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    Writers on Reading: paulo da costa

    Writers on Reading: paulo da costa What book is currently on your bedside table? I read several books concurrently. On my night table I always build a leaning Tower of Pisa made of books. I am reading Saunders, Dobozy, Galeano, Tranströmer, Ian Williams, J. Vigna, J. Donaldson, Shaun Tan, Mia Couto, Jori Graham and more. When and where do you like to read? Outdoors, in nature, preferably near moving water… otherwise in bed, preferably still. What was the last great book you read? Several come to mind. Out Stealing Horses-Per Petterson, Cloud Atlas-Mitchell, The Lizard Cage-Karen Connely, Blindness-Saramago, The Book of Chameleons –Agualusa. Was there a book that changed your…

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    Adrienne Rich – Does Poetry Matter?

    Adrienne Rich has published more than sixteen volumes of poetry, three collections of essays, and a feminist study on motherhood. Her work has been translated into German, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, Hebrew, Greek, Italian, and Japanese. Her latest book, Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998 (W.W. Norton, 1999) has just been released in January. In the Fall of 98, Adrienne Rich, in conjunction with Dionne Brand, visited Calgary as a guest of Markin-Flanagan’s Distinguished Visiting Writer Programme. paulo da costa spoke with Adrienne Rich during her weeklong visit which included readings, panel discussions and the screening of the movie: Adrienne Rich and Dionne Brand in conversation.   paulo da costa: In our technological,…

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    The Magic Is Simply A Door

    a   c o n v e r s a t i o n   w i t h   p a u l o   d a   c o s t a by Tamara Kaye Sellman   I HAVE been having a kind of conversation with paulo da costa for at least four years now. He’d sent us a short story, “Hell’s Mouth Bay,” in response to Margin‘s first ever call for submissions. Naturally, we were slow in responding as we worked out our editorial processes, so when we finally decided we wanted to take his story, he had to write back with the unfortunate news that it had already been taken elsewhere and, consequently, it was no…

  • Blog,  Interviewed,  Interviews - S&L

    Da Costa makes sense of the world with his writing;

    Ian Doig. Calgary Herald . Calgary, Alta.: Oct 19, 2003 . pg. F.4 Interview with paulo da costa Calgary writer paulo da costa was born in Angola and raised in Portugal, before coming to Canada in 1989. His first novel, The Scent of a Lie, was awarded the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book. Q: Why are you a writer? A: There’s two parts — to make sense of the world and to explore the different facets of life through different characters’ eyes. It’s like living different lives by entering other people’s perceptions and points of view. The other part…

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    The Democratisation of Poetry

    Bob Holman (USA) became a poet in the third grade when his teacher said, “That’s a very good poem, Robert. Where did you copy it from?” He has published five books, most recently The Collect Call of the Wild and a poetry CD, In With the Out Crowd. He has also helped to put poetry on TV, producing The United States of Poetry for PBS and appearing on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged. Currently, he teaches a course at Bard College, “Exploding Text: Poetry in Performance.” Holman works to change traditional definitions of poetry and to broaden its audience through work that has been noted for its raw power and irreverent…

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    Eugénio de Andrade – Between Brutality and Tenderness

    paulo da costa interviews Eugénio de Andrade Eugénio de Andrade is the most loved of the living Portuguese poets and the best known outside his country. He is thin, slightly hunched by the weight of nearly eight decades of life and there is a visible frailty in the way he walks. His hair is pure white. Of himself he has said he is a mixture of brutality and tenderness. In 1994 the city of Porto offered him a house with a view to the sea and the small colourful fishing boats rocking by the shore. The house was designed having in mind that a poet was going to inhabit it.…

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    Erin Mouré – Dialogues and Polylogues

      Erin Mouré is one of Canada’s most respected and eminent poets. Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Furious, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Domestic Fuel, the QSPELL Award for Poetry for WSW, Mouré has published twelve books of poetry, including A Frame of the Book (aka The Frame of a Book), which was co-published in the U.S. by Sun and Moon Press, and Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person, shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize and the City of Toronto Book Award. Her most recent collection, O Cidadán, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2003. Mouré lives in Montreal and writes with a…

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    Quincy Troupe – On Reading Like a Sleeping Pill

    Quincy Troupe is a poet, journalist, and teacher. Two-time winner of the prestigious Heavyweight Champion of Poetry and winner of American Book Awards for both nonfiction (Miles: The Autobiography) and poetry (Snake Back Solos), he leaves audiences in awe with his incendiary jazz performance style. His most recent work, the picture book Take it to the Hoop, Magic Johnson — is a dazzling tribute in poetry and pictures to the great American basketball athlete. This October paulo da costa spoke with Quincy Troupe during WordFest in Calgary.   Quincy Troupe Well, let me go back to the beginning a little bit – I was a very good basketball player at…

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    Verónica Volkow – The Hunger of Being

    A collaborative interview: paulo da costa and Shane Rhodes interview Verónica Volkow. Verónica Volkow, born in Mexico City, is a poet, a translator, an essayist and a photographer. Until the age of eighteen she lived in the house of her great-grandfather, Leon Trotsky. She has written exhibit catalogues on Arnold Belkin, Francisco Toledo, Christine Couture and Nicholas Sperakis and translated the works of León Trotsky, Víctor Serge, Henry Michaux, Michael Hamburger and Elizabeth Bishop. Verónica has published three books of poetry: La sibila de Cumas (1974) Litoral de tinta (1979) El inicio (1983) and two books of essays: Graciela Iturbide, los disfraces (1984) and Diario de Sudáfrica (1988). She is…

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    Dionne Brand – A Map to the Door of No Return

    Dionne Brand was born in Guayguayare, Trinidad and moved to Toronto in 1970, where she went on to build a reputation as one of Canada’s finest writers. Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry and the Trillium Award in 1997 for Land to Light On, Brand is also known as an essayist, short story writer and filmmaker. Her latest book A Map to the Door of No Return, is a thought-provoking map of her own art in which she sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond. paulo da costa spoke with Dionne at WordFest. Dionne Brand: I wanted…