John Giorno: Thanx for Nothing

Presented by Hart House and Words Aloud

Details: On Thursday, November 3, 2011, we hosted an evening of poetry, prose and conversation with legendary poet and multimedia guru John Giorno in conversation with award winning poet and author Prof. George Elliot Clarke, Sachiko Murakami and the evening's host Sheila Stewart.

About John Giorno
Legendary innovator of poetry and performance and lifelong New Yorker, John Giorno's career spans 50 years and has been intertwined with contemporaries like Andy Warhol and William S. Burroughs. Whether written, performed, recorded, filmed or exhibited, Giorno's work—as a poet, sexual, spiritual and political radical—has been called "a shining jewel in the ongoing revolution of poetry and language in contemporary life." After gaining prominence as the subject of Andy Warhol's film Sleep (1963),  Giorno has gone on to establish the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized multimedia poetry experiments and events, including Dial-A-Poem.

Giorno is renowned for his energetic live performances, honed in performance with William S. Burroughs in the 1970s and 1980s. His use of found materials, montage techniques and careful direct exploration of the nature of mind through has produced a vast body of explosively experimental works examining configurations of queer sex, spiritual practice and teaching, fused with fragments of everyday life.

About George Elliott Clarke
An acclaimed Canadian writer and University of Toronto professor, George Elliott Clarke has received the Governor General's Award for Poetry for his book Execution Poems (2001) among many other national honours. Nova Scotia-born Clarke addresses black Canadian experiences his portmanteau "Africadian"  that describes the descendants of black United Empire Loyalists who came to the Maritime provinces in the late eighteenth century is as much a part of Canadian literature as his impressive oeuvre.

About Sachiko Murakami
Sachiko Murakami's first book of poetry, The Invisibility Exhibit, was a finalist for the Governor-General's Literary Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She has been a literary worker for various presses, journals, and organizations, and is a past collective member of Vancouver's Kootenay School of Writing. Her second book, Rebuild, was released September 2011 with Talonbooks. Currently, she lives in Toronto where she co-hosts the Pivot Reading Series. This year, she's judging the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Writing for Snare Books, and is teaching two poetry workshops this fall at the Toronto New School of Writing and through UofT's School of Continuing Studies.

About Sheila Stewart
Sheila’s first collection of poetry, A Hat to Stop a Train was published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2003 and is in its second printing. Her poetic suite “Let her” placed second in the GritLIT poetry competition 2010. Her work has been widely published in such journals as The Malahat Review, The Antigonish Review, Grain, and Descant. Her second manuscript is under consideration. She co-edited The Art of Poetic Inquiry, forthcoming with Backalong Books this year. Sheila worked for many years in community-based adult literacy and is currently a PhD candidate at OISE/UT where she uses poetry in her doctoral studies in Adult Education and Community Development, exploring shame, grief and silence.

John Giorno was on Strombo on CBC Thursday, February 16, 2012.