The Faculty of Humanities is bringing to Calgary the Poet Laureate of Canada, John Steffler, for the Paget/Hoy Speaker Series.
Steffler, the third poet to hold the office of Parliamentary Poet Laureate, gives the Paget/Hoy talk on Tuesday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the Boris Roubakine Recital Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
In his talk, "The Uses of Poetry," he discusses how poetry is a language that is fully alive with depth and energy, and how it can take us to the limits of our worlds and show us how to convey and generate an excited experience of life.
Born in Toronto, Steffler was educated at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph. In 1974, he moved to and adopted Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador as his home. He's published five books of poetry and a novel, The Afterlife of George Cartwright, which won the Smithbooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Thomas Head Raddall Award, and was shortlisted for the 1992 Governor General's Award for fiction.
The Paget/Hoy Speaker Series was established in 1992 by Carolynn Hoy and the late J. Robert Paget. Past speakers include Rosemary Sullivan, Carol Shields, Jane Urquhart, J. Hillis Miller and Brad Fraser.