The Poetry Gabriola Society is very pleased to invite you to join bill bissett in the launch of his latest book of poetry, northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing at the Phoenix Auditorium, The Haven, October 27 at 8:00pm.

One of the best-known performance poets in Canada, bissett’s career spans nearly 40 years, and he remains at the cutting edge of poetics and contemporary Canadian orature. If you haven’t seen him perform before, this is a rare opportunity. If you have, you’ll know what a treat it is to witness this unique voice.

Joining bill is TL Cowan, a fabulous young writer raised on the spoken-word scene of Vancouver and now residing in Edmonton, where she is completing a Phd. Her work is sassy, sexy, and smart: a talent to watch.

Guiding you on this journey are Gabriola’s own Hilary Peach (voice) and Alex Varty (electric Hawaiian guitar), who will be performing as a duo for the first time (so just about anything could happen).

 

bill bissett

bill bissett was born in Halifax on November 23, 1939, "the same day as Gerald Lampert, P.K. Page and Billy the Kid." He really did run away from home in his early teens to join a circus, which led him from his home town, Halifax, to Vancouver. In the 1960s, bissett assumed an almost godlike pre-eminence in the counter-culture movement in Canada and the UK, primarily through his publishing company, blewointment press. An ardent fan of big screen Hollywood movies (he sees at least three a week) bissett doesn't have a nostalgic bone in his body. He has remained at the cutting edge of poetics and performance works for almost forty years. He now writes and paints out of two studios in Vancouver and Toronto.

He has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, and early on in his career created a synthesis of the two in extensive explorations of the medium of concrete poetry. bill bissett has written over 60 published collections and was the winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize at the 1993 B.C. Book Prizes, for inkorrect thots (1992). He won the same prize ten years later at the 2003 B.C. Book Prizes, for peter among th towring boxes / text bites (2002).

 

T.L. Cowan

The work of Edmonton-based spoken word word artist T.L. Cowan has been described as bitterly funny, cerebral, and sexy. Her work can be found in four chapbooks, Poems for the man who made me (2000), Working Title and Other Poems to be Sung Out Loud (2002), For These Thy Gifts (2003), and The Twisted She Poems: A Performance Cycle as well as in publications in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. including Seattle’s PUSH magazine, Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales (Women’s Press, Toronto 2002), X-Magazine (London & Los Angeles) and online at www.soapboxgirls.com.

T.L. has been a guest of Sister Spit’s Ramblin’ Road Show, and the curator of many a spoken word extravaganza including Choice Words (2000), Just a Little Bit Harder Than Nice (2001), Sex, Lies, and Duct Tape (2001), and Thaw: a spoken word meltdown (2004). T.L. has performed in Canada and internationally, most recently in Toronto’s Festival of Original Theatre (F.O.O.T), Edmonton’s Visualeyez Festival, and The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in England.

She has been artist-in-residence at an Edmonton elementary school, and teaches spoken-word, performance, and “art and activism” workshops. T.L. is a member of The Olive Editorial Group (Edmonton) and Editor at fifty3: a magazine about visual culture. She is a featured artist on Dig Your Roots: Spoken Word, a compilation of independent Canadian spoken word (see www.digyourroots.ca) and is the co-editor/producer (with Laurie Bricker) of the Coastal Tongue: An Anthology of Women in Spoken Word in Vancouver (2004). Presently, T.L. is working on two manuscripts: For These Thy Gifts (poetry) and a short story collection. She is also developing a multimedia performance cycle, The Twisted She Poems.

She is a founding member of SWAN (Spoken Word Arts Network) and is currently working on a PhD on contemporary spoken word performance in the Department of English & Film Studies at the University of Alberta.

 

Alex Varty and Hilary Peach

Hilary Peach and Alex Varty will be performing together as a duo for the first time. Peach, a veteran of the West Coast spoken-word scene and the Artistic Director of the Poetry Gabriola Festival, will be trying out some new material and trotting out some old dogs as well. Varty, music journalist and founding member of the new fusion trio Bufflehead, will be making a rare celebrity appearance on doubleneck table-steel (electric Hawaiian) guitar. Together they will guide you through the rigorous, scintillating, and sometimes strange worlds of bill bissett and TL Cowan.