Kevin Spenst arrives in Nelson on a 50 stop reading tour around BC!
Oxygen Art Centre is pleased to present the latest work by Vancouver based poet Kevin Spenst, whom has embarked on a 50-reading tour of BC in support of small poetry presses. Jabbering with Bing Bong (Anvil Press 2015,) is Spenst’s much-anticipated debut collection of poetry. The work opens as a coming-of-age narrative of lower-middle class life in Vancouver’s suburb of Surrey, embroidered within a myriad of pop-culture and “post-Mennonite.”
Slocan based poet Barbara Curry Mulcahy will join Kevin Spenst for the Oxygen reading on Sunday May 3rd at 7pm. Curry Mulcahy’s book of poetry The Man with the Dancing Monkey was short-listed for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and she writes for the Valley Voice. Admission is by donation and everyone is welcome. Oxygen Art Centre is located at 320 Vernon St (back alley entrance) in Nelson.
Jabbering with Bing Bong interrogates memory and makes its way into the urban energies of Vancouver. Language is at play with sit-com sonnets and soundscapes of noise; videogame goombas and an Old-Testament God; teenage longing within the power chords of heavy metal and the complicated loss of a father to schizophrenia. Jabbering with Bing Bong, chronicles the heartbreaking and slapstick pursuit of truth in the realms of religion, mental health, and poetic form itself.
Kevin Spenst: In addition to the UK, the United States, Austria and India, Kevin Spenst’s poetry has appeared in over a dozen Canadian literary publications. In April and May of 2014 Kevin Spenst did a 100-venue reading tour of Canada in support of small poetry presses with his chapbooks Pray Goodbye (the Alfred Gustav Press, 2013), Retractable (the serif of nottingham, 2013), Happy Hollow and the Surrey Suite (self-published, 2012), What the Frag Meant (100 têtes press, 2014) and Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press, 2014). http://kevinspenst.com/
Barbara Curry Mulcahy was born in Trinidad and raised in India, Greece, the U.S., and Israel. She and her husband Mike lived in rural northern Alberta for more than thirty years, In 2012, they moved to Slocan. Barbara’s book of poetry The Man with the Dancing Monkey was short-listed for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her radio play Bird on a Branch won a CBC Alberta Write for Radio Competition and was broadcast on CBC. Her short stories, poetry, and an essay have been published in anthologies and literary magazines. Barbara writes for the Valley Voice.
