Acclaimed poet presents at Peony Festival and the Nelson Library
By Contributor
Poetry and peonies feature this June in the West Kootenay.
Award-winning Ottawa poet and past-president of the Canadian Peony Society Blaine Marchand will journey west to be guest speaker at the 2017 Peony Show, June 9 – 11 in Castlegar. With a nod to Marchand’s poetic fame, the author will read from his work Thursday, June 8 at 7pm at the Nelson Public Library.
The National Poetry Contest and Archibald Lampman Award are among the accolades for Marchand, who, in addition to six books of poetry and a chapbook, has published children’s literature and non-fiction. He has been widely published in literary magazines and poetry anthologies, and is active in the literary world: he is a past president of the League of Canadian Poets and co-founded of the Canadian Review, Sparks magazine, the Ottawa Independent Writers, and the Ottawa Valley Book Festival.
He was a monthly columnist for Capital XTRA, an LGBTQ community paper, for nine years.
In 2015 a reporter for the Central Experimental Farm newsletter, Mary Ann Smythe, wrote about Marchand’s affinity for plants and poetry: “When Blaine speaks of gardening—the serenity of weeding, the joy of building a garden or discovering a heritage plant—he paints a vivid picture. His words have the power to persuade, to evoke a long-forgotten scent or touch, to relive a childhood memory. When Blaine speaks it’s from his poet’s soul.”
At the Library, Marchand will read from his most recent books: Aperture, The Craving of Knives, and My Head, Filled with Pakistan. He will also read from a collection-in-progress, Where You Dwell.
More information about the Peony Festival can be found at castlegarpeony.com. Information about the Nelson Public Library and Marchand’s reading can be found at nelsonlibrary.ca.
