Poetry

Today, I finally had the opportunity to attend WritersFest on the last day; specifically, an event with the celebrated poet Don McKay entitled We're Not the Centre of the Universe.  So, in the hazy warmth of a rarely-sunny afternoon, I filed into an intimate dark studio where the talk commenced. I was very excited - honoured even, you could say - to have been asked to blog about it.

I could tell immediately that Don McKay was a talented writer. Well, he’s won the Order of Canada, the Griffin Poetry Prize, written 12 books, co-founded Brick Books, and edited The Fiddlehead, among other accomplishments. But he’s one of those people who, upon opening their mouths, incredible things wrapped in incredible words drop out. I paid close attention to the audience while he spoke. From time to time, we’d burst out laughing at something witty he’d said. On other, rarer, but seemingly more precious instances, there was only his voice, a few nods, and profound “mmm”s in agreement.

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Not one, but two big time, awesome literary events are blowing up our city this week and on Thursday night the Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference and the Vancouver International Writers Festival converged on the Revue Stage where the first night of The Poetry Cabaret went down.  It would be hard to do justice to such an eclectic evening, so I’ll merely lay out the highlights so those of you who weren’t there to sample the flavors can get a little taste for yourselves.

Our adorable (cuteness was not in short supply and so I might have

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