Who is Blaine Greenwood?

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The poetry of Blaine Greenwood,

as refined as it is intuitive,

successfully melds the visual and the aural

without wasting a single breath.

~ Phil Rice, poet and editor

Canopic Jar

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Blaine Greenwood, born in Viking Alberta 1951, is an educator by profession – with a career spanning from classroom teacher to museum educator and event planner. It is from this foundation that Blaine’s poetry has come to reflect his interest in psychology, history and spirituality. His verse has been described as “dark, homespun, sensual, rich with images

Blaine was one of the Coordinators of MOST VOCAL Poets Society. He was until very recently one of the artistic directors of Lotos Land spoken word / poetry venue at Fort Macleod Alberta’s South Country Fair and a past main stage performer. He is currently the DJ for CKXU’s Not Your Mother’s Poetry and as that show’s host, participated in 100 Thousands Poets for Change event 2013 – 2015.

The title of Blaine’s first chapbook Walking Naked Down the Street describes the experience of a writer baring his soul to the public as well as some of Blaine’s earliest attempts at poetry. Blaine’s first book was Black Cat in the Shadows.  Second to be published by Ekstasis Editions The False Mirror is Blaine’s collection of prose poems about Matisse, Magritte and Dali. There are at least 4 more manuscripts in various stages of writing and editing.

Blaine holds a B.Ed. and Diploma in Educational Media from the University of Alberta and lives in Lethbridge, Alberta with his wife, Dee.

Books

• The False Mirror (Ekstatis Editions, 2017. Richard Olafson, ed.)

              ISBN 978-1-77171-251-4  $23.95 

• Black Cat in the Shadows (Ekstatis Editions, 2015. Richard Olafson, ed.) 

              ISBN 978-1-77171-137-1, $23.95          

• Walking Naked Down the Street (Coldwater Press, Trent Moranz, ed.)

              ISBN 0-9699199-0-5, $5.00

 

Performance / Event Highlights

• Waterton National Park’s Bear Grass Days (1995)
• Lethbridge’s Peace through Poetry campaign (2002) and StreetFest (2002 / 2003) 
• Fort Macleod’s South Country Fair (2002 / 2003 / 2016); main stage performer at South Country Fair (2003 / 2016)
• Robyn’s Bookstore Philadelphia (2004)
• Calgary Single Onions Poetry Orgy (2009)
• Lethbridge, Alberta’s Word on the Street (September 2012, 2016)
• Black Cat in the Shadows Book Launch – Lethbridge (October 2015); Edmonton (April 2016); U of Lethbridge (April 2016); Calgary ( April 2016)
• Wordstorm reading series, Nanaimo, British Columbia (April 2017); Spring Writes Conference, BC Writers’ Federation ( https://www.wordstorm.ca/ )
• The False Mirror Book launch – Lethbridge (February 2018 – Poetry Symposium); Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton,Medicine Hat (April 2018)

Teaching Highlights

• Medicine Hat Celebrating Words Festival presentation (April 30, 2016)
• University of Lethbridge Introductory English class presentations (April 2017; October 2018)
• University of Lethbridge English 1900 Introduction to Language & Literature course pack page 37

Selected Anthologies/Other publications

• ArtsBridge 2013 Fall (Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge)
• Synthesis Calgary Stroll of Poets Anthology 2004    ISBN 0-9687802-4-5
• Spire Poetry Poster 2004
• Mudlark Press’ Rags: Journal of Creative Writing 2002 – 2004, 2006, 2008 -2009 ISBN 1496-0869
• Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine – Lust Edition Vol 1 2004 (Byron Sheardown, Publisher, http://www.quillspoetry.com)
• Vincent Van Gogh Gallery 2003
• Astropoetica 2004
• Canopic Jar (Phil Rice, editor)
• A Man Overboard (Reid Baer, Editor)
• Interpscan Journal (Canada)
• Our Journey (Oregon, USA)

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Like my Facebook page ….. https://www.facebook.com/blainegreenwoodpoet/
Blaine Greenwood Email: blaine.greenwood@gmail.com

How do I get the most from your poem?

