Calgary ArtsCommon’s Stephen Magazine has just published my reflections on being the first artist-in-residence in the Lightbox Studio. Pick up a free copy today!
Cultural Weekly has recently reviewed Kern...
Ordinary language can hardly do justice to these poems by Derek Beaulieu. Utilizing signs, logos and slogans, these suggestive glyphs make for unprecedented concrete poetry. Beaulieu is a renowned member of the Poetry avant-garde and is currently the Poet Laureate of Calgary, Canada. In his author’s note, Beaulieu writes, “Kern is made by using dry-transfer lettering without the use of computers. Ubiquitous in graphic design, technical drafting, and advertising from the early 1960s to early 1990s, dry-transfer lettering was used in order to standardize graphic elements, eliminate the individuality of the artists’ hand, and speed up the creative process.” He constructs these poems without the help of plans or sketches, creating each one by hand a letter at a time. The resulting image-field created by Beaulieu is similar to an abstract painting and can even be called otherworldly. Marjorie Perloff says these poems, “present moments of poetic nostalgia for the signposts of a past that never fully existed.”
This book is the latest in Les Figues’s “Global Poetics Series,” and definitely carries on their reputation of pushing poetic boundaries. The book begins with simple logos and gradually evolves and explodes into complicated constellations. As the author writes, “These poems are the street-signs, the signage, and the advertising logos for the shops and corporations that are just beyond reach. They are not islands of meaning—semantic or corporate.” Similar to the “performative typography” espoused by Douglas Kearney, these poems present arresting images that transcend tradition or even description. Beaulieu “occupies the page in the same way that the Nike swoosh sits on a shoe, or how the neon overwhelms the Tokyo streetscape.”
Chris Turnbull has recently replaced my visual poems in the Baxter Conservation Area after the 1st series were destroyed by the weather…
A few views of “A Generative Library” (BDP Berlin, Jan 31 – Feb 28, 2015) which features my conceptual piece “The Plastic Cast”…
Books shape existence: some have been the teachers of our pasts, some have set the stage for how we have come to perceive our present, and some will be the guides to our future(s). There are the old, worn books we have read over and over throughout life; the books we wish we’d read and then there are all the potential, hypothetical books – the ones we dream about holding in our hands, and then there also those ones we can only hope will never materialize, those books of nightmares, impossible books.For the opening of the new Büro BDP we have asked former and future collaborators to contribute to a generative library, a collective curriculum for the past and future practices of BDP, the books that have and will guide us through our future. The range is telling, from the old and manhandled to the paperless PDF, the school book that offered clandestine secrets to active assistants in current research projects. With this opening gesture, we hope to establish Büro BDP as an active space for book research, publishing and indeed reading.
Once up
on a time, back before desktop computers were everywhere, dry-transfer lettering (Letraset) was in wide use by graphic designers, artists, advertisers, printing studios and more … it was sold in a variety of typefaces and symbols, sizes and colours.
Today, it has nowhere near the distribution or appeal that it once had.
Except it’s my media of choice.
As a visual artist, writer and as Calgary’s Poet Laureate, I use Letraset as an on-going part of my practice to create pieces ranging in size from smaller than a quarter to entire walls … and I’m quickly running out. Every piece I create results in one less letter or symbol that I can use for future work.
Perhaps you can help?
I’m seeking donations from the back-closets, unused drawers, storage rooms and tickle trunks out there — do you have any dry-transfer lettering that you no longer desire and would be happy to pass along to a good home?
If you do, please drop me a line at derek.beaulieu@acad.ca … or donations could be mailed to:
Derek Beaulieu, School of Critical & Creative Studies, Alberta College of Art & Design, 1407 14 Avenue Northwest, Calgary, AB T2N 4R3
2014 has been one heck of a year:
– on April 28th I was named Calgary’s Poet Laureate, an incredible honour. This position has helped me initiate a number of events and programs (some of which are still cooking and thus aren’t quite ready to be plated) which work to recognize, celebrate and build upon Calgary’s literary history and community. Huge thanks to Emiko Muraki, Christine Armstrong and all the amazing folks at CADA for their amazing work and dedication since April — and for all the ways that CADA helps the city’s arts communities.
