Interview footage from Friday Special Blend on CKCU FM, originally aired on January 10, 2014. The interview was conducted in relation to January 16's launch for Shane Rhodes' new book, X. Thanks to Susan Johnston for providing this audio footage!

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A B Series presents the launch of Shane Rhodes' new book, X: Poems & Anti-Poems

8pm
Thursday, January 16, 2014

Ottawa Art Gallery
Arts Court
2 Daly Ave.
Ottawa, Ont.

More info: http://abseries.org

Featuring the Canadian premiere of X, the video-poem!

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On Thursday, January 16 award-winning Ottawa poet Shane Rhodes will be launching his latest book of poetry, X, which was inspired by one of Canada’s most unpoetic subjects: Canada’s post-confederation treaties. Investigating what the treaties mean today and what art can do with such unpoetic documents, X breaks new ground for Canadian poetry and the results have been published in magazines across Canada, Australia and the United States.

Rhodes states, “Canada’s treaties represent one of the largest colonial land appropriation projects in the world. The documents are still vitally important to understanding Canada today and ongoing settler, First Nations, Inuit and Metis relationships. They are also key to understanding the recent Idle No More protests and the hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence. I wanted to use poetry to show how it is vital that Canadians know about the treaties and what they mean.”

Beyond the treaties, Rhodes writes formal poetry using Indian status registration forms. He writes to the memory of Oka. He writes to the Government of Canada's Apology for the Indian Residential School System. He writes to the procreating beavers he finds in the Royal Charter of the Hudson Bay Company. X culminates in "White Noise," a long poem grown from Canada's collective rants, threats, cries and shouts in response to the Idle No More protests and the hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence.

Rhodes has just returned from three months in Brisbane, Australia where he held the prestigious 2013 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence position. As the official Poet-in-Residence, he was paid to travel around Queensland give readings, talk about poetry and host workshops. His treaty poetry and poetry about Idle No More sparked a lot of interest and there will be exhibitions of his visual poems in the coming months in Cairns and Brisbane, Australia.

Shane launches X in A B Series’ first event of 2014. It happens at the Ottawa Art Gallery in Arts Court (2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa) at 8:00 PM on Thursday, January 16. The launch features a screening of visual and video poems that Rhodes created during his Australian residency.

Shane Rhodes is the author of five other books of poetry including Err (Nightwood Editions), which was a finalist for the 2012 Ottawa Book Award, and The Wireless Room (NeWest Press), which won the Alberta Book Award for poetry. He is also the recipient of a National Magazine Gold Award and the P. K. Page Founder's Award for Poetry. Rhodes lives in Ottawa, Ontario, where he is the poetry editor for Arc, Canada’s national poetry magazine.

Susan Johnston interviews Shane Rhodes

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