Monday, December 1, 2008

Susan Holbrook and Mari-Lou Rowley this Wednesday at 4pm

Play Chthonics: Contemporary Canadian Readings presents
Mari-Lou Rowley & Susan Holbrook
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Green College, Graham House 4 pm


Please join us for a poetry reading and conversation with poets Mari-Lou Rowley & Susan Holbrook in the parlour of the Graham House at UBC’s Green College.

Mari-Lou Rowley has published six collections of poetry, most recently CosmoSonnets (JackPine 2007) and Viral Suite (Anvil Press 2004), and her work has appeared in journals anthologies in Canada and the US. A Globe and Mail critic called her work a place where “the subatomic world is a model of spiritual grace.” Uptown Magazine called her poems “haunting” pieces that are sometimes “horrific” in their articulation of nature fighting back.

Susan Holbrook is a poet and fiction writer whose first book, misled (1999) was short listed for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Stephen J. Stephensson Award. Her long poem chapbook, Good Egg, Bad Seed, was released in the Spring of 2004. One critic called the poems in this chapbook, “a ping pong game you’ll never forget – where the tables keep flipping and players’ ironic bats spin the banal into deadly mischievous curves.” Holbrook teaches English at the University of Windsor.

The Play Chthonics reading series showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. We encourage creative, interdisciplinary conversations among writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, the Department of English at UBC and Green College.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Clint Burnham, Aaron Peck and Rishma Dunlop Read on November 12

Play Chthonics: Contemporary Canadian Readings presents

Clint Burnham, Aaron Peck and Rishma Dunlop
Wednesday November 12, 2008
Green College, Graham House 7:30 pm


Clint Burnham's Rental Van is "populated with tangled, pop-littered phrases, a work that is constantly challenging its readers" (Danforth Review)
"a very complex blend of avant garde technique, colloquial vulgarity, and political outrage" (Think Again).


Aaron Peck's first novel: "Bernard Willis was an archivist at work in a residency at Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts when he mysteriously disappeared. Two unnamed people, lovers, find Willis's manuscript-in-progress and decide to prepare it for publication."


The Toronto Star says about Rishma Dunlop: "Her phrasing can spur leaps of the heart; she's a writer whose passion and large-spiritedness are inspiring." Dunlop "seduc[es] us with a relentless passion for the intangible beauty wrought visible in objects cathected with reverence and desire." - West Coast Line





Clint Burnham's most recent book of poems is Rental Van (Anvil, 2007). He is the author of several other books including the novel Smoke Show (Arsenal Pulp, 2005, shortlisted for the BC Book Prize), Airborne Photo (Anvil, 1999) and The Jamesonian Unconscious (Duke UP, 1995). Burnham taught at UBC from 1996-2002 and currently teaches in Simon Fraser University's English Department and is a freelance art critic for the Vancouver Sun.

Aaron Peck's first novel is The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis (Pedlar Press, 2008). He is also the author of a chapbook, Crepuscule on Mission Street (Nomados, 2006) and of numerous reviews and articles (most recently in Fillip and Canadian Art). He is the co-editor of Doppelganger, an online journal of critical writing on visual art and literature, and has served on the board of directors at Artspeak. Peck holds an MA in English from York University and currently lives in Vancouver.

Rishma Dunlop is an award winning Canadian poet, playwright, essayist, and fiction writer. Her books of poetry are: White Album (Inanna Publications 2008), Metropolis (Mansfield Press, 2005), Reading Like a Girl (Black Moss Press, 2004), and The Body of My Garden (Mansfield Press, 2002). She received the Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry in 2003, and her radio drama, "The Raj Kumari's Lullaby," was produced by CBC Radio in 2005. She is a professor in the Department of English at York University, Toronto, where she is Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program. She is founding editor of the international poetry journal Studio.

Play Chthonics reading series showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. We encourage creative, interdisciplinary conversations among writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver. The series is based in the English Department at UBC, and is in the midst of a six-reading season for 2008-9.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, the Department of English at UBC and Green College.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Christine Stewart and Christian Bok this Wednesday!

Play Chthonics Contemporary Canadian Reading Series presents:

Christian Bök and Christine Stewart

Wednesday October 22 at 7:30pm.

Coach House, Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC.


