Alhambra Poetry Calendar

I have a few good events and publications coming up, but the neatest of all has to be the Alhambra Poetry Calendar.  More than a year ago, when I received an invitation from overseas to participate in this project, I had no idea if would be chockablock full of great poets and become a lovely desk companion. I’ve never used a daily calendar like this, but it’s fun to turn the pages every day—perhaps I’ll stick with it. (I hear it’s bad luck, but I peeked ahead and found myself on January 29 with the title poem from my new book.)

Event: IFOA

I’ll be appearing twice at IFOA in Toronto this weekend, first to host and interview authors Stephen Cain, AJ Jacobs and Bruce Meyer on Saturday afternoon and then to read with a whole host of other folk on Sunday at 1pm. Info below:

Stephen Cain, AJ Jacobs, Bruce Meyer (hosted by George Murray)
Saturday, Oct 20, 5pm
Premier Dance Theatre
Harbourfront

Diane Ackerman, Bernard MacLaverty, Valerie Martin, Eric Wright and George Murray
Saturday, Oct 21, 1pm
Premier Dance Theatre
Harbourfront

Review: Lemon Hound

Another very positive review for The Rush to Here, this time from the US, and forwarded to me by a friend. (Excerpt below). After last week’s trip to Chicago and Manhattan to read, I was somewhat surprised and very pleased to come home with a few more course list placements for the book. It seems prof-types really get off on the use of concepts in place of sounds for fulfilling the rhyme obligations of the sonnet. It allows students access to the mechanics of the form while reading in their own vernacular. Plus, they seem to like the poems themselves. (One such academic writes: “your book, which I’ve been reading, is kicking my ass. Come spring, know that you’re officially on the syllabus.” I like professors who talk like that.) Lemon Hound seems more interested in the emotional quality of the poetry, which is a nice contrast to those impressed with the technical fun.

George Murray, in his latest book, just out with Nightwood, and a much more emotionally engaging and present book than his earlier two with M&S, soars.

Perhaps this is a poet coming into his own, a poet back in Canada, a poet settling into poetry, but there is more lightness here, more range, and a directness of voice–clear the speaker, clear the audience, that line, very direct. These are companionable poems. Mind, they aren’t a perfect companion for this poet, but I can certainly recognize their companionability and further, can imagine them being carried around and dogeared. For this poet, that is the ultimate compliment.
…
What makes this poetry interesting to me, aside from its formal concerns, is its willingness to wonder about the human condition, not simply to describe, or tell (more on this as I work on an essay on lyric, Jan Zwicky and Anne Simpson). I can go far with any voice that creates a space for me in a poem, a poet that invites me into their world (world that rings true). I grow so weary of the faux revelations in poetry, the earnest tone that mocks sincerity. There’s none of that here.

Events: US Tour

Hi all, I’m off to Chicago and New York City to give some readings and have some drinks with old friends. Please see below. Even if I don’t know you (ESPECIALLY if I don’t), please come out and say hi.

Chicago:

The Bookslut Reading Series
October 4 at 7:30pm
Hopleaf (see here for info and map)

New York:

The Frequency Reading Series
October 7 at 2:30pm
The Four-Faced Liar (see here for info and map)

If other events are added, I’ll let you know here.

News: Profile in Eye Magazine

There’s a short piece on me in Eye, Toronto’s alt weekly. Aside from one rather large error (can you spot it?), it’s quite a nice, friendly little profile. I read at the Art Bar on Tuesday and it was very successful. I can’t remember the last time I saw a poet sell more than one or two books at the Art Bar, but I sold 10! I’ll be back in Toronto for IFOA in October. If you couldn’t make it out to the Art Bar, and even if you did, hopefully I’ll see you there.

Readings update

Thanks to some great people and events, my fall is filling up quickly. Please see below for the reading venue nearest you.

Art Bar Poetry Series
Clinton’s Tavern, Toronto
September 11, 8pm

Aqua Books Series
Aqua Books, 89 Princess St., Winnipeg
Sept 19, 7:30pm

Bookslut Reading Series
Hopleaf, Chicago
October 4, 7:30pm

Frequency Reading Series
Four-Faced Liar, New York
[UPDATED] October 7, time TBA

International Festival of Authors
Harbourfront Centre
October 21, time TBA

Bookfest Windsor
[UPDATED] November 3
3pm “Where Books Are Born” (Publishing panel)
8pm “Poetry Reading”

Review: JIVE Magazine

My publisher pointed out this nice little review. It’s nice that it has a populist angle to it, as though regular everyday people are enjoying poetry. How hopeful and refreshing.

