Sunday September 26 at 2 pm. Featured readers are two distinguished poets on tour to launch their new books: Sharon McCartney, from Fredericton, with her new collection For and Against, and Glen Sorestad, from Saskatoon, with his recent collection What We Miss. Also reading are four Sarnia poets: Norma West Linder, Peggy Fletcher, Lynn Tait and Adele Kearns Thomas. Plus a presentation by Debbie Okun Hill on the late poet Al Purdy and efforts to preserve his A-frame cabin at Ameliasberg. Hosted by James Deahl.
— Sharon McCartney’s For and Against: “A vibrant and disturbing new collection of poems, For and Against is a sizzling set that interposes vivid recollections of past hurts and triumphs with surprising descriptions of daily life. As George Elliott Clarke has remarked about Sharon€™s work; €œYou don€™t read these poems, you feel them: hammer in the head, shod foot on the throat, stiletto in the heart.€
— Glen Sorestad’s What We Miss: “These narrative poems are coloured with both curiosity and nostalgia and framed in a personal montage. Sorestad€™s free verse captures the flora and fauna, the natural rhythms and colour of Saskatchewan. Celebrating the ordinary and seeing the mystery in all moments of life remains part of his poetic priority.”
SHARON McCARTNEY is a poet, editor, technical writer, mother, and brilliant observer of life. She jumps with both of her poetic feet into various and compelling worlds of fiction, and once there, she conjures for us poignant co€narratives and feeds them to us as poems drawn from characters both animate and inanimate. They touch and re€touch the soul.
McCartney has also authored several other books and chapbooks and seen her work published in numerous magazines such as, PRISM international, Event, Grain, sub€TERRAIN, Prairie Fire, Iowa City and the Malahat Review. She has an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers€™ Workshop and a law degree from the University of Victoria. She works as a legal editor and is poetry editor for The Fiddlehead. She started bodybuilding four years ago and competed in 2008. She lives in Fredericton with her three sons and Jack, her Jack Russell terrier.
Other Publications:
€ Against (Frog Hollow Press, 2007)
€ The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Nightwood Editions, 2007)
€ Switchgrass Stills (littlefishcartpress, 2006)
€ Karenin Sings the Blues (Goose Lane Editions, 2003)
€ Under the Abdominal Wall (Anvil Press, 1999)
Awards and Shortlist/Finalist:
€ The Acorn€Plantos People’s Award for Poetry, 2008
€ Arc€™s Poem of the Year, 2003, 2004, 2005
€ Finalist, National Magazine Awards, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008
€ Finalist, Foreword Magazine Poetry Prize, 2004
(Review of For and Against in Montreal€™s The Rover – http://roverarts.com/2010/06/the-sweet-taste-of-venom/).
Glen Sorestad: Biography
Glen Sorestad was born in Vancouver in 1937, but moved to the prairies when he was ten and grew up on a farm in east-central Saskatchewan, attending a one-roomed country school before they vanished from the scene. He later became a school teacher and taught for over 20 years, the last dozen years in a high school in Saskatoon. He earned a Master’s Degree in Education (with distinction) from the University of Saskatchewan. He began writing seriously in 1968, co-founded Thistledown Press in 1975 with his wife Sonia, and quit teaching in 1981 to pursue his writing and publishing activities. He was President of Thistledown Press from 1975 to 2000 when he and his wife retired from literary publishing.
Over the years Sorestad’s poetry and stories have been published across Canada, in the United States, in England, Scotland, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Slovenia. He has authored or co-authored over twenty volumes of poems and his poetry has been frequently broadcast on CBC radio, on radio stations in the United States, and on state public radio in Norway and Slovenia. His poetry has been translated into several languages including Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish and Slovenian. He is the editor or co editor of many anthologies of poetry and stories, including most recently an international anthology, Something to Declare, by Oxford University Press and a poetry anthology, In The Clear, from Thistledown. His poems have appeared in over 50 different anthologies and textbooks. One of his volumes of poetry has been the primary source for a three-act play. His short stories have also been anthologized; one of his stories was produced for television in Canada by Bravo TV.
Sorestad has given well over 300 readings of his work in every province of Canada and in 15 states, including Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas and Minnesota. He has also read his poetry in Strasbourg, France, at several places in Norway, including a literary salon in his honour at the Canadian Ambassador’s residence in Oslo. He was a featured poet at two important international literary events: the 2001 Lahti International Writers Reunion in Finland and Vilenica 2002 in Slovenia. Over the years he has presented his poetry publicly in diverse venues — schools, colleges and universities, libraries, art galleries, bookstores, restaurants, coffee bistros, bars, community halls, churches, maritime museums, ski resorts, private clubs, a Medieval castle in Slovenia — even in the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Lea County, New Mexico. Most recently in March 2010 he read his poems in Norman, Oklahoma backed up by a jazz ensemble, The Dennis Borycki Trio. He is now desirous of an invitation to spend a winter as poet-in-residence on a Mediterranean cruise ship.
In 1998 Sorestad was honoured with Life Member status in the League of Canadian Poets. In November of 2000 he was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan, becoming the first provincially or federally appointed Poet Laureate in Canada and serving until 2004. He was awarded the Saskatoon Book Award in November 2001 for Leaving Holds Me Here. In February 2003 Sorestad was a recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.
Books and Chapbooks:
Prairie Pub Poems (poetry chapbook). Anak Press, Wood Mountain (SK), 1973.
Wind Songs (poetry chapbook). Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 1975.
Prairie Pub Poems (poetry). Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 1976.
Pear Seeds in My Mouth (poetry chapbook). Sesame Press, Windsor, 1977.
Ancestral Dances (poetry). Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 1979.
Jan Lake Poems (poetry). Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, 1984.
Hold the Rain in Your Hands: Poems New & Selected (poetry). Coteau Books, Regina, 1985.
Stalking Place: Poems Across Borders (poetry). Hawk Press, New Mexico, 1988.
Air Canada Owls (poetry). Nightwood Editions, Madeira Park. 1990.
West Into Night (poetry). Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 1991.
Jan Lake Sharing (poetry chapbook). Privately printed, Saskatoon, 1993.
Birchbark Meditations (poetry chapbook). Writers of the Plains, New Mexico, 1996.
Icons of Flesh (poetry). Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, 1998.
Today I Belong to Agnes (poetry). Ekstasis Editions, 2000.
Leaving Holds Me Here: Selected Poems 1975-2000. Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 2001.
Dreaming My Grandfather¹s Dreams (poetry chapbook). Frog Hollow Press, Victoria, 2002.
Grasses & Gravestones (poetry). Smoky Peace Press, Grande Prairie, 2003.
Blood & Bone, Ice & Stone (poetry). Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 2005.
Halo of Morning (poetry chapbook). Leaf Press, Lantzville, 2006.
Language of Horse (online poetry chapbook) Coracle Press, Montreal, 2007.
Road Apples (poetry chapbook) Rubicon Press, Edmonton, 2009.
What We Miss (poetry). Thistledown Press, Saskatoon, 2010.
