Ken Babstock Review Draft Re: Wed Apr 5

ken said
he was having trouble breathing (this was at the harbourfront reading).instead of saying WELL KEEP TRYING, really loud like i wanted toi accidentally laughed. and he did too. finally, making an expression other than tortured reading face...he really oughta quit smoking. i think oughta better tell him so...

poemetry lessons:
or, more notes about ken babstock

1. he is an extremely intelligent poet who assumes tremendous knowledge on the part of the reader. (unless you are in his classroom and then you can be as dumb as a stick and he will treat you with respect and simplify complex concepts effectively, without making you feel dumb, indeed making you feel encouraged and/or inspired)

2. despite this aforesaid intense intellectualism, his work manages to have a sensuality to it and often a very auditory pleasure to it also.


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Ken Babstock, Bill Kennedy, Don McKay and Darren Wershler-Henry

Ken Babstock was born in Newfoundland and grew up in the Ottawa Valley. His poems won gold with the 1997 National Magazine Awards. He has also won the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Prize and the Atlantic Poetry Prize. He presents his new collection, Airstream Land Yacht.

Bill Kennedy is the Artistic Director of The Scream Literary Festival, a poetry editor for Coach House Books and organizer of the Lexiconjury Reading Series. He presents Apostrophe, a poignant, banal, offensive, and hilarious new work of experimental poetry co-authored with Darren Wershler-Henry.

Don McKay has won the Governor General's Award and has been shortlisted twice for the Griffin Poetry Prize, most recently for Camber: Selected Poems. He reads from Strike/slip, a new collection exploring the fault line between poetry and landscape.

Darren Wershler-Henry teaches Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and is the author of two books of poetry and The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting. He presents Apostrophe, a poignant, banal, offensive, and hilarious new work of experimental poetry co-authored with Bill Kennedy

***
harbourfront thoughts:

the first day of poetry school i sat down on the steps beside ken, who was nervously smoking. i said "hey teacher. i see i've found the right building. is it okay if i just wait here and follow you into the classroom?"

when i went to hear him read at the iv lounge, i was enjoying ghost world, again. i'd bought it as a gift for kim but was reading it before it went off in the post. i remember not getting much time to read it, because i had beers with his friends karen, kim and the dark haired quirky girl who said i'd look good with a quill pen and almost hired me.

i remember i accidentally said "nice" out in to the pub at the end of poem, just like in school, and he laughed.

***
and, i have always trusted and enjoyed bill kennedy so much too. he is very funny! do they know each other?

the first reading i ever went out to, was when i was first back from arizona. re-braved as happens there, tanned, junkyard bejewled and, sandaled, i went out to the idler pub to hear moe berg read from his story collection.

eventually proprietor dude brought a long haired hooligan to share my table. when i'd agreed he said "this gentleman, he is a very famous poet." and i said "well, what do you think i am?" and bill kennedy laughed, grabbing his chair.

its free? i admit the pages thing sounds more and more intriguing...wrestling? insults?
On Wednesday April 19th, 2006 This Is Not A Reading Series and ECW present: Darren Wershler-Henry & Bill Kennedy, authors of Apostrophe, and Emily Schultz, author of Joyland

http://www.commutiny.net/lexiconjury/