Event Info
Open Word: Readings and Ideas with Gillian Jerome:
Open Space, in partnership with the University of Victoria Department of Writing...
Wed. January 22nd 2014 + Add to Calendar
University of Victoria, Fine Arts Building, Room 209 (All Ages)
9:30am
By Donation
Event Description
Open Space, in partnership with the University of Victoria Department of Writing, will host Gillian Jerome as part of its literary series, Open Word: Readings and Ideas. She will read from new work, as well as from her latest book of poems, Red Nest, at Open Space on Wednesday, January 22, at 7:30 p.m. followed by an interview by local poet Melanie Siebert. Books, beer, and wine will be available for sale. Jerome will also read that morning at 9:30 a.m. at the University of Victoria, Fine Arts Building, Room 209.
Gillian Jerome’s book of non-fiction, Hope In Shadows, Stories and Photographs from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (with Brad Cran, Arsenal Pulp, 2008), won the City of Vancouver Book Award and was shortlisted for a BC Book Prize. Her book of poems, Red Nest (Nightwood Editions, 2009), was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and won the ReLit Award. Her poems have been published in the Colorado Review, Geist, Grain, the Fiddlehead, the Malahat Review, Canadian Literature, other journals in the US and Canada, and the anthologies Force Field: 77 Women Poets of British Columbia and Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets. She teaches literature at the University of British Columbia and poetry to kids at inner-city schools in Vancouver, and she runs workshops with Geist. Since 2010 she has been the poetry editor at Event Magazine. Jerome is also the founder of Canadian Women in the Literary Arts, an inclusive national literary organization for people who share feminist values.
Melanie Siebert’s first poetry collection, Deepwater Vee (M&S), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2010. For more than ten years, she has worked as a guide on wilderness rivers across the north, from Alaska to Baffin Island.
“Red Nest is a deeply political book without the cant. This first book argues passionately for the interconnectedness of all our everyday actions with the larger, political and cosmic forces shaping the destiny of our species. It’s got the scope of Whitman, the sensuality of Keats, the ferocity of Kathy Acker and Sylvia Plath.” —Suzanne Buffam
“Gillian Jerome’s poems are a visual feast.” —Emily Wall, Canadian Literature Review
Enter the surreal adventure that is Gillian Jerome’s debut collection of domestic, urban, and intergalactic eclogues. Just when you’ve been ambushed by gods and stars, you’re catapulted back into a wild sprawling city filled with cordless phones, coyotes, and the hairdos of dandelions. The brave and rambunctious creatures in this book nest in the humour and horror of the twenty- first century.
Venue
University of Victoria, Fine Arts Building, Room 209
In-Person Event
