ALONE ON A WINDY RIDGE: Tonight it's Poetry's 50th reading celebration

Monday, March 08, 2010

Tonight it's Poetry's 50th reading celebration

...happened last night and happily I was in Saskatoon. Tonight it's Poetry readings are now held at Lydia's as they needed more room to accommodate their growing audience. I was impressed with the space. The sound was incredible thanks in part to a professional sound board. The stage was beautifully lit. The readers looked great against the brick and wood background. I have nothing but good things to say. There was a good crowd and we had a great time. The featured reader was David Zieroth, winner of the 2009 Governor General's Award for poetry. After his reading I asked him to sign my copy of The Fly in Autumn and his new chapbook Berlin Album, recently published by Rubicon Press, and then I toddled back to our table to listen to readings by emerging poets. What amazed me most was that the crowd kept building as the evening went on. So happy 50th to Tonight it's Poetry. Hats off!

2 comments:

Paula Jane said...: It was a lovely evening - it was so good to see you guys, and thank you for dragging me along to the reading. It really was a good day for me.; 9/3/10 4:30 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: It was so fun! We must do that again soon! And yay for chimichangas and black and white brownies!; 9/3/10 5:13 PM

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"This is a skilled poet having good fun, and inviting us all to join the party." - Shelley A. Leedahl, SaskBooks Reviews. Read more.

"Employing a variety of forms and the culvert stories — who knew? — of numerous people, she digs beneath the obvious roads to find out what keeps the water — the subconscious, the unconscious — flowing smoothly, discovering a variety of things about herself, notably the everyday masks we wear and the aging process we won’t always admit to." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"For Schmidt is indeed a poet. Readers can expect to encounter many visual and acoustic delights along the way, from internal rhymes to arresting images." - Trevor Cook, The Antigonish Review #196.

"In Grid..., Creighton's Brenda Schmidt turns a colder eye to the landscape than most other Canadian poets." - Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press. Read more.

"You can just feel the stones rattling off your undercarriage on this Grid." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"Like the Prairies, this is not a collection that gives itself away: the true beauty of this book lies in subtleties that may not be obvious at first glance." - Emily McGiffin, The Malahat Review. Read more.

"In Grid, moments are approached in their apparent stability only to be swept away in song rife with interruption and fresh stimuli, lending a new perspective. It is as though the familiar ground is an eye glancing back and the reflection only a nodal-point, open to opportunity and play." - Justin Dittrick, SPG Book Reviews. Read more.

"There is grit in these poems, so much that it seems unfair to think of them as nature poems; like the best nature writing, they undo our expectations of nature rather than uphold them." - Tanis MacDonald, Arc Poetry Magazine. Read more.

"In her fourth collection Grid, Schmidt’s wry humour transcends what we have watched heap up in Canada for more than a century—nature poems—balancing in canola fields between the beautiful lure of nature and our curious urge to separate ourselves from disappearing allotments of our own solace. We have wandered “off the grid” but fortunately Schmidt is an entertaining and insightful guide who can still find Li Po in a Dark-eyed Junco, if she has to." - Garry Thomas Morse, Jacket 2. Read more.

"These supple, witty, and incisive poems delineate our relationship to grids and systems both visible and invisible, natural and political." - Judges' citation, Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry nomination. Jurors: Shawna Lemay, Barbara Nickel, Sharon Thesen.