When my grandfather was young he was sent off to work on a farm in north Iceland. There, the ancient Icelandic custom húslestur (“house reading”) was practiced, where everyone would get together in the badstofa (living room, sleeping quarters and wool workshop all in one) in the evening after the outdoor chores were done and the man of the house would read out loud from the Bible, Icelandic Sagas or whatever book or journal was available, to entertain his family and farmhands.

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Icelandic author Gyrdir Eliasson was Tuesday named winner of the 2011 Nordic Council Literature Prize, worth 350,000 kroner (67,000 dollars).

Eliasson was honoured for his short story collection Milli trjann (Between the Trees) for ‘stylistically outstanding literary art which depicts inner and outer threats in dialogue with world literature.’

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Having serendipitously initiated contact with the publisher, we at the Copper & Blue pressed our luck and requested an interview with the author. We wound up with an interview and a half! Randy responded to our questions graciously and loquaciously, his remarks as insightful as they were delightful. (Now you know why I am not a poet.) Read on following the jump for hockey-soaked reflections of the past and of today, of the game’s place in society and its role in ending the Cold War, of the motivations of men who play hockey and those who write poetry.

Two of the poems mentioned in the interview, “Guys like Pete Goegan” and “Different Ways of Telling Time”, can be found in this post; I couldn’t resist adding a third at the very bottom, “One of You”, Ken Dryden’s favourite which speaks eloquently to the singular craft of goaltending.

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‘Thank you very much Chris,’ Louise responded, ‘it’s such an honour, so exciting … though to think I’ll be spending twenty-eight hours on a plane taking me half-way across the road…. ’.

I once had the pleasure of interviewing Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård when he was filming in Iceland. As we were chatting afterwards, he said something that has stuck with me ever since.

When describing his first impression of the Icelandic people, he said it was notable to how much extent “ordinary” Icelanders participate in cultural events.

I wrinkled my forehead because I didn’t quite understand what he was on about. Then he explained that in his experience, it didn’t matter who he talked to here, everybody had gone to the opera or seen a play at the theatre at some point, gone to all kinds of concerts and dance shows, seen all sorts of art exhibitions and/or read books, actual, real books! Poetry even!

Still a bit confused, I mumbled something about how, in such a small community, arts are probably closer to people, everybody knows someone who’s somehow involved with something and therefore attends some cultural event at least once.

But I was still puzzled at what he was implying. Could it be that somewhere in the western world, people actually don’t go to cultural events like the theatre, ever?

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Nico Rogers’s childhood is a blur of stories. Sitting at the kitchen table in his Northern Ontario home, Rogers would listen to his father talk about his life in Newfoundland.

“There was so much story telling happening. With various relative passing through, our family was well known to sit around and tell stories.”

So it isn’t a surprise that, seven years ago, Rogers and his father got an idea.

“My father had started writing a novel based on his memories of growing up in Newfoundland,” said Rogers, a story teller and performance artist.

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January is a cold month in St. John’s, but the Faculty of Arts is planning to make things a little bit cosier by getting the sparks flying—literary sparks, that is.

The second annual SPARKS Festival is being held on Jan. 23 at the Petro-Canada Hall, bringing together a diverse assemblage of poets, prose writers, and performers that promise to entertain and inspire audiences.

“The name SPARKS [is associated with] sparks of literary imagination, the fires of imagination, and the fires of warmth that we hope will be generated when we bring people together for a celebration of writing in January,” explained Mary Dalton, a Memorial English professor who both founded the festival and serves as its director.

For Dalton, SPARKS fills a significant gap in the Newfoundland literary community.
“In Eastport there’s the Winterset Festival, there’s the Woody Point Festival, there’s the March Hare in Corner Brook, yet the city where most of the writers live—not all, by any means, but where many of our writers live—had no festival,” Dalton explained.

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Schedule of events: SPARKS Literary Festival 2011
10.20 a.m. Opening remarks: Dr. Noel Roy, Dean of Arts pro tempore; Mary Dalton, Festival Director

Session 1 : Chair: Mary Dalton
(10.30-12.00) Readings: 10.30-11.30; discussion: 11.30-11.50
Authors: Kevin Major; Marie Wadden; Larry Mathews; Bernice Morgan.
Noon-1 pm.: lunch break in festival lunch room (room 1032) for audience (bring your own or
buy a snack there; eat in the SPARKS Lunch Room)

Session 2: Chair: Larry Mathews
(1.00-2.20) Readings:
Authors: Dana Evely; Samuel Thomas Martin; Libby Creelman; James Langer.

Session 3: Chair: Jennifer Lokash
(2.30-4.00) Readings 2.30-3.30 p.m.; discussion: 3.30-400 p.m.
Authors: Kate Evans; Al Geehan; George Murray; Jane Urquhart.

Session 4: Chair: Jessica Grant
(4.30-6.00) Readings: 4.30-5.30 p.m.; 5.30-6.00 p.m.;
discussion, followed by announcement of haiku competition winner: 5.30-6.00 p.m.
Authors: Emily White; Stan Dragland; Robin McGrath; Andy Jones.
Closing remarks: Mary Dalton

6.00 p.m. Reception in room 1032 in School of Music.
10.00-a.m.-6 p.m. Book and journal displays available. Authors will be signing books
after their reading session.

The festival is free and open to all. Free parking is available in Lot 15B, next to (and east of) the School of Music. For more information on the haiku competition, please visit
www.arts.mun.ca/events/SPARKS.php

Most of us live in a state of “continuous partial attention,” according to technology theorist Linda Stone. In a world where a barrage of distractions —the “ping” of countless alerts from our mobile devices and computers — erodes our concentration, poetry would seem to be the ideal literary form, since it’s relatively short and pithy.

George Murray has taken this to its logical extreme in his latest book, Glimpse. It’s the fifth collection from Murray, a writer based in St. John’s, Nfld., who has won a large online following as the blogger Bookninja.

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The PEI Book Awards celebrates excellence in book publishing and creates awareness of published literature by Islanders, says Minister of Tourism and Culture Robert Vessey.

We have a rich diversity in the literary culture of the province and the judges had an unenviable task comparing publications which were very different in subject matter, said Minister Vessey. This breadth of subject speaks well for our Island authors, editors and publishers. On behalf of all Islanders, I would like to congratulate the award recipients and the nominees on their success of having their literature work published.

The awards were presented in the categories of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. In the poetry category, Brent MacLaine of the University of Prince Edward Island was the winner with his collection of poems titled Shades of Green. The fiction winner was Steven Mayoff for his story collection publication Fatted Calf Blues, while the non-fiction award was presented to Island photographer John Sylvester for his book Wild Island.

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