CUAG: Ottawa & the Beats: A Conversation and Exhibition Walk-Through

The current exhibition “We Are Continually Exposed to the Flashbulb of Death”: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg is not the first time the Beat icon and poet has been present at Carleton University. In 1970, he was invited by then-professor Robert Hogg to give a reading at the fledgling university. Using Ginsberg’s photographs, along with a collection of magazines, posters, and other print ephemera from this time, Ottawa poets and Beat scholars Robert Hogg, Robert Holton, and Roy MacSkimming will share insights and anecdotes about Ginsberg, and his presence in the Canadian poetry scene. Join us for a special evening combining memory, archive, and poetic reflection, moderated by Cameron Anstee.

Cameron Anstee is a SSHRC-funded doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa, currently writing his dissertation on bookselling and the small press in Canada following the Second World War. He is the founder and editor of Apt. 9 Press (Ottawa), a published poet, and editor of The Collected Poems of William Hawkins (Ottawa: Chaudiere Books, 2015).

Robert Holton is a Professor of English Literature at Carleton University where his recent research explores the linked discourses of conformism and alienation that had a major impact on postwar American culture. He co-edited What’s Your Road? Critical Essays on Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (2009) from Southern Illinois University Press.

Robert Hogg completed his BA at UBC, where he became an integral member of the TISH movement. He holds a PhD in English literature from SUNY Buffalo and taught at Carleton University in Ottawa from 1968 – 2005. He has published five books of poetry, including The Connexions (1966), Standing Back (1972), Of Light (1978), Heat Lightning (1986), and There Is No Falling (1993). He also maintained an organic farm where he has lived the past forty-three years, and where he has grown wheat and milled flour for his company, Mountain Path, before retiring. He currently mills part time for Homestead Organics which purchased his mill and markets flour through Mountain Path Organics in Ottawa.

Roy MacSkimming has been involved in book publishing, journalism and cultural policy work for fifty years. In 1969 he co-founded New Press with fellow writers James Bacque and Dave Godfrey. He now lives in the countryside near Perth, Ontario and writes full-time. Since co-authoring Shoot Low Sheriff, They’re Riding Shetland Ponies with Ottawa poet William Hawkins, Roy has published four novels and three works of non-fiction, including The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada’s Writers.

Discount parking passes ($4.00 flat rate) will be available for sale at the tunnel entrance commencing at 6:45 pm. See the visiting page of CUAG’s website for directions and details of the visitor parking in the P18 parkade.

Carleton University Art Gallery
St. Patrick’s Building

http://cuag.ca

@CUArtGallery