Two spellbinding Canadian poets to read at UPEI on March 11
Two of Canada's most popular, gutsy and gripping poets, Jeanette Lynes and Douglas Burnet Smith, will read on Thursday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m., in the UPEI Faculty Lounge, Main Building. Both teach literature and creative writing at St. Francis Xavier University.
Lynes' highly accessible, entertaining, and street-savvy poetry, and her vibrant performances, have earned her a nation-wide following. From The Aging Cheerleader's Alphabet (2003), to It's Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems (2008) and The New Blue Distance (2009), her poetry animates and grapples with issues familiar to us all, and in a language, voice and perspective that's delightfully feisty and sassy.
Her first novel, The Factory Voice (2009), long-listed for the Giller Prize, is set in Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay), during the Second World War. The main character is based on one of Canada's most extraordinary women, Elsie McGill, a.k.a. Queen of the Hurricane, Canada's first female aeronautic engineer, who helped convert Canada Car and Foundry into a Hawker Hurricane fighter-jet factory.
Douglas Burnet Smith has published 12 volumes of poetry. His latest book is Sister Prometheus: Discovering Madame Curie. His Voices from a Farther Room was nominated for the Governor General's Award. The Killed (2000) is inspired by visits to the former Yugoslavia, and what he learned about the ravages and aftermath of the recent wars in that region.
The strong appeal of Smith's poetry results from its finely-honed intensity, unsparing honesty about its subjects and the poet himself, and stunning ironies. His poetry resonates with a potent moral vision, a remarkable awareness of humanity's capacity to veer between benevolence and brutality, love and hate, sublime creation and wanton destruction, wisdom and folly.
This event is sponsored by the UPEI English Department, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Admission is free, and a reception will follow.
