JOIN US FOR OUR LAST READING IN THIS YEAR’S BREATHING FIRE SERIES ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 21ST 2014 FROM 7 TO 9 PM AT 35 PRINCE ARTHUR AVENUE.
On Wednesday evening, May 21, from 7-9 pm, we’ll be hosting the last of this year’s Breathing Fire series, readings by Toronto poets, playwrights, filmmmakers and novelists. We’re particularly fortunate to have two luminaries sharing their latest work. Sonja Greckol is an award-winning poet who plays with forms and sources, whose “Skein of Days” has just been published. Jaclyn Piudik is a beloved Dragon teacher of English, French and the Writer’s Craft, currently on leave as she finishes her doctoral dissertation, and whose haunting “trans-translations” you will want to hear.
ABOUT THE POETS:
JACLYN PIUDIK is the author of two chapbooks, The Tao of Loathliness, published by fooliar press, and Of Gazelles Unheard, published by Beautiful Outlaw. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Crave It, Garden Variety, The New Quarterly, Columbian Poetry Review, Barrow Street and Crosscurrents. She is the recipient of the New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing, the Goodman Fund Grant for Excellence in Creative Writing, and the Sellers Aware from the Academy of American Poets. A beloved Dragon teacher and mentor, Jaclyn earned her M. A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, and is currently completing her Ph.D. in Medieval Literature at the University of Toronto.
SONJA GRECKOL’s Skein of Days (Pedlar Press, 2014) travels between 1945 and the 21st Century, winding outward from the poet’s own birth date. The book deploys a skein of newspaper and magazine headings and subheads from publications of Greckol’s own place and time, from newspapers on or close to February 1st each year, interweaving flashes of popular song titles, particles of scientific lexicon and a moving poetic record drawn from each year’s Governor General’s Award-winning book of poetry. Her first book, Gravity Matters (Inanna Press, 2009) was described by Frank Bidart as poems “about grief and how the soul survives it.” Her long poem, Emilie Explains Newton to Voltaire, was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. She edits poetry for Women and Environments International, was a founding member of InfluencySalon.ca, and spends time poking sticks into Rob Ford’s cage of miscreants with the Toronto Women’s City Alliance.
