THE MINUTE REVIEW — a little magazine of reviews, responses, concrete/visual poetry & “experimental” writing — has all 11 issues to date online for free download (click on the images to download the respective issue). Individual printed copies are available for $5ea (contact derek@housepress.ca to order).
THE MINUTE REVIEW is also seeking contributions of reviews of experimental & concrete poetry (500 word max); always eager to see more reviews and discussion of new writing!
One of Canada’s most beloved poets, bpNichol (1944–1988), left a huge legacy of poetry, prose, scripts, comics, and playful interrogation of language after his untimely passing in 1988. In celebration of what would have been Nichol’s eightieth birthday, Some Lines of Poetry gathers excerpts from Nichol’s journals across the 1980s to give a unique perspective on craft, process, and a writer’s life. Featuring works in progress, insight into Nichol’s thinking, previously unpublished prose and lyric, visual, and sound poems, Some Lines of Poetry documents Nichol’s “apprenticeship to language” and his playful daily exploration of the limits of writing.
“No other writer of our time and place was so diverse, attempted so much, and never lost sight of his intent.” – Michael Ondaatje
THIS YEAR BANFF CENTRE CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF LITERARY ARTS PROGRAMMING. Since its foundation, Literary Arts at Banff Centre has become a globally renowned creative catalyst for established and emerging writers.
Initiated in 1974 by W.O. Mitchell, Literary Arts programs at Banff Centre are known to push the boundaries of Canadian and international conventions and foster growth among alumni.
This 50th anniversary milestone represents an opportunity to look back on five decades of exceptional Canadian and international writing, and to look ahead with post-secondary educational programs that are responsive to the needs of artists of today and tomorrow.
Many of the country’s award-winning writers have been residents or faculty at the Centre. Banff Centre alumni are consistently published nationally and internationally and recognized by literary awards – including the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Governor-General’s Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and more.
Banff Centre continues to widen its reach to new artists. We welcome audiences to witness the act of creation and experimentation in literature: to be surprised by the high-wire act of contemporary writing and to think “Wow, I didn’t know that writing could do that!”
Recent writing residencies have included science fiction and fantasy, young adult fiction, children’s books, graphic novels, and form-based writing. Literary programs have also explored computational writing, where authors use code, computer programming, and AI to imagine new ways of considering creativity and authorship.
Dialogue and collaboration upholds both individual artistic practices and writing as a community-driven, communitarian act. It is an act of creative conversation, of inspired collaboration that reaches across demographics, languages, identities, nations, and histories.
Banff Centre creates educational opportunities for writers looking for new ways to write, new positions to take, and new perspectives on the world’s literature, responsive to the current needs of literary artists to work in an evolving field.
With the support from a vibrant writing community, Banff Centre encourages artists to take risks, learn and share, and participate in a broader, deeper artistic conversation.
“Banff Centre is a writer’s paradise – offering a safe and inspirational environment for literary artists to push boundaries and explore their full potential with the support of exceptional mentors and peers.”
— Dr. Derek Beaulieu, Director of Literary Arts, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Click here to Donate in support of Banff Centre’s Literary Arts Residencies…
After several years of pandemic and struggle, 2023 felt like a growth year – a year to reassess, reappraise, and return to new ways of creating, thinking, and responding. 2023 is gone in just a few short weeks, here’s what I was up to this year:
As Banff Centre’s Director of Literary Arts, I developed a slate of residencies—both online (allowing participants to receive mentorship from their own home, fitting in with their schedules) and in person (it’s so great to welcome writers to Banff Centre’s campus). Literary Arts residencies—all of which had tuition 100%-scholarshipped—enabled international writers to work with exceptional faculty: January’s Winter Writers Residency with Nasser Hussain, Lisa Robertson, and guest speaker Holly Melgard (Troll Thread), March’s Graphic Novels and Visual Narratives with Matt Madden, Bishakh Som, and guest speaker Andy Brown (Conundrum Press); June’s Literary Journalism Residency with Charlotte Gill, Carol Shaben, and Michael Harris; July’s Summer Writers Residency with Stuart Ross, Canisia Lubrin, and guest speaker Leigh Nash (Assembly Press); October’s Emerging Writers Residency: Poetry with Sharanpal Ruprai, Suzanne Zelazo, and professional guest Naomi Lewis (Freehand Books) and November’s Late Fall Writers Online Residency with Moez Surani and Klara du Plessis. Banff Centre Literary Arts has some amazing plans for 2024 with faculty Waubgeshig Rice, Kyo McLear, Elamin Abdulmahmoud, Casey Plett, Sina Queyras, A.E. Stallings, Ian Williams, Charlie Foran, Ayelet Tsabari, Daniel Levin Becker, Fawn Parker, Annick MacAskill, Kazim Ali, Kim Fu, Norm Nehmetallah, John Yau, Jen Sook Fong Lee, Danielle Dutton, and more … all responding to the needs of international writers. Lots of great news on the Banff Centre website.
