalink
cats: Arcana | Arc 50 Summer 2003
tags: Christopher Wiseman | Don Coles | Jake Kennedy

Michael Hulse

Getting to Know Don Coles

My introduction to the poetry of Don Coles came in October 1985, when I made my first visit to Toronto to read at Greg Gatenby’s authors’ festival at Harbourfront. That visit has a special place in my personal memories, for a number of reasons: it was, in fact, my first journey across the Atlantic, because my own travels outside Europe had so far taken me to Asia; it brought my first meeting with the New Zealander Allen Curnow, then in his seventies, whose poetry and friendship were to have a growing significance for me over the years that followed; it also brought me the thrill of an encounter with an exceptional woman—but that is another story. Conscious that my knowledge of Canadian poetry was confined to a Penguin anthology, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, and the very few Canadian books I had reviewed at that date, I decided that one small way to repay the extraordinary hospitality that was extended to me that autumn was to familiarize myself with the better contemporary Canadian poets, and perhaps even find a way to make them better known outside their country than they were; and to that end I asked Robert Billings to take me to a decent bookshop and point me to the six or seven recent books of poetry in Canada that he felt I ought to read. Robert, who tragically took his own life little more than a year later, was a genially melancholy, brush-moustached man who was editing what was then called Poetry Canada Review, and in conversation I had quickly realised that his judgement could be trusted to be reasonable, non-partisan and well-founded. Among the collections he had me buy were Roo Borson’s A Sad Device, Michael Ondaatje’s There’s a Trick with a Knife I’m Learning to do and Phyllis Webb’s Water and Light, all of them abiding favourites on my shelves. Another was The Prinzhorn Collection by Don Coles.

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posted by Arc on April 15, 2003 permalink
cats: Arcana | Arc 50 Summer 2003
tags: Don Coles | Michael Hulse

Don Coles

Proust, My Grandfather (and Eaton's, God Rot Them)

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posted by Arc on April 15, 2003 permalink
cats: Poetry | Arc 50 Summer 2003
tags: Don Coles | poetry

Caroline Adderson

Silver

In 1986 and again in 1991 I had the privilege of being a participant in the May Writing Studio while Don Coles was in residence. Though it was surely above and beyond the call of duty for a poet to attend to a prose writer, Don graciously did. I remember one particular session. I had written: “Poised, he bends low, careful that his shadow does not cross the fishes and disperse them or, blocking light, cause them to lose their silver so they disappear.” After Don got through with it the line read: “Poised, he bends low, careful that his shadow does not cross the fishes and disperse them or, blocking light, unsilver them so they disappear.” Unsilver! The man’s tongue is made of gold.

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posted by Arc on April 15, 2003 permalink
cats: Arcana | Arc 50 Summer 2003
tags: Caroline Adderson | Don Coles