Eyewear's Big Night In Toronto With George E. Clarke!

Illicit Sonnets--a poetic evening with George Elliott Clarke

August 21, 2013

Doors open at 7:30 pm, event starts at 8 pm

The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

1214 Queen Street West

M6J 1J6, TORONTO CANADA

$5 entrance fee or FREE with purchase of the book

Acclaimed NOW journalist and essayist Susan G. Cole interviews Toronto Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke.

Director Diana Manole stages a theatrical performance of Illicit Sonnets, Clarke's new erotic poetry with choreography and music selections by Keith Macfarlane featuring Payge Mildebrath.

Toronto Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke is a fierce, funny, polemical and sensual poet, librettist, essayist and Canadian literature professor. His latest book of poetry Illicit Sonnets is a deeply erotic work, which confronts ageism and race relations head on. Discussing the work and Clarke's political and artistic sensibility is Susan G. Cole.

Accompanying this talk will be a 30 minute staged performance highlighting the beauty of Illicit Sonnets. Theatre director, writer and academic Diana Manole will stage a combination of dance and readings from Clarke's work with performers Keith Macfarlane and Payge Mildebrath.

This evening with George Elliott Clarke is the inaugural event of This Is Not A Reading Series (TINARS), a literary programme celebrating its 10th anniversary this season. Marc Glassman, the Artistic Director of TINARS says, "Our mandate remains the same, to investigate the creative process of writers: who they are and why they make their work."

Media contact: Marc Glassman 647-267-9475

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

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