– i have been lucky to have conducted readings at talks at Mount Royal University, The University of Calgary, Brock University (St.Catharines, ON), and Roehampton University (London, UK) and at public events in Lethbridge, Manchester and Calgary (sixteen events in Calgary alone this year). Thank you so much to all of the organizers, hosts, colleagues, freinds and audiences with whom i’ve shared these experiences.
– My students and colleagues recognized and awarded my teaching with the Alberta College of Art + Design Student Association Appreciation Award and the inaugural Robert Kroetsch Teaching Innovation Award from the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs (CCWWP). Thank you. I was thrilled to share with students at Mount Royal, ACAD and at Wordsworth Teen Summer Camp (8 courses & the camp over the year)
– i’ve been lucky to have work published magazines, journals and books in Canada, the US, Germany, England and France and work included in gallery exhibitions in Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, England and the US. I was also the first artist-in-residence in the Lightbox Studio in Calgary’s Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts (now the Arts Commons) – thank you Natasha Jensen for all the organizational acumen. My work was projected on the side of the Calgary Tower and posted on billboards on Calgary’s busiest freeways thanks to the initiatives of Calgary’s Wordfest.
– Los Angeles-based press Les Figues published my latest volume of visual poetry, KERN, and for that i am incredibly grateful. thank you Andrew, Vanessa and Teresa.
– through No press I published 19 different editions of poetry and prose from international, national and local emerging and established writers. each book was meant to help spread the word of risk-taking work being written internationally. Thank you for trusting me with your work.
– lastly, i capped the year off with a trip to London with my family in order to defend my Phd dissertation in Creative Writing at Roehampton University under the supervision of Dr. Peter Jaeger and Mr. Jeff Hilson – both of whom have been exceptional teachers and mentors.
None of this would have been possible without my incredible partner, Kristen, and my amazing daughter Maddie. My parents and in-laws have also been a steady voice of support and love; thank you.
In so many ways i can only excel because of the strength and support of my community of freinds and colleagues, especially Christian Bok, Sina Queyras, Darren Wershler, Kenneth Goldsmith, Tony Trehy, Jordan Scott, Greg Betts, Lori Emerson, Jo Steffens, Kit Dobson, Helen Hajnoczky … and so many others. Thank you. And thank you to my students who always encourage me to listen, to share, to push my practice and my pedagogy. You rock.
Once again, December brings an opportunity to reflect upon the year’s books. Like previous years, my “most engaging books” list is idiosyncratic and reflects what i found most fascinating / useful / generative. Seek out these volumes, every one will reward the search (and your local, independent, bookstore can help…). This was an amazing year for poetry with many titles that were simply exceptional. This is the cream of the crop for 2014, seriously:
Abel, Jordan. Un/Inhabited. (Talonbooks / ProjectSpace)
Babstock, Ken. On Malice. (Coach House Books)
Czech, Natalie. I can not repeat what I hear. (Spector)
Dodds, Jeramy, trans. The Poetic Edda. (Coach House Books)
Emerson, Lori. Reading Writing Interfaces from the Digital to the Bookbound. (University of Minnesota Press)
Fitterman, Robert. No, wait. Yep. Definitely still hate myself. (Ugly Duckling Presse)
Hancock, Brecken. Broom Broom. (Coach House Books)
Lockwood, Patricia. Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexual. (Penguin)
Queyras, Sina. MxT. (Coach House Books)
Robertson, Lisa. Cinema of the Present. (Coach House Books)
Simpson, Natalie. Thrum. (Talonbooks)
Zultanski, Steven. Bribery. (Ugly Duckling Presse)
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