ABSTrACTS/RéSuMÉS: An Exercise in Poetry

Thursday 28 January, 7 pm
Performances at 7:30 pm
Club SAW, 67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa
Free admission (donations are welcome)

In the context of the exhibition Fibred Optics, the Ottawa Art Gallery and The A B Series present a reading by six poets who transform Michele Provost's installation into an evening of performance poetry. Provost's visual art installation references text from contemporary art criticism and forms the raw material for the commissioned poets' projects.

The A B Series specializes in presenting readings of performance, sound and experimental poetry by professional local, national and international artists. For more on The A B Series, please visit www.abseries.org.

Grant Wilkins has always liked letters, words and paper. Now that he is older and more mature, he likes letters, words, paper and ink.

Pearl Pirie does haiku and visual poetry. She has been published in ditch, Ottawater and by AngelHouse Press. Her last chapbook bOATHouse was published by above/ground press. In 2008, Pearl Pirie was one of Tree's Hot Ottawa Voices. Her blog, Humanyms, which she describes as "a verbal sketchpad of being positively human", is widely followed.

John Lavery lives in Gatineau. He is the author of Very Good Butter and You, Kwaznievski, You Piss Me Off, both published by ECW Press. He is a founding member of the Montreal Guitar Orchestra.

Sandra Ridley's most recent work can be found as a hand-stitched chapbook titled Rest Cure, published by Ottawa's Apt. 9 Press. She won the bpNichol Chapbook Award for Lift, and was a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry in 2009. Her first manuscript of poetry, Fallout, won the 2008 Alfred G. Bailey Prize and will be published in Spring 2010 by Hagios Press.

Carmel Purkis is a prairie girl who was born by the Atlantic, raised in the north, fell in love with the Pacific and makes Ottawa, Ontario her home. She has been involved in various sound poetry projects over the last several years, including the last couple of installments of MESSAGIO GALORE.

jwcurry is a poet, editor and publisher.

For more information, please contact Public Programs Coordinator Véronique Couillard at 613-233-8699 ext. 228 or vcouillard@ottawaartgallery.ca

Director for A B Series: Max Middle 613-237-4309 or director@abseries.org

Media inquiries:
Line Dezainde, communications@ottawaartgallery.ca, 613-233-8699 x 225