I was asked by a friend as to how to decipher or understand a poem.
I see it as the three E’s: experiment, ekphrasis and experience.
Start seeing the poem as an experiment: a playing with words, forms of poetry, a multitude of voices, and just plain old creativity. Just enjoy the messing around that has taken place. If you enjoy it enough it may cause you to try on a new way of doing things in your life.
Then look at the ekphrasis of the poem: the use of vivid detail and images. In the case of my poetry contained in BLACK CAT IN THE SHADOWS and especially in THE FALSE MIRROR the poems spring from the actual images – the artwork of some very famous artists of the late 1800s and early 1900s. With detail look at what details are in the poetry and what ones are left out. Think of the images that the work conjures in your own mind. A caution here – do not try to read the entire book at one sitting but rather let each poem have its own space and time. In that way you will find the richness of images poetry contains.
The last E is experience. Remember that the poem has been formed out of the experience of the writer and their interaction with the subject matter. Consider also the experience that you the reader bring to the poem as well as your depth of experience with the subject matter. As you experience more of life and especially interact with the subject matter you the reader can return to the poem again and again gaining new insights each time.

Book Launches and readings in 2018 / 2019

June 2019 at 7 30 pm — Flywheel Reading Series at Pages on Kensington, Calgary Alberta
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April 23, 2019 at 7 pm — Reading at Fort Macleod Centennial Library, Fort Macleod, Alberta

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April 12, 2019 at 7 pm — Poetry Night at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta

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March 14, 2019 – Interview with JESSTV

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March 13th 2019 — Olive Reading Series hosted by The Almanac Gastropub, Edmonton, Alberta  (Unable to participate due to an illness in the family)

Since 2000 lovers of the poetry and prose in Edmonton, Alberta, have gathered from September to April, to enjoy featured writers from Edmonton and across the country, as well as across the globe. The Olive Reading Series has been honoured to host Award Winning Literary masters alongside brilliant up-and-coming writers. On the second Wednesday of each month, once our headliners have read, we open the stage to hear work from some of our local talent.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Olive-Reading-Series-31057921160/ent.

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February 9, 2019 — Wordbridge Conference – Lethbridge Alberta

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October 30, 2018 — University of Lethbridge English class – Tag Team reading with Richard Stevenson (enjoyable and a challenge all in one)

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February 15, 2018
Launch of The False Mirror  by Blaine Greenwood and Nobleford Slam Students performance
Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 6:30 PM
University of Lethbridge Bookstore
4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 3M4

Imagine three artists sitting at their easels about to represent the world around them. Take a subject as common as the human eye. Matisse just suggested the eye with two or three strokes of bold color and often hid his initials within those strokes. Magritte took the eye and turned it into a gigantic advertising poster – with clouds floating in the iris. And then there was Dali … the eye appears, suspended in mid-air over a sky, like a bruise glassy and weeping.
The title The False Mirror is taken from the painting by Magritte. Magritte’s work takes ordinary objects and turns them into thought provoking mysteries. Dali, an ultra-surrealist. is an artist of dreamscapes that seem to scream for psychoanalysis. Matisse, who appears to be more serene of the three, is an artist that uses flat patches of intense color and tends towards an economy of line and shape.
These three artists –Matisse, Magritte and Dali – having experienced many common life experiences, represent their views of reality in radically different ways. Hopefully what this collection of poetry will cause you to do is see reality not just with your eyes but your mind and your imagination as well.

February 15, 2018 — U of Lethbridge Poetry Symposium BEARING WITNESS

12 15 pm to 2 30 pm — Andy’s Place, Anderson Hall, U of Lethbridge Campus 

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Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:30 PM -BOOK LAUNCH. .. The False Mirror by Blaine Greenwood

(Richard Stevenson and Micheline Maylor reading as well)

Shelf Life Books
1302 4 St SW # 100, Calgary, Alberta

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March 09, 2018 – 6 30 pm
Book launch / reading – The False Mirror
Sunworks, Practitioners of Good Taste
4924 50th St, Red Deer Alberta

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Wednesday April 4, 2018  at 7 pm
Reading. The False Mirror by Blaine Greenwood

( Kathy Fisher and Walter Hildebrandt reading as well)

Aubreys Bookstore — 10702 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 3J5

