Featured Artist

Fall 2016

Gary Barwin

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, multidisciplinary artist, and the author of 20 books of poetry and fiction as well as books for kids. His recent fiction includes the national bestseller, Yiddish for Pirates (Random House Canada), and I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457 (Anvil). A new poetry collection, No TV for Woodpeckers (Wolsak and Wynn) will appear in 2017. A PhD in music composition, Barwin has been Writer-in-Residence at Western University and the Toronto Public Library Young Voices eWriter-in-residence. Three-time recipient of Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, he has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature and co-won the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the K.M. Hunter Arts Award. He has taught creative writing at a number of colleges and universities. He is writer-in-residence at several shelters/custody facilities with ArtForms’ “Writers in the House” program for at-risk youth. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Artist's Statement

Green things are filled with chlorophyll whereas our eyes are languageyes. How is our world grammatical and how can grammar take the eyes outside of grammar? It twists paradoxical like an almostmoebius strip, an ampersand, and you need to put ellipses in when you take them out. Our alphabet isn’t all its semes make new leaves.