Community
April 17, 2014
TEMiC in Review: A “Smorgasbord” of Meaningful Discussions
Leading up to TEMiC 2014, I will be sharing some comments from last year’s participants. This week, Graham Jensen, PhD student at Dalhousie University, writes about his experience at last year’s TEMiC training event in Kelowna, BC:
This past summer, I was fortunate to be one of the participants in EMiC’s summer institute (TEMiC) in beautiful British Columbia. The week-long course consisted of a series of lively seminars; afternoon workshops and presentations by a first-class line-up of artists and scholars; and both on- and off-campus readings by some of Canada’s most renowned or up-and-coming poets (imagine Erín Moure, Sonnet L’Abbé, Shannon Maguire, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, George Bowering, Frank Davey, Daphne Marlatt, Sharon Thesen, and Fred Wah gathered together in a single room). Against my better judgment, perhaps, I feel strangely compelled to use the word “smorgasbord” to describe TEMiC. But again, its great value consisted not only of the artistic, poetic, and scholarly delights it consistently placed on the proverbial table, but of the diverse artists, poets, students, and scholars it brought together around that table for meaningful discussions—of art, of Canadian poetry and poetics, and of editorial theory and practice in a wide variety of creative as well as critical contexts.
(UBC Okanagan Campus)
In partnership with EMiC, I am hoping to produce a digital edition of one of Louis Dudek’s long poems, and what I learned during, or in preparation for, my week in Kelowna will undoubtedly inform this project. In addition, my exposure at TEMiC to digital resources such as SpokenWeb has already begun to inform my own research and writing. I am extremely grateful to EMiC for its support, to the UBCO for being a gracious host, to the amazing speakers and poets who rained gold down on our heads every day, and to Karis Shearer and Dean Irvine for making the event possible in the first place.
(Louis Dudek)