April is National Poetry Month
An evening of Poetic U Turns

Audreys Books
audreys.ca
10702 Jasper Ave, Edmonton AB T5J 3J5

April 4th — 7 to 9 pm

Join us for the launch of Blaine Greenwood’s latest book of poetry, The False Mirror (Ekstasis Editions 2017). Blaine will be joined in his reading by Kathy Fisher and Walter Hildebrandt.
Blaine Greenwood, born in Viking, Alberta in 1951, is an educator by profession – with a career spanning from classroom teacher to museum educator and event planner. It is from this foundation that Blaine’s poetry has come to reflect his interest in psychology, history and spirituality. His verse has been described as “dark, homespun, sensual, rich with images.” The title of Greenwood’s first chapbook Walking Naked Down the Street describes the experience of a writer baring his soul to the public. A selection of his poems have been published in the Interpscan Journal (Canada), in Our Journey (Oregon, USA), and in Mudlark Press’s Rags: Journal of Creative Writing. His first book Black Cat in the Shadows was published by Ekstasis in 2015.

Kathy Fisher
Kathy Fisher is a performance poet and spoken word artist. Her background is varied – she has over 30 years of experience as an oral historian, writer, producer and research lawyer. Still, poetry is the heart of all her creative endeavours. Montreal-born, Edmonton-based Fisher is an avid traveler who loves taking the show on the road, most recently as part of her second poetry train tour. She is a keen collaborator and multi-disciplinary artist whose poetry installations have shown in various galleries from Whitehorse to Crowsnest Pass to Edmonton’s own AGA. Her work been produced on radio and ZeD TV, and included in numerous literary journals and CD collections. A championship hockey goalie who retired as centre, she gets the same thrill from performing poetry with musicians as stepping onto the ice for a shift with fabulous line-mates. Her current “team” is trois lèvres rouges with singer-songwriter Donna Durand and multi-instrumentalist Donna Mae Mohrmann.

“Her poems are beautiful narratives, a lyrical weave of words that move you through the stories she wants to tell about life, death and everything in between.”~ Edmonton Examiner

Walter Hildebrandt “Blackfoot Country”

In this requiem to Narcisse Blood, Hildebrandt writes a history or “istorin” (as a verb not noun from the Greek) in the sense of American poet Charles Olsen “to look”, “to find out” the story of Blackfoot Country. As told to him by Narcisse Blood the story is grounded in place or geography and then rises up in his docu-poem to allow us to see the intricate and elaborate life of the Blackfoot people who were on the Great Plains, as Narcisse Blood tells, long before the pyramids of Egypt. The North American Great Plains were not empty spaces waiting to be occupied by Europeans as portrayed in a recent National Geographic documentary but were, as Rosalyn Lapier states in her introduction, a place where the Blackfoot people established a rich and enduring way of life. The stories, as Narcisse Blood said, “arise from the land” and we have much to learn from this history ranging from the buffalo hunt, fur trade, acquisition of the horse and the gun, epidemics, the buffalo robe trade, treaties and reserve life.

Historian and poet Walter Hildebrandt was born in Brooks, Alberta and now lives in Edmonton. He was the Director of University of Calgary Press and Athabasca University Press. He has worked as a historian for Parks Canada and as a consultant to the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the Banff Bow Valley Task Force. He was awarded the Gustavus Meyers Award 1997, for outstanding work on human rights in North America, for his book The Spirit and Intent of Treaty 7. His long poem Sightings was nominated for the McNally-Robinson Book of the Year in Manitoba in 1992. A previous volume of poetry, Where the Land Gets Broken, received the Stephan G. Stephanson for best poetry book in Alberta in 2005. This is his tenth book of poetry.

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Thursday, April 20, 2018 at 6.30 PM reading — The False Mirror by Blaine Greenwood

( Richard Stevenson and Ken Sears presenting as well)
Café Verve 1775 Dunmore Rd SE

Medicine Hat, Alberta

 

There is a new book on the horizon

We all look at reality in slightly or completely different ways … the next book to be published will look at the painterly versions of reality as Henri Matisse, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali presented them.
Remember that it is not the eye that sees what is out there beyond the iris but the brain and the mind.

Blaine Greenwood The False Mirror ISBN 978-1-77171-251-4

“The False Mirror “ is a unique poetic insight into an ekphrastic response to art. Matisse, Dali and Magritte receive the Greenwood brushstroke of exquisite poetry to reflect their work. This collection is sparse amd muscular. Blaine Greenwood has delivered an energetic poetic portrait of living, artful words.
Vivian Hansen Author of A Tincture of Sunlight
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Blaine Greenwood’s The False Mirror is clear eyed ekphrastic portraiture of three turn of the century artists, Matisse, Magritte, and Dali. It is a celebration of reflective form and image in a time when art, war, and the strangeness of psychoanalysis became bedmates. Through the gestalt law of proximity, things become other things and the complexity of the time reveals itself as art. Greenwood’s poetry allows for conversions of history into dream states and fascinating conversations that illuminate the inner lives and perceptions of these artists. Language itself lilts and plays at surrealism and sensuousness.
(Blaine) Great book! Excellent play with form and language. You really managed to keep the voices distinct too. Matisse was sensual, Magritte was surreal, and Dali was over the top! Just excellent. I hope your book grows legs and goes many places!

