Reading and performance by the Vehicule Poets, co-hosted by ROAAr, McGill Library and the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival
When: April 26, 2018
Location: Colgate Room, McLennan Library Building, Colgate Seminar Room, Rare Books and Special Collections (4th floor), 3459 rue McTavish, Montreal, QC, H3A 0C9, CA
Description
Vehicule Poets
Most writers spend their creative lives in solitude focusing on their own work. This was certainly true of the Vehicule Poets. But what differentiated them, aside from making art new again, was their desire to be community-minded. The Vehicule Poets wanted their poems to mean, but also to move, dance, sing, howl and play. They also wanted a lively community that encouraged inclusiveness and diversity.
They saw poetry as language at play in the most sacred of ways. Language at play, they felt, was freedom. Their association with the artist-run Vehicule Art Gallery fed into their aesthetic. They let themselves be influenced by artists from other disciplines, and over time, the reverse was also true. They became part of the avant-garde movement in Montreal. Through their individual and collective work, this “Group of Seven” (Endre Farkas, Artie Gold, Tom Konyves, Claudia Lapp, John McAuley, Stephen Morrissey and Ken Norris) revitalized Montreal’s dormant English language poetry scene and made it new again.
ROAAr hosted this group for their reunion. It was a delight to hear, see, and experience this poetry. The Word Bookshop arranged a pop-up shop to accompany the event, and Endre Farkas curated an exhibition in the Rare Books and Special collections reading room that documented the groups' creative processes, influences, and poetry.
