Derek Beaulieu

Derek Beaulieu

Derek Beaulieu is an author and editor of more than 25 collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, a, A Novel, was published by France’s Jean Boîte Editions; his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, is his third from Coach House Books. Beaulieu has exhibited his visual work across Canada, the United States, and Europe and has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students. Beaulieu is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Banff’s 2022-2024 Poet Laureate. He was Calgary Poet Laureate, 2014-2016.

Website: derekbeaulieu.ca
Twitter: @derekbeaulieu
Instagram: @derek.a.beaulieu

FESTIVAL BOOK

Surface Tension

Typography meets poetry at a Pink Floyd laser-light show.

In Surface Tension, poetry is liquefied. Flowing away from meaning, letters and words gather and pool into puddles of poetry; street signs and logos reflected in the oily sheen of polluted gutters of rainwater. Like a funhouse mirror reflecting the language that surrounds us, the pages drip over the margins, suggesting that Madge was right, we are “soaking in it!”

Surface Tension updates visual poetry for our post-pandemic age, asking us to rethink the verbiage around us, to imagine letters as images instead of text, to find meaning in their beautiful shapes as Beaulieu stretches, torques, slides, blurs, and melts them into Dali-esque collages.

GET THE BOOK

Owl’s Nest Books (Calgary)

 

ALL EVENTS WITH Derek Beaulieu

7 PM
Celebrating Calgary: Laureate-A-Rama
Oct 06 @ 7 PM MT - 8:30 PM MT

DJD Dance Centre

111 12 Ave SE