Micheline Maylor
Poet Laureate of Calgary 2016-18

 

It was fun and taxing at the same time making the final text changes and doing the back cover blurb for the second book …. I finished with the main text of the book.

The working on the cover pages became a case of wanting to get it just right since some will only look at the cover before purchase.

I will let you know where I will launch it and read from it …… and where to order it from.

Working on a fourth manuscript

My editor and friend has just gone over a collection of poems that will stimulate you. Maybe a fourth book in the near future  ….. this one will be chapbook in size ….

Got to find the right publisher …. do you have any suggestions ? Let me know .

One suggestion I have received so far is …. https://meetthepresses.wordpress.com/.

 

Another review of BLACK CAT IN THE SHADOWS

Black Cat in the Shadows (Paperback)  

http://www.ekstasiseditions.com/recenthtml/blackcat.htm — where to purchase

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An Imagistic Feast
Customer rating 5.0/5.0
Aug. 3 2017 By W. Faith

In his poetic treatment of Europe’s Post-Impressionist and Art Nouveau painters, Blaine Greenwood’s *Black Cat in the Shadows* collapses—in true Modern style—the seeming boundaries between the visual and literary arts. Rich with historical gems that sparkle against the backdrop of dark Parisian streets—where the “rich, the poor, [and] the in between” all have their place—this collection is a beautiful celebration of the subjective vision of the artist in its most concrete form.

Like Toulouse-Lautrec, Mr. Greenwood “contents himself with just looking.” And through his writerly lens, he translates van Gogh’s “crude wooden table, and one bowl of potatoes” into a feast of literary Imagism. Williams Carlos Williams is—I am sure—giving him a nod and a wink at this very moment.

Wendy Faith, Ph.D.
Department of English, University of Lethbridge

BLACK CAT IN THE SHADOWS

A teenager and four 20 somethings meet in a cabaret.

They are joined by two 30plus year olds.
The absinthe begins to flow.

The creative juices stir and the art sketches decorate the walls.
This is how the story begins.

Welcome to Le Chat Noir. . . the place where Parisian artists and poets meet… again.
Mr. Greenwood’s poems brings the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations
of both art forms to the page with wit, wisdom and elan.
An excellent and most welcome debut.

~ Richard Stevenson, Poet / Author

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The cafe of the Black Cat, the famous Le Chat Noir of fin de siecle Paris, was the gathering place of bohemians, royalty and everyone in between – aristocrat to street walker.

As well, the Black Cat was noted for its entertainment, innovation, and absinthe.
It is the the author’s hope that some of that essence of the Black Cat can be found within these pages.

Black Cat in the Shadows is a page-turner.

Absinthe colours the Art Nouveau Age in Paris and we accompany him through Le Chat Noir meeting artists, paintings and music coloured in absinthe.
Black Cat in the Shadows took me in and held me there in one reading.

~ Joan Shillington, poetry editor, freefall magazine

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“What a great reading at Audrey’s!!
Blaine transported us to Paris, London, Arles…we trundled alongside Toulouse Lautrec, shadowed Aubrey Beardsley, and learned a sinister truth about Van Gogh’s lopped off ear …. a beautiful collection, masterfully read.
Topped with great conversation post reading – bravo Blaine!!!!”

Kathy Fisher , poet from Edmonton, Alberta

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Recommended Read:
BLACK CAT IN THE SHADOWS (2015/Ekstasis Editions) by Blaine Greenwood
Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat) was the Parisian place where artists hung out and where people like Van Gogh and Henri Toulouse Lantrec drank their absinthe. This heady intoxicating book takes you on a sensual journey into the bohemian past of Paris making all its magic and wonder come alive. Strong images, details, and emotions, combined with history deliver a poetry book rich in adventure and is a rewarding fine wine and dine for readers. 3.5/ 5 Stars.

