SNARES AND TRAPS: POETRY AND THE VISUAL ARTS, A LITERARY BRUNCH
Part of the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival

Join poet/artists Stephen Addiss and Shin Yu Pai in an intimate literary brunch as they explore the connections between the visual arts and poetry, in their own work and in Zen traditions.  The brunch will take place at SoupeSoup Old Montreal, the latest addition to the trio of restaurants known for their wholesome and delicious food and cosy atmosphere.

Stephen Addiss, a renowned calligrapher and poet/scholar/artist will look at the interdependence of word and image as expressed in the tradition of haiga, “a combination of arts that I find fascinating… where a haiku and a visual image can combine to reach a deeper expression than either one might alone.”

Shin Yu Pai, poet, translator and visual artist, will look at her work in terms of its visual/textural languages: “My work is concerned with the contemplation of the spirit and inherent nature of the aesthetic object-both the poem as object or experience, and the subject matter of my poems, which very naturally gravitate towards the concrete, physical world,  articularly the visual arts.”

The event starts at 11 a.m., Sunday, March 08, with a simple but satisfying brunch, followed by the presentations. Total cost for the event is $20 full or $15 concession. Reservations are required. SoupeSoup Old Montreal is located at 649 Wellington Street, two blocks west of McGill Street. For more information go to: www.montrealzenpoetryfestival.ca

Stephen Addiss is a world-renowned calligrapher and a leading authority on Japanese art, as well as a musician, poet, translator and painter. He has published 36 books and exhibition catalogs, including Old Taoist: The Life, Art and Poetry of Kodojin (2001), 77 Dances: Japanese Calligraphy by Poets, Monks, and Scholars 1568-1868 (2006) and Haiga: Takebe Socho & the Haiku-Painting Tradition (1991). He holds degrees from Harvard University and the University of Michigan, and taught for 15 years at the University of Kansas before joining the faculty at the University of Richmond in Virginia as Professor of Art and Tucker-Boatwright Professor in the Humanities. He is the recipient of four grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and one from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Shin Yu Pai, born in 1975, is a second-generation Taiwanese-American poet and photographer. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with additional graduate studies at the Naropa Institute. She is the author of Haiku Not Bombs (Booklyn Artists Alliance), Works on Paper (Convivio Bookworks), Sightings: Selected Works [2000-2005] (1913 Press), The Love Hotel Poems (Press Lorentz), Unnecessary Roughness (xPress(ed)), Equivalence (La Alameda), and Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers (Third Ear Books). Her work is anthologized in America Zen: A Gathering of Poets (Bottom Dog Press) and The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry (Wisdom Publications). In addition to her work as a poet, Shin Yu has exhibited her visual work at the Paterson Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, and the Three Arts Club of Chicago. Currently, Shin Yu Pai lives with her husband in Seattle where she is pursuing graduate work in Sociocultural Anthropology and Museology at the University of Washington.

Contact Person: Myokyo, Enpuku-ji/Centre Zen de la Main 514.842.3648 publicity@montrealzenpoetryfestival.ca

Para publicación inmediata

El Festival de Poesía Zen de Montreal

¡Olvida las palabras!

El Festival

“¡Olvida las palabras!“ es el tema del segundo Festival de Poesía Zen de Montreal, un evento ambicioso y enigmático que tendrá lugar el fin de semana del 6 al 8 de marzo de 2009. El festival, evento cultural ineludible, fue inaugurado en el 2007 y se propone destacar la profunda interconexión entre el Zen y la poesía así como también popularizar la cultura y la visión del Zen.

Poetas, traductores, calígrafos, académicos, editores y monjes Zen provenientes de Norteamérica se reunirán para explorar la relación paradójica del Zen con el lenguaje. Los organizadores del festival invitan a todos a participar en una serie de actividades divertidas y llenas de significado, en compañía de nuestros dinámicos y estimulantes conferenciantes e intérpretes.

Quiénes Somos

El festival fue organizado por siete voluntarios que practican en el Centro Zen de la Main, un templo Zen urbano fundado en 1995 y situado en una pequeña residencia privada en Montreal. El Festival forma parte del programa del Centro “Expresión Zen” que tiene como propósito divulgar la práctica y las tradiciones culturales del budismo Zen en la comunidad. Este programa de difusión forma parte de nuestro esfuerzo por establecer un centro permanente en Montreal, Enpukuji.