Christine Stewart
is the author of Pessoa’s July: or the months of astonishments (Nomados, 2006), From Taxonomy (West House, 2003, selections were awarded the Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative Poetry), and Daddy Clean Head (Lumpe, 2000). Her poetry has also appeared in numerous journals including, ecopoetics,Raddle Moon,how2, The Gig, Writing and Big Alice. She currently writes and teaches experimental poetry and poetics in the English and Film Department at the University of Alberta.

Christian Bök is the author of the bestselling experimental work, Eunoia (Coach House, 2001), which won the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence. His previous book, Crystallography (Coach House, 1994) was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Bök has created artificial languages for two television shows, Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley’s Amazon, and has earned accolades for his performances of sound poetry (particularly the Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters). His conceptual artworks have appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York as part of the exhibit Poetry Plastique. Bök is a Professor of English at the University of Calgary.

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Play Chthonics reading series showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. We encourage creative, interdisciplinary conversations among writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, the Department of English at UBC and Green College.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Don't miss the first reading of the season, September 24!

Play Chthonics: Contemporary Canadian Readings presents
poets Margaret Christakos and Nathalie Stephens

September 24, 2008
Green College Coach House

Doors open 7pm
Reading begins at 7:30
Cash Bar


Margaret Christakos is the author of six books and a novel, including Sooner (Coach House, 2005, nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award), Excessive Love Prostheses (Coach House, 2002, winner of the ReLit Award), and Charisma (Pedlar, 2000, shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award). A new collection of poetry, What Stirs is forthcoming from Coach House this year. Christakos was Canada Council Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor on 2004-2005. She lives in Toronto where she has taught Creative Writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design (York University), with Writers in Electronic Residence, and at the University of Toronto.

Nathalie Stephens (Nathanaël) writes l'entre-genre in English and French. Recent works include The Sorrow and the Fast of It (2007), Paper City (2003), Je Nathanaël (2003 / 2006), L'Injure (2004), and the imminent essay of correspondence, Absence Where As (Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book), (2009). Translated into Basque and Slovene, with book-length translations in Bulgarian, Stephens has herself translated Édouard Glissant, Catherine Mavrikakis, and Gail Scott. Of late, she has been studying rooftops in
Chicago.


Play Chthonics is a reading series that showcases innovative Canadian poetry, narrative, and cross-genre experimental writing. It is designed to foreground creative, interdisciplinary conversations between students and faculty of multiple departments, while bridging current gaps between UBC and the wider community of writers, theorists, and the general public in Vancouver. We host joint readings that encourage conversations between writers and audience members at a moderated discussion following each reading. Play Chthonics pairs writers whose work speaks to one another in order to promote lively discussion about poetics, translation, media, identity, environment, globalization, textuality, performance, narrativity, and sound. The series is very grateful for funding and support from Green College, The Canada Council, Canadian Studies at UBC and the UBC English Department.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Aaron Kunin

Late Breaking News!

Play Chthonics Reading Series hosts poet Aaron Kunin * this week! *

When: Thursday April 10, 8 PM
Where: Spartacus Books, 319 West Hastings, 2nd floor

Aaron Kunin is a poet, critic, and novelist. He is the author of Folding Ruler Star (Fence Books, 2005), a collection of small poems about shame. The Mandarin, a novel, is forthcoming in April. He lives in California and is assistant professor of negative anthropology at Pomona College.

Kunin will also give a talk April 10 at UBC: Buchanan Tower, Room 599, 3:30

Jacqueline Waters writes of Folding Ruler Star:

“With alarmed intelligence, Folding Ruler Star exposes the violence of an expectant look and synthesizes the organic and the robotic, then unzips them just as machines unzip/concrete dividers/on the highway.”

You can read some of his poems here:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.1/sampler.html

You can download some work here:
http://www.ubu.com/ubu/kunin_mauberley.html

You can read a review of Folding Ruler Star here:
http://jacketmagazine.com/28/gordon-r-kunin.html

You can read an interview on the “Here Comes Everybody” blog here:
http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/10/aaron-kunin-is-poet-critic-and.html

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Souvankham Thammavongsa and Garry Gottfriedson

For the final reading in our 2007-2008 series, Play Chthonics Reading Series will host writers Souvankham Thammavongsa and Garry Gottfriedson. Please join us!

When: March 18, 2008 at 7:30 PM.
Cash bar at 7:00 PM.

Where: Coach House, Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC.