Warren Gschaid, book reviewer and reporter from Lethbridge Alberta

 

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To purchase the book BLACK CAT IN THE SHADOWS
contact myself at the email address found at the end of this entry
or the publisher at http://www.ekstasiseditions.com/recenthtml/blackcat.htm

Contact me at blaine.greenwood at gmail.com

LAST SUPPER painted by Leonardo da Vinci

LAST SUPPER painted by Leonardo da Vinci

Now the thirteen
dance in threes
across the canvas sea
We ask again
“Which one were you
at the Last Supper?

Old parchment floats
to surface of the pile …

You
this old man in red chalk
on paper blotched –

you stare
with your deep eyes,
your long flowing beard …

your
sharp teeth gone …

your
eyes failing …

you
hidden in the Royal Library
near shroud of Turin
there,

still mixing up
your
dark alchemy.

(c) Blaine Greenwood

 

Poetry and Dance at Wordstorm / Spring Writes (Nanaimo) Thursday April 27, 2017 PLUS April 25 private reading (New Westminster)

Reading in Nanaimo  – Wordstorm –  Thursday April 27, 2017

For a link to a video of Timothy Allen’s tap dance and Blaine Greenwood’s poem

• “Holy Paris” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OnM5MTMIwQ .

For a link to a video of Chantelle Norris’s ballet and Blaine Greenwood’s poem

• “The Cabaret“- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFMNzL9DLoA .

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Previous to the Nanaimo reading there was a stop-over in New Westminster

where another reading took place. Here are the links for that series of poems:

• Pale and Delicate Flower (Jane Avril) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KbOD1uYQAc
• The Cabaret (Henri Toulouse Lautrec) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40qj3sMOTQA
• Paradise at Number 6 (Erik Satie) –

part 1 …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ionk0js-R0

part 2 …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dCUJ0LnUjM

• Erect, upon the floor (Aubrey Beardsley) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHp_dPlYDs8
• My Left Ear (Vincent van Gogh) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtVbumq2kn0
• I swallow Paint (Vincent van Gogh) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWfXKL7T1Rw

My literary inspirations

” Richard Stevenson is a friend, mentor, editor of my manuscripts and one who never gave up on pushing me to put into print what I wrote”  —

Richard Stevenson (born 1952) is a Canadian college English teacher and poet. Stevenson taught English at Lethbridge College in Lethbridge, Alberta and has taught in Western Canada and Nigeria. Stevenson has degrees in English and Creative Writing from The University of Victoria and University of British Columbia. Stevenson was also a musician with the young adult group Sasquatch and the jazz/poetry ensemble Naked Ear.

 

 

 

” Featured in the MOST VOCAL Reading Series, Robert Bringhurst,  simply by presenting his poetry and books, helped me to understand that poems can have more than one voice” —

Robert Bringhurst (born 16 October 1946) is a Canadian poet, typographer and author. Bringhurst has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo, as well as classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote The Elements of Typographic Style – a reference book of typefaces, glyphs and the visual and geometric arrangement of type. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in June 2013.^[2]

He lives on Quadra Island, near Campbell River, British Columbia (approximately 170 km northwest of Vancouver) with his wife Jan Zwicky, a poet and philosopher.

 

” Walter Hildebrandt as an interpreter of history has a similar background to me. He provided the insight in the contrary version of history, the version of history untold because it was too inconvenient”  —

Historian and poet Walter Hildebrandt was born in Brooks, Alberta and now lives in Edmonton. He was the Director of University of Calgary Press and Athabasca University Press. He has worked as a historian for Parks Canada and as a consultant to the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the Banff Bow Valley Task Force. He was awarded the Gustavus Myers Award in 1997, for outstanding work on intolerance in North America, for his book The Spirit and Intent of Treaty 7. His long poem Sightings was nominated for the McNally-Robinson Book of the Year in Manitoba in 1992. A previous volume of poetry, Where the Land Gets Broken, received the Stephan G. Stephansson for best poetry book in Alberta in 2005. Documentaries is his eighth book of poetry.

 

Reading in Nanaimo – April 27th

Date: April 27th

Time: 7 pm

Place: St Paul’s Anglican Church in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada

Four poets read for the Spring Writes Writers’ Conference and audience.

The other poets and I plus the organizers have a little visual treat to add to the presentation of our work.

Attend and find out what is planned.