These days it seems that everywhere you look people are combining many activities into one. We drive and talk on the phone; we work while eating lunch. From this, it appears that we are the ultimate multi-taskers. The thing is, with all this mundane multi-tasking, it is definitely easier to aimlessly run through life rather than to actually living in the moment. Lucky for us, George Murray in his latest collection of poetry, the rush to here, seeks to explore the ideas of time and human nature in a way that is vivid, stripped down and frank. The language that he uses is a beautiful mixture of the colloquial and the literary, like in “Rearview Mirror” when hair and scarves are going “shitcrazy” from the wind (10). Besides the concrete language he employs, his poems take the shape of short, sonnet-like forms that work perfectly to capture exactly the image and moment Murray was going for. For instance, in “Truck Stop Gothic,” the speaker recalls a past job as a cook at some greasy spoon when he sliced the head of a fly and went back to making sandwiches without hesitation. Throughout George Murray’s the rush to here, there are moments and images that many people can relate to making it a great book for anyone to pick up for themselves or a friend.

Interview: Inkwell

Something called Inkwell Newswatch interviewed me recently. In fact, my ugly mug takes up most of the “cover“. Included is a short excerpt from The Rush to Here. Thanks to the folks there for asking.

Events: Upcoming Readings

I’ve got a few readings coming up this fall, including some in the US.

Art Bar Poetry Series
Clinton’s Tavern, Toronto
September 11, 8pm

Bookslut Reading Series
Hopleaf, Chicago
October 4, 7:30pm

Frequency Reading Series
Four-Faced Liar, New York
October (TBA)

Bookfest Windsor
November 2-4
Time and location TBA

If you’d like me to read at your venue or speak to your bookclub or group, please contact my publicist Marisa Alps at info@nightwoodeditions.com  to set up a date.

Books

The Hunter
(McClelland & Stewart, 2003)

from The Globe and Mail

“A spooky portrait … with a compelling tone and constellation of imagery – less a moral tale of Armageddon and more its soundtrack. Murray takes great risks with statement and image. …the collection is quite powerful, inventing an original way of seeing a world which seems to enjoy using its own tools against itself. The Hunter remakes the world with a frightening and evocative music.”

from The Toronto Star

“There’s … a life-and-death urgency here, but at a remove, as if Murray wanted to widen his scope from the close-up view of an individual to a panoramic perspective on humanity and the sweep of history. The Hunter is an ambitious, visionary collection with many haunting images. It’s chilling indeed…”

from The Quill and Quire

“Like Milton in Paradise Lost and many poets of the Western canon, Murray’s moralistic poems yearn for a golden age where man was part of the natural world… Beauty is what makes The Hunter such a compelling read. At this watershed moment in history, we are all looking for the beauty that lies somewhere between the ugliness of history and the ominous tone of prophesy.”

from Books in Canada

“For style, I think of John Ashbery’s prolix juxtapositions of estranging details, though I like Murray’s poems better (more definition, more purposeful clout, more definition between the poems). Murray has [Mark] Strand’s surreal clairvoyance, his cheeky wit. Murray works his magic by accumulation… by analogy with musical forms, whose effects are cumulative. Murray’s corrective influence invokes a hurried urgency, a nutty scrambling for an imaginative response that will jolt us awake, blow the lid off our complacency.”

from The Ottawa Citizen

“[The Hunter] draws a new language from the chaos and uncertainty of our time. … Imbued with an eerie, prophetic spirit. [It's] as if Murray sensed the coming storm.”

from MobyLives.com

“… experience haunts these pages, but so, too, does a sense of continuance, of a relentless quest for grace, in poems that combine an admirable grittiness with enviable elegance.”

The Cottage Builder’s Letter
(McClelland & Stewart, 2001)

from The National Post

“He has the poet’s instincts, the knack for turning a good phrase and the verbal grit and suppleness to keep the reader engaged. …an important talent.”

from CBC Newsworld’s (TV) On the Arts

“… haunting poems about people set off in some way against their environment… I really think that he has talent and he’ll do more.”

from Books in Canada

“There is a fine balance in Murray that makes his poems deeply persuasive. There is an atmosphere wherein past and present, the before and after of events, mingle to create the timeless history of a place.”

from The Globe and Mail

“These poems are well-crafted and observant…”

Carousel: A Book of Second Thoughts
(Exile Editions, 2000)

from The Globe and Mail

“Framed by a central metaphor (and often suitable for framing), the poems work Calvino-like variations on the theme of mortality. [Murray] demonstrates that a firm controlling metaphor in a poem need not obviate the free play of imagination. … This is a highly impressive first book.”

from Eye Weekly

“…unusually sharp line-to-line – with image rhyme, pun, ironic wordplay and a comedian’s sense of timing …borderline brilliant.”

from The Danforth Review

“…a wide range of tones and perspectives: poignant, comic, tragic, sardonic, and erotic. …one can only say that Murray has triumphed in his metaphor.”