In celebration of National Poetry Month, join us for a rich discussion and poetry reading by Jean Van Loon and Conyer Clayton. Both award-winning Ottawa-based poets, Jean is a 2023 winner of the Ottawa Book Award and Conyer won the Archibald Lampman Award for poetry in the same year.
Both accomplished artists and storytellers, Jean and Conyer each compel their readers to look inward; exploring personal histories and reflecting current concerns, each capture moments in their distinct voices, at once both alive with texture, difficulty, and care.
With plenty of opportunity for audience participation, the poets will engage in moderated conversation about their work, their inspiration, and will take questions from those attending. We look forward to welcoming you to this event.
Admission: Pay-what-you-can via Tickets Please
About the Writers:
Ottawa born and raised, Jean Van Loon remembers happy childhood visits to a friend’s Mississippi River cottage just outside Almonte. After a career in the federal public service, she plunged into creative writing, completing an MFA from the University of British Columbia. Her stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in literary magazines from coast to coast. Her first poetry collection, Building on River, a collection inspired by the greatest of the Ottawa Valley lumber kings, was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award in 2019. Her most recent book, Nuclear Family, won that award in 2023.
Conyer Clayton is an award-winning writer and editor from Kentucky now living in Ottawa, whose multi-genre work often explores grief, disability, addiction, and gender-based violence through a surrealist lens. Their latest book is But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves. (Winner of the Archibald Lampman Award, Anvil Press, 2022). They are a Senior Editor at Augur and Nonfiction Editor for untethered magazine. You can find their nonfiction and poetry in Best Canadian Poetry 2023, This Magazine, Room Magazine, filling station, Canthius, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, The Capilano Review, and others.
Presented with support from funding partners, the Municipality of Mississippi Mills and The League of Canadian Poets, and with the community support of Equator Coffee, and in partnership with Mill Street Books.
