Friday, February 20/09 7pm FREE Aqua Books
The Boxcar Chat
Poets David Arnason and Dennis Cooley, with critic Neil Besner and moderator Ron Robinson
Our version of the fireside chat, which includes a screening of Al Purdy: A Sensitive Man (NFB, 1988), as well as a panel discussion with those who knew Purdy.
David Arnason was born in Gimli, Manitoba, in 1940. He has a Master’s Degree from the University of Manitoba and a PhD from the University of New Brunswick. He divides his time between Winnipeg, where he teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Manitoba, and Gimli, where he does most of his writing.
His works include two collections of poetry, Marsh Burning and Skrag, and four collections of short stories: Fifty Stories and a Piece of Advice, The Circus Performer’s Bar, The Happiest Man in the World and The Pagan Wall. He has also taught Canadian literature and creative writing in Tasmania, Trier and Strasbourg.
We have audio of our interview with David about Al Purdy: The arrival of Al Purdy in Winnipeg and his parties at Summerland Apartments, Purdy phones Arnason at 3am for storytime, Purdy runs off W.O. Mitchell's escort, the literary ferment of the time, Purdy as U of M writer-in-residence, Purdy as hockey poet, Purdy trades poems with Arnason for F.P. Grove books, drunken Milton Acorn stories, and Purdy makes sort of lousy writer-in-residence, actually.
Neil Besner has taught Canadian literature at the University of Winnipeg since 1987, where he was Chair of the English Department (1993-2000), Dean of Humanities (2002B05), Dean of Arts (2005-06), and is currently Deputy Provost and Associate Vice-President, International. He writes mainly on Canadian literature; he has written books on Mavis Gallant (The Light of Imagination, UBC Press,1988), and on Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women (ECW Press,1991), edited two collections of essays on Carol Shields (1995, Prairie Fire Press, and 2003, P.F. Press), and translated a Brazilian biography of Elizabeth Bishop from Portuguese into English (Rare and Commonplace Flowers, Rutgers UP, 2002). He has also co-edited collections of short stories (The Short Story in English, 1991) and poetry (Uncommon Wealth, 1997) with Oxford University Press Canada. In 2001-02, he was the Seagram’s Chair in Canadian Studies at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. From 2002-04, he was President of ACCUTE (the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English). Currently, he is the general editor of a new series of volumes of contemporary Canadian poetry, the Laurier Poetry Series, with Wilfrid Laurier University Press, which includes a volume of Purdy’s poetry, as well as volumes on Lorna Crozier, Dennis Cooley, Di Brandt, Christopher Dewdney, George Elliott Clarke, Don McKay, M. Travis Lane, Tim Lilburn, Louis Dudek, and Don Domanski, and forthcoming volumes on Dionne Brand, Nicole Brossard, and Fred Wah.
Dennis Cooley, a native of Saskatchewan, has lived for many years in Winnipeg where he teaches, edits, and writes. His latest book is correction line (Thistledown, 2008).
Taller on radio, the former host of the Weekend Morning Show on CBC, Ron Robinson was a founding partner of McNally Robinson Booksellers. His years as the buyer for Eaton's Book department gave him the material for his one man show, The Spirit of Timothy Eaton. He has created and appeared in two other one man shows as Robert Service and Rudyard Kipling at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. When not mimicking old dead guys, he can be heard on CKUW FM 95.9, hosting Pages, radio for readers, Thursdays 5 - 5:30.