Poetry fests bring stanza bonanza

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This article was published 30/05/2015 (4140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The inaugural Envoi Poetry Festival and Manitoba Poetry Week are scattering poets all over the city this week.

MTYP plays host to Saskatchewan poets today and B.C./Alberta poets Sunday, in addition to two sets of spoken-word performances tonight at 7 and 8:30 p.m. Tomorrow night, the action shifts to the West End Cultural Centre, with two sets of readings (at 7 and 9 p.m.) by western Canadian poets, including B.C.’s Susan Musgrave and former Winnipegger Patrick Friesen.

On Monday, the Missing Mennonite Cabaret features Friesen, Di Brandt and poets whose last names read like the Steinbach phone book, at the Yellow Dog Tavern (386 Donald St.) at 8:30 p.m. McNally Robinson hosts a free reading at 7 p.m. with Saskatchewan poet Tracy Hamon, whose collection Red Curls is inspired by Austrian painter Egon Schiele and his mistress/model Valerie Neuzil, plus Manitobans Ariel Gordon and Lauren Carter.

On Tuesday, the Park Theatre hosts a Winnipeg Poetry Slam, Cinematheque shows the poetry film Geography of Words, and Sam’s Place bookstore/café (on Henderson Highway) hosts a free reading with Angeline Schellenberg, Luann Hiebert, Joanne Epp and Brandt at 7:30 p.m.

Winnipegger Méira Cook (see review of her latest novel in this weekend’s books section) launches her new poetry collection, Monologue Dogs, at McNally Robinson Thursday at 7 p.m. and things wrap up Friday with Winnipeg’s Kate Bitney reading at the Millennium Library and the Winnipeg Free Press News Café.

Tickets and festival details are available from envoifound.com.

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A Saskatchewan publisher has picked Manitoba’s Donna Besel as a new author to watch, publishing her debut as part of its Strike Fire new author series.

Besel’s short-story collection, Lessons From a Nude Man, combines comedy, sadness and a vivid description of life in the boreal forest (Besel grew up in the Whiteshell). Six stories were previously published in literary journals, and some won or were runners-up in competitions held by the CBC, Prairie Fire and Toronto’s This Magazine. The collection launches June 5 at McNally Robinson at 7 p.m.

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The story of a music teacher’s music-assisted recovery from severe cognitive impairments won the Inspiration category in the 2015 Indie Awards of Excellence, a U.S.-based competition for self-published works.

Robert McMechin wrote Allison’s Brain with his wife, Allison Woyiwada, to tell the former Manitoban’s story of recovery after 12 hours of brain surgery. Since then, the story has been the focus of a CBC documentary.

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A shocking story of a young life cut short and justice long delayed gets graphic-novel treatment in David Alexander Robertson‘s and Scott B. Henderson‘s Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story.

The novel, to be launched at McNally Robinson June 2 at 7 p.m., focuses on the young woman from Norway House who dreamed of becoming a teacher, but was murdered in 1971 in The Pas while attending high school. It took 16 years for one of the men implicated in her death to be found guilty.

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Ontario literary publisher Inanna Publications brings two of its authors to McNally Robinson June 2 at 7:30 p.m to launch explorations of the lives of women and families.

Vancouver poet Pamela Galloway will read from her new collection Passing Strangers, a memoir in verse dealing with marriage, fertility and infertility, divorce and self-discovery.

Mary Lou Dickinson launches her third book, Would I Lie to You, a novel about the secrets a married couple have kept from one another.

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