On Monday November 28, we had an interesting panel and discussion on the Kootenay School of Writing.
Poets Rachel Zolf (U of Calgary), Clint Burnham (Simon Fraser U), and Christine Stewart (U of A) took the writing of the Kootenay School as a springboard for further reflections on their own work as situated within contemporary Canadian poetry. We also had a poetry reading, in which the poets read from their own work, and this sparked an animated debate on issues of Canadian identity, colonialism and racism.
Christine Stewart read from her ongoing poetry collection Under Bridge Project. Rachel Zolf enacted material bits of empty speech and social collage via her fourth book Neighbour Procedure and The Tolerance Project, and Clint Burnham read from his collection of poems The Benjamin Sonnets.
These events were not as well attended as could have been expected, given the amount of work and energy we put into them, but I was glad to see that those who came out did engage fully with the poets and their work.