Poster by Jay MillAr

On Thursday September 27, 2012 at the W2 Media Cafe in basement of the renovated Woodwards building in Vancouver’s downtown eastside a group of BookThugs gathered to honour the great gods of poetry and fine publishing.

It was an excellent evening of poetry and conversation featuring the finest in local canned beer and screw-top wines.

The event was a collaboration between the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, the in-house reading series of the W2 Community Media Arts Society, and those publishers of the future of literature, BookThug.

It was a pan-Canadian partnership of poetry that featured two of Vancouver’s most influential poets in George Bowering and Meredith Quartermain, as well as a few talented BookThugs of another generation.

Great mixture of styles and sensibilities.

George Bowering – Canada’s first Poet Laureate and an Officer of the Order of Canada, among many other things — read from his books, Horizontal Surfaces and the Diamond Alphabet.

The final two pieces here feature George’s abiding love for baseball.

His story about the legendary Satchel Paige belongs in Cooperstown.

He’s definitely a Barnstormer.

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