Los Invitados y los Eventos

Entre los poetas Zen que participan este año se cuentan Peter Levitt, maestro Zen además de poeta y traductor de Salt Spring Island, British Columbia; Chase Twichell, poeta y fundadora de la Ausable Press en el Estado de New York y Shin Yu Pai, joven poeta, artista visual y colaboradora desde Seattle. También estará entre nosotros Seido Ray Ronci, monje, poeta y músico basado en Missouri.

Por segunda vez damos la bienvenida a nuestro invitado de honor, Red Pine, un renombrado y prolífico traductor de literatura china clásica (además de maravilloso cuentista) proveniente de Port Townsend, en Washington. El traductor-poeta David Hinton viajará desde Vermont para unirse al festival. David ha ganado amplio reconocimiento por recrear la poesía clásica tradicional de China en forma de poesía contemporánea que conserva con fidelidad la textura y densidad de los originales.

Dennis Maloney, fundador de la White Pine Press en Buffalo, New York, contribuirá como traductor, poeta de tanka, editor y publicista de una pequeña editorial. Stephen Addiss, un calígrafo de renombre mundial y autoridad líder en arte japonés, a la vez de ser músico, poeta, traductor y pintor, nos contagiará su amor por el haiga, una forma visual que conecta la poesía con la pintura.

El tema del Festival “Las palabras no tienen sentido”, es también el título de un panel de traducción que será moderado por Erín Moure, una de las poetas más eminentes de Canadá. El tema se inspira en un verso de Chuang Tzu, el filósofo taoista chino, que alude a la interdependencia entre el lenguaje y la significación, asunto que convoca a los escritores.

Invitamos al público a comenzar cada mañana con una meditación Zen. La jornada de

actividades diarias incluirá un taller de escritura con Peter Levitt, en colaboración con el Quebec Writers’s Federation, y un taller vivencial de poesía con Shin Yui Pai.

David Hinton nos ofrecerá la conferencia Paul Hsiang, patrocinada por el McGill University’s Centre for East Asian Studies. El monje académico Victor Sogen Hori

presentará junto con Chase Twichell y Peter Levitt una velada intitulada “Poetry: Memory and Dharma” (Poesía: Memoria y Dharma).

El festival cerrará con un brunch literario/visual en Soupesoup, un elegante restaurante en el viejo Montreal. Shin Yu Pai y Steven Addiss presentarán allí su obra, un puente entre la poesía y las artes visuales.

For immediate release

Memory and Dharma – two poets and a scholar monk in conversation at the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival
Come and deal in contradictions and paradoxes as two poets and a Zen monk have a conversation about memory and Dharma. Asking questions as fundamental as What is the self? and What is the nature of time?, the evening will be a foray into some deeply philosophical issues as well as a riveting conversation with two very personable and accomplished poets, Chase Twichell and Peter Levitt.

The practice of Zen is concerned with non-duality and a direct manifestation of the self, and yet so much of Zen poetry has references to memory. How does time come into our notion of the self? The paradox of Zen poetry is that it uses words to express the inexpressible. How can we use language to do this?

The discussion will be led by Professor Victor Sogen Hori of McGill’s Religious Studies Department.

Following the discussion, both Chase Twichell and Peter Levitt will read from their work.

Victor Sōgen Hori is a Rinzai Zen monk, translator and author of Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice. He has co-edited several books on Buddhism, and is currently Associate Professor of Japanese religions at McGill University.

Peter Levitt is an award-winning writer, poet and writing teacher. He is author of Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom, and ten books of poetry. Formerly an MFA faculty member in poetry at Antioch University, Peter Levitt currently teaches in the UBC Creative Writing Optional Residency Program.

Chase Twichell is a widely published poet, editor and teacher, whose books of poetry include Dog Language (2005), The Snow Watcher (1998) and The Ghost of Eden (1995). Many of Chase’s poems are heavily influenced by her years as a Zen Buddhist student of John Daido Loori at Zen Mountain Monastery. In 1999, Chase founded Ausable Press, which was recently acquired by Copper Canyon Press. She lives in Keene, New York, with her husband, novelist Russell Banks.

When: 7:30pm – Poetry: Memory and Dharma (75 minutes)
Where: Alfred Dallaire Memoria, 4231 Boulevard St Laurent, corner Rachel

Tickets: $15/12(available at the door or on the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival Website)

For full details of this discussion and reading and all other events of the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival, go to:
www.montrealzenpoetryfestival.ca

Contact Person: Myokyo, Enpuku-ji/Centre Zen de la Main 514.842.3648
publicity@montrealzenpoetryfestival.ca