Governor General's Award Winner reads at VIU’s Poets on Campus

Vancouver Island University’s Poets on Campus reading series is offering a rare chance to see Joe Rosenblatt, an award-winning poet whose career has spanned four decades. Rosenblatt will read at 4 pm, Monday, November 17, 2008, in the Library Writing Centre (fourth floor of the library, building 305) at the Nanaimo campus.

"Joe Rosenblatt is a wordster, trickster, shape-changer. He's also a visual artist – when you look at his drawings you can see the quirky intelligence that bubbles in his poems," said Marilyn Bowering, the staff contact for Poets on Campus. "Joe's voice is also 'intimate' – the intimacy is that of being inside creation – the hum of the bee, for instance. He's famous for his bee poem."

A recipient of the Governor General's Award for poetry and the BC Book Prize, Rosenblatt has been writing since 1964 but no longer does many public readings.

"I’m into a kind of retirement," said Rosenblatt, who has over 20 books of poetry and several autobiographical works to his name. "Generally I don’t give public readings of my poetry, but it’s Marilyn Bowering and I can’t refuse her because I respect her writing."

Rosenblatt said he doesn’t make a distinction between creating visual art and writing poetry. "For me, painting and drawing are just other ways of writing poetry."
 
"My aim is to make people laugh at danger, the world, and themselves; not as a way of escaping the frightful reality of life but rather as a way of confronting it directly," said Rosenblatt. "If concern with the human condition is difficult to find in my art, it is because of the comic elements, and because my subjects (cats, birds, snakes, avaricious plants, insects, amphibians, bats) wear masks."

"Joe’s poems are high-wire acts that vibrate with irony and purity (and sometimes profanity)," said Bowering. "He must be experienced!"

Rosenblatt was encouraged in his early years by well-known Canadian poets including Milton Acorn, Earl Birney and Al Purdy.

"I have always remembered the support I got from my mentors, especially Al Purdy, and I have always tried to support young writers who have talent," he said. "I don’t talk down to students. I engage them in conversation. I hope to entertain them and elevate them."

Known for his lively performances, Rosenblatt said that the audience can expect some trickery out of him. "I’m full of surprises," he said. "So people can see various facets of myself; as the reader of the poem, as the maker of the poem, in the poem itself. In that sense I’m kind of a multiple personality. I promise I won’t change into a raven or a bear, but it’s all there in the writing. In that sense the shapes are constantly mutating."

He considers writing a craft rather than a career. "If you want to write, write for your own damn satisfaction," Rosenblatt said. "Write because you have to or you’ll go mad. Realize that poetry is an art form first and the perks will come later. There are rewards, but spiritually, not financially."

He recognizes poetry doesn’t have as large as an audience as other cultural forms. "It’s really at the bottom of the cultural totem pole. Hockey is in, poetry is out – if you peeled back the collective mind of Canadians you would find a hockey puck. Unfortunately, hockey makes money and money talks. That is the sad reality."

An Island resident for over 25 years, Rosenblatt makes his home in Qualicum Beach where he continues to write and paint. He recently published "Dog", a book of poetry and "The Lunatic Muse", a collection of essays.

"There are no distractions in Qualicum Beach, you either write or paint or die," said Rosenblatt, who turns 75 on Boxing Day. "I like to keep the old grey cells going, you know? I don’t let them get lazy."

Poets on Campus is sponsored by The League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council with additional funding provided by the Faculty Association, the Dean of Arts and Humanities and the Department of Creative Writing.  The series is open to the public. Admission is by donation. For more information and directions to the event, visit viu.ca/poetsoncampus.