The mission of the Okanagan Institute
is to contribute to
the quality of creative engagement in the Okanagan through publications and events.
» Home
» Events
» Publications
» Collegium
» Poet Laureate
» Culinaria
» ArtsCare
» The Institute
» Contact
Kelowna BC Canada
Telephone 250.870.2690
Email: Click here
Click here to help us improve our programs.
|
|
How to Write a Poem
VERSE, REVERSE AND CONVERSE
» Thursday 8 October 2009 | 5 pm
» The Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue
An informal afternoon hour showcasing ideas
and people in the Okanagan creative economy. Join us as two of the best new emerging writers on the poetry scene - Chris Hutchinson and Kevin McPherson - take us on a journey into the
heartland of a poem, and of their writing practice.
» $2 at the door. Refreshments are available at a modest cost.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
The Secrets of Poetry Revealed
In his book Poetry as Insurgent Art best-selling modern poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti states: "Don't ever believe poetry is irrelevant in dark times". He believes that poetry should be used ahead of the personal and be a political statement. "Your poems must be more than want ads for broken hearts. The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it, by transforming consciousness." In hia Populist Manifesto, Ferlinghetti goes on to write, "Poets, come out of your closets, open your windows, open your doors, you have been holed up too long in your closed worlds ... poetry should transport the public to higher places than other wheels can carry it."
On Thursday, October 8th at 5 pm the ongoing weekly Okanagan Institute Express series at the Bohemian Café presents How to Write a Poem. Join us as two of the best new emerging writers on the poetry scene - Chris Hutchinson and Kevin McPherson - take us on a journey into the heartland of a poem, and of their writing practice.
Poems can be an indicator of the society or time they're written in - as much as newspapers. Confucius taught his disciples: "By poems you can stir people and you can observe things through them; you can express your resentment in them and you can show sociable feelings". Some poets decide to write about general subjects such as nature or love, others prefer to be actors in the life they are living and denunciate the injustices that they encounter. The Irish poet Kevin Higgins, for example, gives a good description of the situation in Darfur, by including quotations from eye-witnesses of the war between his own verses - thus making his poem more visceral and powerful.
There are those who think poetry is irrelevant because it hasn't managed to attract a mass audience. Why should it be required to have one? Nevertheless, Ferlinghetti sold over 1 million copies of his collection A Coney Island of the Mind, and 100,000 copies of the poem Tell me the Truth about Love by W.H. Auden were sold in just one year, thanks to a reading in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. Poetry might not be as "popular" as fiction or other literary forms, but that does not make it irrelevant.
 Chris Hutchinson was born in Montreal and has lived in Victoria, Edmonton, Nelson, Vancouver, and Phoenix, Arizona. He now resides in Kelowna, where he teaches English at Okanagan College. The author of two books - Other People's Lives. Brick Books, 2009 and Unfamiliar Weather. Muses' Company , 2005 - his poems have been translated into Chinese and have appeared in numerous Canadian and U.S. publications. Over the years he has led poetry workshops in college, high school, and elementary school classrooms.
"Like many, I enjoy contemplative, epiphany-seeking poetry. Poetry whose contents and formal properties collude to make art and psychological reality appear as one. A lovely fiction! And I duly appreciate those empirically obsessed practitioners who squeeze their idiom for every last drop of conventional utility while sifting the bric-a-brac of the quotidian world. The mirror held up to nature, whether external or internal, is a wonderful thing! Hamlet thought so. But what of poetry that admits chance? Poetry that eschews a singular perspective to dwell and deal in what Keats famously termed "Negative Capability"? Poetry whose contents rock against rhetorical authority like punk tenants at war with their landlord? Archly playful poetry of malleable architecture where the arrangements and structures of consciousness are teased forth and disturbed, and established tropes, farcically recalibrated?"
 Kevin McPherson (Eckhoff) allegedly wrote a visual poetry collection, rhapsodomancy, and Coach House Books will allegedly publish it this spring. And because he's greedy, kevin has a second book, a collaborative treatment of the King James Bible with Jonathan Ball, supposedly materializing with BookThug sometime before the rapture. His writing appears in various anthologies, chapbooks, and literary rags. Since 2007, he has been telling students at Okanagan College what to do and how to think. Most days he enjoys this. This month he purchased his first home with his delightful partner, Laurel. They used to live with a miniature dachshund, but it died so now they have a chihuahua.
"I haven't and don't normally work this far in advance, be it a guest lecture, a lecture for my own classes, or a eulogy for a dear friend. I can probably promise this, that the talk will focus on experimental forms of poetic composition, such as Oulipian procedures, conceptual processes and computer-motivated methods. I suppose I'll discuss examples from my own practice, works forthcoming and in-progress. Something something about moving past the lyric, the self, into an awareness of language as its own something. Respect! Also, I'll almost definitely be wearing a shirt, in case that helps."
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
How to Write a Poem takes place at the Bohemian Café. This marks the 110th event the Okanagan Institute has held since the Express series got underway in July 2007.
Express has played host to many Okanagan luminaries, including former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, artists Lee Claremont and Gary Pearson, BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, distinguished editor and author Jim Taylor, poet and professor John Lent, animator and filmmaker Jim Cliffe, community activist Don Elzer, dancer David LaHay, architect Jim Meiklejohn, culinary artist and writer Heidi Noble, broadcaster Marion Barschel and others from a wide range of creative fields.
Special Events coming up in November (Click on image for more information.)
  
The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that has gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. We partner with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact.
Our mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. We invite the participation by all members of the creative community.
|
