THIS YEAR BANFF CENTRE CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF LITERARY ARTS PROGRAMMING. Since its foundation, Literary Arts at Banff Centre has become a globally renowned creative catalyst for established and emerging writers. Initiated in 1974 by W.O. Mitchell, Literary Arts programs at Banff Centre are known to push the boundaries of Canadian and international conventions and foster growth among alumni. This 50th anniversary milestone represents an opportunity to look back on five decades of exceptional Canadian and international writing, and to look ahead with post-secondary educational programs tha ..read more

After several years of pandemic and struggle, 2023 felt like a growth year – a year to reassess, reappraise, and return to new ways of creating, thinking, and responding. 2023 is gone in just a few short weeks, here’s what I was up to this year: As Banff Centre’s Director of Literary Arts, I developed a slate of residencies—both online (allowing participants to receive mentorship from their own home, fitting in with their schedules) and in person (it’s so great to welcome writers to Banff Centre’s campus). Literary Arts residencies—all of which had tuition 100%-scholarshipped—enabled inte ..read more

At the close of every year, for over a decade, I have taken a moment to reflect upon the year’s publications. Like in previous years, my “most engaging books” list reflects what I found most fascinating / useful / generative in terms of form & content from the books I read in 2023. Seek out these volumes; every one will reward the search (your local, independent, bookstore can help; an excellent choice as many continue to struggle). This is the cream of the crop for 2023, seriously … from poetry to fiction, translation to nonfiction, each of these titles will blow your mind: Abel, Jordan ..read more

Since the late 1990s I have been publishing steadily in the UK, trying to develop conversations and collaborations with UK-based presses and authors. Complementing my work in Canada, I have found UK-based presses to support risk-taking work, have a culture of chapbook (what they call “pamphlet”) publishing, be open to perfect-bound editions of visual poetry, experimentation, and often have an open mind to the use of colour. In the last 30 years I have published with If P then Q, Information as Material, Guillemot, Pamenar, Dostoyevsky Wannabe, Future text, The Other Room, Essence, Reaktion, th ..read more

Toronto’s Anstruther Press has just published a new chapbook of mine entitled . This volume explores the strange and sinister history of the Smiley Face, from its involvement in Nixon’s trip to China, through to the space race and serial killers. The Smiley Face has been ever-present in the weird and destructive corner’s of western culture. Produced in a limited edition of 50 copies, order your copy today ..read more

I’m thrilled to announce that Astra Papachristodoulou’s Poem Atlas – a small, London-based press focusing on poetic objects – has just published my FUTURE POEMS! Designed to mimic the format of scratch-off lottery cards, each edition of FUTURE POEMS has a grey scratch-off panel which reveals a provocation about the future of poetry. Produced in a very limited edition, FUTURE POEMS won’t be around for long, order today ..read more

As Banff’s Poet Laureate, I invite musicians and performers to create digital sound performances (song, composition, collage, digital, etc.) of my punctuation-only book, SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS. SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS erases the entirety of John Cage’s book of the same name, leaving only the fields of punctuation: the silence of breath, pause and atmospheric noise (more info here) I invite you to create a sonic interpretation of any section in the book, save it online and tweet out your results with the hashtag #beaulieusilence. This is a community-based generative project and e ..read more

OUT NOW! A brand new edition of my 2014 Les Figues title “Kern.” Punctum Press has returned the title to print as part of their Special Collections initiative. “Kern presents moments of poetic nostalgia for the signposts of a past that never fully existed.” Supporting open source publishing, Punctum titles are available as printed editions or free PDFs ..read more

NEW FROM TIMGASET EDITIONS: SILENCE: ESSAYS AND LECTURES by DEREK BEAULIEU In 1961 John Cage published his seminal book of essays, SILENCE: ESSAYS AND LECTURES. In that collection of essays, Cage expounds his theoretical framework and compositional style, and builds upon 4′33″. 4′33″—frequently disparaged as a farce played upon a devoted audience—is a composition which, focusses the musical potential of the ambient sounds of performance halls and shuffling audiences. While the audience is visually captivated by the (non)movements of the pianist, the auditory experience—the perfo ..read more

Small presses, imprints, and reading series hold an incredibly important role in the development of artistic communities, movements, and aesthetic values. I strongly recommend AMONG THE NEIGHBORS, a magazine series — effectively a monograph series — edited by Edric Mesmer under his auspices as Poetry Cataloguer at SUNY Buffalo. Mesmer is also a poet (check out his BlazeVox title Poems: now and then), and brings a passion for poetry to his editing, each volume highlights a historic or contemporary poetic community. Each issue is vital, providing bibliographical information, personal narratives ..read more