odd sundays featuring Robert Gibbs

Poetry reading: Bringing back Robert Gibbs as featured reader at odd sundays at molly’s, Fredericton’s longest running semimonthly poetry reading series! (New Brunswick is Canada’s poetry province !)

Sunday, November 4, 2007, 2pm
Molly’s Coffee House
554 Queen Street, Fredericton
(with guest emcee Robert Hawkes, thank you Robert Hawkes)

Featured Reader Robert Gibbs was born in Saint John. He went to Cambridge University and to the University of New Brunswick, after which he taught at UNB in the department of English for many years. Students who studied under him, and writers who participated in his classes at the Maritime Writers’ Workshop, speak eloquently of his gifts of attention and guidance. For years he edited The Fiddlehead, Canada’s most famous literary magazine, promoting writers and poetry and endearing himself to the literary world. Gibbs’ poems have been called elegies for life and his short stories have been widely published and broadcast on CBC Radio. Alden Nowlan said that Gibbs is: “Canada’s most under-estimated poet.” Well, we in Fredericton adore him.

Gibbs has published eight books of poetry as well as a collection of stories and a novel. As the literary executor of the Alden Nowlan estate, he has edited two collections of Nowlan’s essays. Among his publications are: A Mouthorgan for Angels (fantasy), Oberon Press, 1984, An Exchange of Gifts: Poems New and Selected, Irwin, 1985, Earth Aches, Broken Jaw Press, 1995, The Tongue Still Dances: Poems New and Selected, Fiddlehead Poetry Books/Goose Lane Editions, 1985.

“His poems contain sensual and witty descroptions of human and non-human landscapes, subtle insights into relationships, and a sophisticated understanding of the workings of the mind. . .” M. Travis Lane, The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature.

With affection and great respect, we welcome Robert Gibbs to odd sundays at molly’s. A cold pre-empted his attendance in March of this year, and we are so happy to welcome him to this autumn reading.

Open Set: Bring lyrics, drama, fiction, drama, or music, to present in the open set. If it is created from words, we want it.

Please join us at 2 pm on Sunday, November 4, at Molly’s Coffee House, for an afternoon engaged with literature. For information: acalvern@nbnet.nb.ca or 459-1436. (Just say yes to poetry.)