Map: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?show=y,n,n,n,n,y&bldg2Search=n&locat1=412

Souvankham Thammavongsa was born in 1978, in Nong Khai, Thailand. She is the author of Small Arguments (Pedlar Press 2003); the poems in Small Arguments were first self published over a series of handmade chapbooks. Her work has garnered praise for its "quiet, beautiful, jeweler's-eye lyrics" and has won the national Relit prize for poetry. Her chapbook Residual (greenboathouse 2006) and book Found (Pedlar Press 2007) follow this award-winning debut. Thammavongsa has presented her poems at the Emily Carr Institute, Mercer Union, and Harbor Front's Premiere Dance Theatre.

Garry Gottfriedson, a member of the Secwepemc First Nation, lives in Kamloops, B.C. He is a self-employed rancher with a Masters degree in Education from Simon Fraser University. His published works include Cowboy and Indian Heritage Poems (Ronsdale Press 2006), In Honor of Our Grandmothers: Imprints of Cultural Survival (Theytus Books 1994), 100 Years of Contact (Secwepemc Cultural Education Society 1990), Glass Tepee (Thistledown Press 2002), which was nominated for a First People's Publishing Award in 2004, and Painted Pony (Partners in Publishing 2005), his first children's story. He has read from his work across North America and Europe, and in Taiwan.

Play Chthonics reading series showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. We encourage creative, interdisciplinary conversations between writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver. The series is based in the English Department at UBC.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Green College, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, and the Department of English at UBC.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Jason Christie & Ken Howe

Poets Jason Christie and Ken Howe reading!

When: February 26th, 7:30 p.m.
Cash bar open at 7:00 p.m.

Where: Thea’s Lounge
Thea Koerner House Graduate Center
6371 Crescent Road, UBC

Map: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?locat1=408

Jason Christie is the author of i ROBOT poetry by Jason Christie (EDGE 2006) and Canada Post (Snare 2006). He co-edited Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury 2006), an issue of Open Letter on the role of Small Press publishing in Canada. i ROBOT Poetry takes readers into the automated world of the appliance where sentience brings disharmony as common household items are no longer content to be slaves to the needs of human beings. Jason's work has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines across North America.

Ken Howe has published two books of poetry: Household Hints for the End of Time (Brick Books 2001), which won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry and was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Award, and Cruise Control: A Theogony (Harbour Publishing 2002). Originally from Alberta, he now lives in Québec city, where he works as a translator.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, and the UBC English Department for this reading.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

ANNE STONE AND DAVID CHARIANDY

Please join us! Play Chthonics Reading Series
will host writers Anne Stone and David Chariandy.

Wednesday January 23, 2008 at 7:30 PM. Cash bar.

Cecil Green Park Coach House
Green College
6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC

MAP: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?locat1=421

ANNE STONE has taught creative writing at Capilano College and at Concordia University, and is an editor of Matrix Magazine. Together with Amber Dean, she is guest editor of the current special issue of West Coast Line on representations of murdered and missing women. Her latest novel, Delible (Insomniac Press 2007), tells the story of Melora Sprague, a 15-year-old girl whose sister has gone missing. This novel offers a glimpse into a sustained experience of uncertainty and, in so doing, explores how our identities exist in those traces we leave behind. She has published two previous novels: jacks (DC Books 1998) and Hush (Insomniac Press 1999).

More information about her work can be found at http://annestone.net/ and in an interview at: http://www.canadiancontent.ca/interviews/061400stone.html.

DAVID CHARIANDY is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University. He is the author of a novel entitled Soucouyant (Arsenal Pulp Press 2007), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award in fiction, as well as several essays on Black Canadian, Anglo Caribbean, and diasporic literatures and cultures. He has co-edited two special issues of scholarly journals (The Canadian Association of American Studies, and Essays on Canadian Writing), and he is a co-founder of Commodore Books, the first and only black literary press in western Canada.

More information about his work can be found online at CBC Words at Large (http://www.cbc.ca/wordsatlarge/blog/2007/11/david_chariandy.html) and the Tyee (http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/10/17/Soucoyant/) .


PLAY CHTHONICS reading series showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. We encourage creative, interdisciplinary conversations between writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver. The series is based in the English Department at UBC, and is in the midst of a six-reading 2007-8 season.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, Green College, the UBC Department of English, and the Canada Council for the Arts.