Alessandro Porco – författare

Founded in 1933 near Asheville, North Carolina, Black Mountain College fostered experimentation and interdisciplinary learning, placing the arts, including poetry, at the heart of its curriculum. As such, the college was home to and served as inspiration for many modern American poets. Some, including Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, and Edward Dorn, appeared in Donald Allen's groundbreaking New American Poetry anthology, published in 1960, later becoming part of part of the American poetry canon. However, many of the Black Mountain College school of writers have been overlooked. The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry features over fifty poets selected with an expansive critical lens, including works written by artists not typically seen as poets, including composer John Cage, architect Buckminster Fuller, and visual artist Josef Albers. Many years in the making, this book paints the clearest picture of the poetry and poets of Black Mountain College yet.

Founded in 1933 near Asheville, North Carolina, Black Mountain College fostered experimentation and interdisciplinary learning, placing the arts, including poetry, at the heart of its curriculum. As such, the college was home to and served as inspiration for many modern American poets. Some, including Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, and Edward Dorn, appeared in Donald Allen's groundbreaking New American Poetry anthology, published in 1960, later becoming part of part of the American poetry canon. However, many of the Black Mountain College school of writers have been overlooked. The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry features over fifty poets selected with an expansive critical lens, including works written by artists not typically seen as poets, including composer John Cage, architect Buckminster Fuller, and visual artist Josef Albers. Many years in the making, this book paints the clearest picture of the poetry and poets of Black Mountain College yet.

Deportment is a selection of poems - surreal, cerebral, and defiant - by Alice Burdick. Burdick examines the dangers of dogma, women's rights, and environmental degradation in biting satires, moving elegies, and anti-sentimental lyrics filled with mischievous wordplay. The selection includes some of Burdick's most iconic poems as well as rare work from the beginning of her career in 1990s Toronto and previously unpublished material. Burdick's later poetry, more expansive in form and subject matter, addresses motherhood, the rural landscape, and sex and desire at middle age. Deportment makes the case for Alice Burdick as one of Canada's best poets, alongside figures such as Lisa Robertson, Karen Solie, and Sina Queyras.Alessandro Porco's introduction situates Burdick's early work within the Toronto small press scene, focusing on her fugitive chapbooks, broadsides, and literary ephemera while highlighting her formative relationships with Victor Coleman and Stuart Ross. He traces her move from Toronto to Nova Scotia in the early 2000s and the impact of publishing from the social and spatial margins of Canadian literature.In her afterword, Burdick reflects on everyday life - as a poet and citizen, daughter and mother -in both the zombieland of downtown Toronto and the alien geography of Eastern Canada. She explores how the comparative speed, sound, and density of urban and rural spaces have shaped her literary imagination.