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As Calgary’s Poet Laureate I’m proud to be a part of a new initiative in partnership with Calgary Reads and their Little Free Library PassportFullSizeRender FullSizeRender[3] project.CRaWDWJUsAA5gOP

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Are you a fan of Little Free Libraries? Do you regularly take – or leave – a book at these little wooden houses scattered throughout our neighborhoods?

Now you can become a Well-Traveled Reader and earn a badge of honour!

Visit our Passport Office (at Calgary Reads) and pick up your FREE Passport. Then with family, friends or your special group visit the 14 listed, unique Little Free Libraries (reader citizenship posts!) in Calgary. Use the stamp inside each Little Free Library to stamp your Passport on the corresponding page. Return to the Passport Office with at least 10 stamps in your Passport and receive a custom ‘Well-Traveled Reader’ badge to sew onto your jacket, backpack or cap. This project is an exciting collaboration with Calgary’s poet laureate Derek Beaulieu.

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The Little Free Library Passport features my visual poetry on every page — and if you visit the LFL locations around the city you can collect a series of stamps for your passport…

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Today I guest lectured David Gissen‘s fantastic graduate-level “Architecture Between Writing and Drawing: Exploring Alphanumerical Representations of Spaces and Environments” graduate seminar at the University of Calgary. 20+ graduate students discussed the architectural implications of text and how innovative poetic methods can inform architectural practice — and students spent some time collaborative architecturally-poetic plans using dry-transfer lettering … Thank you so much for the opportunity to chat with such engaged students!

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Coming Soon from Manchester’s If P Then Qpage1 Press:

Listen to CJSW’s Emily Ursuliak interview me about my library

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Kern

derek beaulieu

Visual Poetry | $17.00
ISBN 13: 978-1-934254-55-4
Size: 8″ x 8″
Pages: 96
Binding: Softcover, Perfect
Published: December 16, 2014

Proposed as a collection of imaginary logos for the corporate sponsors of Borges’ Library of Babel, Kern balances on a precipice between the visual and nonsensical, offering poems just out of meaning’s reach. Using dry-transfer lettering, derek beaulieu made these concrete pieces by hand, building the images gesturally in response to shapes and patterns in the letters themselves. This is poetry closer to architecture and design than confession, in which letters are released from their usual semantic duties as they slide into unexpected affinities and new patterns. Kern highlights the gaps inside what we see and what we know, filling the familiar with the singular and the just seen with the faintly remembered.

Reviews of KERN:
Canadian Literature
(review by Eric Schmaltz)

Pank Magazine (review by Klara du Plessis)

decomP Magazine (review by Spencer Dew)

Poetxt

Cordite Review (review by Caren Florance)

London Open Mic Poetry Night (review by Frank Davey)

Beatroute (review by Brad Simm)

Cultural Weekly (review by Mike Sonksen)

Winnipeg Free Press (review by Jonathan Ball)

Neon Tommy (review by Olivia Niland)

Kern’s Refusal: On Exchanging Visual Ramifications” (and interview with Pablo Lopez)

Jeff VanderMeer’s Epic List of Favorite Books Read in 2015

 

 

kern-derek-beaulieu-cover-front-featureEric Schmaltz at Canadian Literature, has reviewed KERN:
Stunning in its visuality, kern represents beaulieu’s ongoing transition from his earlier disruptive work—perhaps best represented in Fractal Economies, which challenged the logic of writing machines—toward a praxis that has become increasingly mimetic of quotidian modes of signification. Employing his characteristic and intentional misuse of dry-transfer lettering, beaulieu’s kern opens with a series of minimalist abstractions. Page by page, these texts increase in size until they become quite lavish and baroque. While beaulieu’s work has become increasingly “clean” over the years and less seemingly disruptive, the original spirit of beaulieu’s work remains: a commitment to the possibilities of linguistic expression and intervention. This new phase of work is not necessarily compliant with modes of signification in its similarities to corporate logos and advertising; rather beaulieu’s visually abstract materialism proposes modes of intervention into these conditions. beaulieu is no longer imagining ways by which we can explode the present, but rather ways to cut into it and re-imagine it.

derek beaulieu

Intrude-image-51-e1436755276492A Trip Down The Rabbit Hole

Sep 17 at 6:00 pm10:00 pm

| FREE

Gather your friends for a delightful adventure through the neighborhood of Victoria Park.

Start in Central Memorial Park for an artist talk by Australian artist Amanda Parer, creator of Intrude, plus clues on where to find a hidden bunny in the ‘hood. That white rabbit might unlock some entertaining experiences for you along the way, including:

6:00 pm – Experience the Star Car, an interactive galactic vehicle
6:30 pm – Artist talk by Intrude artist, Amanda Parer
7:00 pm – Poetry by Christian Bok and Calgary 2015 Poet Laureate Derek Beaulieu
7:30 pm – Wandering wearable technology models from Make Fashion

…and, as the sun sets, the rabbits will come to life in a whole new light!

The first 12 pieces from my “Un Coup de Des” is currently on exhibit as a part of Alberta College of Art + Design’s 2015 Faculty Show at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery…

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beanNo Press is proud to announce the publication of

Have Mercy by Victoria Bean

Published in a limited edition of 50 copies (only 25 of which are available from the press), Have Mercy is a graceful single-fold poetry leaflet. Keep an eye out for your copy…

Victoria Bean is a poet and artist living in London, and founding member of Arc Editions. Her work has been shown at the Tate, ICA, and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her first poetry collection, Caught, was published by Smokestack in 2011. Bean is the co-editor, with Chris McCabe, of The New Concrete (Hayward Publishing).