Joe Blades in WORDPLAY, Shetland's Annual Book Festival

Joe Blades will be performing in Wordplay 2013, in Shetland, Scotland, giving public poetry readings and school sessions thanks to an Arts by Invitation grant received from artnb. Blades first travelled throughout Scotland in 1983. Poems written from that experience are published in several periodicals, on a hand-pulled, four-colour, limited edition lithographic art print The budget guide to getting here (Halifax, NS: private, 1987) made in collaboration with Greg MacKenzie, printmaker, while they were BFA students at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and in a poetry chapbook titled Eurotrip (Kamloops, BC: Pooka Press, 1996).

Blades has previously read, given, presentations, and lead workshops in Scotland as a visiting writer of the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association in 1996. He was at Dumfries Academy, in Dalbeattie, Edinburgh, Johnstonebridge, Paisley Central Library, and at the University of Glasgow. Poems from that experience have been published in The New Brunswick READER magazine.

In Wordplay, Joe Blades will give a reading of his poetry in an event that starts 12:30 pm, Sunday, 1 Sept, at Mareel. Discussions for school sessions and several other readings, including special guest readings, are underway. One of these is the Shetland's book launch event for From Shore to Shoormal coauthored by New Brunswick poet Donna Allard and Shetland poet Nat Hall. Join Nat Hall with musician and poet friends on 1 September 2013, Sunday, 12:30-1:30 pm, in Screen 2, Mareel, in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland. The free event will be followed by a book signing, but seating tickets must be obtained in advance over the phone at 01595 745 555, or online at www.shetlandboxoffice.org and www.mareel.org.

Joe Blades lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He is a visual artist–writer, educator, producer–host of Ashes, Paper, & Beans community radio program at CHSR 97.9 FM since 1995, founding publisher of Broken Jaw Press Inc., and a Past President of the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association, the Canadian Poetry Association, the League of Canadian Poets, and other organizations. He is editor of ten collections, and author of seven poetry books, including Prison Songs and Storefront Poetry, and Casemate Poems (Collected), with three of his books translated and published in Serbian including his most recent tradebook, Iz knjige koja se ne zatvara. In the past 33 years, Blades has given many readings across Canada, including in the Ottawa International Writers Festival, Scream in High Park, Word on the Street (Calgary, and Halifax), Eden Mills Literary Festival, Festival littéraire international Northrop Frye International Literary Festival, and the Labrador Creative Arts Festival, as well as in Sarajevo Poetry Days in Bosnia Herzegovina, and in Hungary, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, and the USA.

Joe Blades gratefully acknowledges the support of an Arts by Invitation–Career Development grant from artsnb to enable his participation in Wordplay 2013.