In 2023 Malmo, Sweden’s Timglaset Editions published my Silence: Lectures and Writings and I am thrilled with the book. Crafted over the pandemic, and featuring an afterword by Peter Jaeger, Silence responds to every page of John Cage’s book of the same title, creating a sonic landscape of breath, reflection, and pause. Timglaset’s Joakim Norling is unwavering in his support of risk-taking books and I’m honoured to have published with him again.
This year also saw the publication of the 2nd edition of Kern from California’s Punctum Books, returning that long out-of-print volume back to a readership.
In addition to being Banff’s Poet Laureate, I spoke to students via Zoom at University of Washington – Bothell, York University, and Douglas College and performed readings at Calgary’s Pages Books on Kensington, Ottawa’s Carleton Tavern, Vancouver’s Fairleigh Dickinson University, Banff’s Legion Hall, and London, England’s London Small Publishers Fair. I exhibited my visual poetry as part of This is a Poem (Central Branch, Calgary Public Library. Calgary, AB.) and “I Wish…” (Shandy Hall Gallery, Coxwold, Yorkshire, UK.)
I had work published in The Rocky Mountain Outlook, Westword, Periodicities, ctrl+alt+del, Arc, Oesa, Petrichor, The Penetang Review, The Stony Thursday Book, and Right Click Save and in the anthologies Poème Objkt Sbjkt, Report from the Smith Society Vol. 1, Interpoem: A Visual Anthology, and, in translation, in Nouvelles de l’Alberta: Anthologie de textes littéraires / Alberta Shorts : An Anthology of Literary Texts.
There were also 8 different small press editions of my work published in 2023: Ontario Hydro and a 2nd edition of Tattered Sails (both from above/ground press), 🙂 (Anstruther Press), Future Poems (Poem Atlas), as well as UMNV, Chinook Arch, Network, and Ossification (all from my own No Press).
I continue to place free PDFs of all of my work online—help yourself.
Through No Press I published 17 different editions of poetry and prose – including 3 issues of The Minute Review – with contributions by 47 different international, national and local emerging and established writers. Each edition was meant to help spread the word of risk-taking international writing. Thank you for trusting me with your work. Paper & Thread: 25 years of housepress and No Press celebrated a quarter-century of my small press publishing a print-on-demand edition of reflection by authors around the world.
None of this would have been possible without my incredible partner, Kristen, and our amazing kid Maddie (who has just published a monograph with UBLibraries on Julie Johnstone’s Essence Press). My parents and mother-in-law have also been a steady voice of support and love; thank you.
In so many ways I only excel because of the strength and support of my community of friends and colleagues, especially Gary Barwin, Greg and Lisa Betts, Christian Bok, Kit Dobson, Helen Hajnoczky, Aubrey Hanson, Nasser Hussain, Kaley Kramer, rob mclennan, Astra Papachristodoulou, and so many others. Thank you.
Here’s to 2024.
At the close of every year, for over a decade, I have taken a moment to reflect upon the year’s publications. Like in previous years, my “most engaging books” list reflects what I found most fascinating / useful / generative in terms of form & content from the books I read in 2023.
