How are Poets able to conjure provocative mental images, stimulate secret passions, stir-up complex and unresolved personal issues in their audiences? What motivates these Poets to Confess, Create and bend “Reality” ?

Perhaps this devotion to the process of  transcribing the Encrypted Truth dictated by the “little voice whispering inside their heads” are simply metaphorical “Post-Cards from the edge of dissonant consciousness” ?

Moreover…these Poetic Artifacts are likely the Magical by-products of countless hours of disciplined rewriting and soul-searching. This complicated and laborious process evolves to a point where each and every passionate written word is contemplated, weighed, evaluated and juxtaposed.  Every single published “word-bubble thought” promises to be a near-perfect embodiment of that sublime “aha” birth-marked moment of sublime revelation.

On November 26, Coach House Books launches The State of the Arts: Living With Culture in Toronto, volume two of the uTOpia series. The State of the Arts explores the Toronto arts scene from every angle, featuring 38 essays by Toronto writers, thinkers, musicians and city-builders that paint an honest portrait of where culture in Toronto is and where it can go.

To help you warm up during this bitter fall, Coach House Books, in conjunction with This Is Not A Reading Series and Wavelength, is holding a barn-burner of a book launch for The State of the Arts on Sunday, November 26 at The Gladstone Hotel. Heated discussions on 'official art' and 'unofficial art' in the afternoon and searingly hot Toronto musical acts like More Or Les, The Phonemes and Scarborough A/V in the evening will keep you nice and toasty. And your attendance at the launch means you'll be in the know when your friends start talking about the city as cultureshed, extolling the virtues of the Ex as an arts venue and heading out to the suburbs in search of Toronto's next great artists. Click here for contacts, details, and a map to the venue!

The Fine folks at Carousel urge you to check this out!

This page summarizes the PAPER MACHETE residency/exhibition recently completed in Windsor, Ontario by five artists connected to the scene developing around Carousel Magazine: Jesse Harris, Shawn Kuruneru, Mark Laliberte, gustave morin, and Ali Sunderji.

This group of artists brought together for PAPER MACHETE share a history in zine & artist book culture, and a fascination with aging paper & material scavenging. Most of the work currently on display at the Common Ground gallery space was created in a three-day period out of primarily found materials. Through the time-sensitive and process-oriented context that this residency provided, they collectively explored their interests in hybrid lit, drawing, and collage in various forms to create a playful & diverse collection of objects, images and ideas.

Hope you have a moment to take a peek.

The Yellow Door Coffeehouse has a long history as a Montreal folk music venue but it also plays a vital part in the city's spoken word scene. Regular poetry and prose readings feature illustrious veterans and talented students. Ilona Martonfi has assembled a very cool line-up for December 7... Check it out!

Like many in the North American poetry world, Mark Truscott and a.rawlings organize or have organized a reading series along with producing great creative work. Truscott, author of Said Like Reeds or Things (Coach House Books), is currently curating the Test Reading Series (testreading.org) and rawlings, whose latest book is Wide slumber for lepidopterists (Coach House Books), co-curated the Lexiconjury reading series. They will be joined by James Hart, who runs the Zeitgeiste Poetry series in Detroit, on Thursday, November 16 at 7pm at Rust Belt Books (202 Allen Street) to end a great season for Just Buffalo’s Small Press Poetry Series. Artvoice caught up with Truscott and rawlings in Toronto recently and asked them about potential connections between their organizing and their creative work.

Check out the full interview at  Artvoice.