John Glenday introducing
Karen Solie
Scottish poet John Glenday introduces the Canadian
poet Karen Solie
John Glenday
(Scotland)
 John Glenday was born in 1952 and currently works as an addictions
counsellor with NHS Highland. He is the author of two collections:
The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets 1989) which won a Scottish
Arts Council Book Award; and Undark (Peterloo Poets 1995) which
was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Poems have been anthologised
in the Faber Book of Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry (Faber
and Faber 1992); The Firebox (Picador 1998); and New
British Poetry (Grey Wolf Press 2004). He was appointed Scottish/Canadian
Exchange Fellow for 1990/91, based at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
…introducing Karen Solie (Canada)
 I
met Karen Solie and heard her read, and was impressed when I returned
to Edmonton for a reunion of Writers in Residence in March 2006. She
read in one of the newer buildings of the University – one wall
a curve of windows and steady snow falling outside. There was a hush
both sides of the glass. She read well. Afterwards I bought her pamphlet
The Shooter's Bible and discovered that her poems sound
as good on the page as they read in the air, that they had weight
as well as music. I went straight back and bought Modern and Normal,
her latest collection.
Two poems caught my attention that first day: 'An Argument
for Small Arms', in which Solie subtly conflates details of
gunmanship and desire and 'The Birds of British Columbia'
a gem of a 'found' poem which I kept pondering and rereading
for the rest of my stay in Canada.
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