Seek out these volumes; every one will reward the search (your local, independent, bookstore can help; an excellent choice as many continue to struggle). This is the cream of the crop for 2023, seriously … from poetry to fiction, translation to nonfiction, each of these titles will blow your mind:
Abel, Jordan. Empty Spaces (Penguin Random House)
Archer, Sacha. cellsea (Timglaset Editions)
Barwin, Gary. Portal (Potential Books)
“Berrigan, Raymond”. Sonnets Edited by Philip Terry (Timglaset Editions)
Bertram, Lillian-Yvonne. Negative Money (Soft Skull Press)
Briggs, Kate. The Long Form (Dorothy, A Publishing Project)
Copithorne, Judith. Another Order: Selected Works Edited with an introduction by Eric Schmaltz (Talonbooks)
Desnos, Robert. Night of Loveless Nights Translated by Lewis Warsh (Winter Editions)
Griffiths, Paul. Let Me Go On (Henningham Family Press)
Homer, The Iliad Translated by Emily Wilson (W.W. Norton)
Hussain, Nasser. Love Language (Coach House Books)
Melgard, Holly. Read Me: Selected Works (Ugly Duckling Presse)
Schmaltz, Eric. Borderblur Poetics: Intermedia and Avant-Gardism in Canada, 1963-1988 (University of Calgary Press)
Storm, Danni. W(ord)s & Weavings (Galleri Orn / Eget Forlag)
Tucker, Aaron. Soldier, Hunters, Not Cowboys (Coach House Books)
Since the late 1990s I have been publishing steadily in the UK, trying to develop conversations and collaborations with UK-based presses and authors. Complementing my work in Canada, I have found UK-based presses to support risk-taking work, have a culture of chapbook (what they call “pamphlet”) publishing, be open to perfect-bound editions of visual poetry, experimentation, and often have an open mind to the use of colour. In the last 30 years I have published with If P then Q, Information as Material, Guillemot, Pamenar, Dostoyevsky Wannabe, Future text, The Other Room, Essence, Reaktion, the Centre for Print Research, the University of Plymouth, Poem Atlas, Hesterglock, Uniformbooks, Penteract, Ma Bibliotheque, Zimzalla, yt communications, the Laurence Sterne Trust, and Writers Forum … and each press has brought new opportunities and discussions. I am so grateful for my UK-based colleagues who have published my work — and to those who have included my work in exhibitions, readings, collaborative performances (and to colleagues at Roehampton University where I defended my PhD).
Last weekend I was able to build upon those decades of conversations by attending the London Small Publishers Fair in order to launch SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS. It was like coming home — so many great conversations and ideas over pints, coffee and laughter…
Of course I came home with a small stack of new material to read — including books from Guillemot Press, JR Carpenter, Uniformbooks, Atlas Press, Ma Bibliotheque, and Henningham Family Press… (and more!)
and walking the streets of London brought other editions to the fore as well — especially after visits to Gosh!, the Tate Modern, the London Review Bookshop, Freedom Press Anarchist Bookshop, and the Royal Academy of Art…
and now to conquer the jetlag and catch up on some sleep.
Toronto’s Anstruther Press has just published a new chapbook of mine entitled 🙂 . This volume explores the strange and sinister history of the Smiley Face, from its involvement in Nixon’s trip to China, through to the space race and serial killers. The Smiley Face has been ever-present in the weird and destructive corner’s of western culture. Produced in a limited edition of 50 copies, order your copy today!
I’m thrilled to announce that Astra Papachristodoulou’s Poem Atlas – a small, London-based press focusing on poetic objects – has just published my FUTURE POEMS! Designed to mimic the format of scratch-off lottery cards, each edition of FUTURE POEMS has a grey scratch-off panel which reveals a provocation about the future of poetry. Produced in a very limited edition, FUTURE POEMS won’t be around for long, order today!
As Banff’s Poet Laureate, I invite musicians and performers to create digital sound performances (song, composition, collage, digital, etc.) of my punctuation-only book, SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS.
SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS erases the entirety of John Cage’s book of the same name, leaving only the fields of punctuation: the silence of breath, pause and atmospheric noise (more info here)
I invite you to create a sonic interpretation of any section in the book, save it online and tweet out your results with the hashtag #beaulieusilence. This is a community-based generative project and everyone is welcome, let’s see where your creativity takes you!
Initial responses / performances are here:
Copies of SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS can be ordered here …
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