February First Thursday at The Fort Gallery

Description

On the first Thursday of each month, The Fort Gallery hosts a variety of visual artists, musicians, writers and poets from the local community who share their gifts and creations. On February 1st, we are pleased to welcome Fort Langley poet Susan McCaslin.

Susan will be reading and presenting from her new volume of selected poems, Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Toronto: Inanna Publications, Oct. 2017), a compilation and synthesis of over four decades of the best of her poetry. The explorations of Into the Open begin with McCaslin’s intense early interest in mystical Christianity, but expand to include global wisdom traditions from cultures east and west. Her work does not advocate for a particular system of belief, but exemplifies the open-ended probings of an inquiring mind. In the Fall of 2017, she toured with the book in Ontario, the lower mainland of BC, and gave readings in Edmonton. She is now delighted to be reading to aficionados of the arts in her “home town” of Fort Langley.

Susan McCaslin, an established Canadian poet and Faculty Emeritus of English and Creative Writing at Douglas College, New Westminster, BC, has published fifteen volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna, Sept. 2017). Susan has also published a memoir, Into the Mystic: My Years with Olga (Inanna, 2014) and a volume of essays, Arousing the Spirit (Wood Lake, 2011). Her Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press, 2011) was short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Poetry Book Prize) and first-place winner of the Alberta Book Publishing Award. Susan resides in Fort Langley, BC, where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect an endangered rainforest along the Fraser River. Her Thomas Merton Superabundantly Alive, a work of creative non-fiction written in collaboration with J.S. Porter, is forthcoming with Wood Lake Books in the Fall of 2018. www.susanmccaslin.ca

Also featured at this month’s First Thursday are a number of artists from our Winter Solstice exhibition, running until February 4th at The Fort Gallery.

This month’s First Thursday is being held in conjunction with Art Wine & Cheese, another free art event hosted by ReMax Little Oak Realty in Fort Langley on Feb 1st, 4-6pm. This month, their office is displaying pieces by our own Susan J Falk. Art enthusiasts are invited to attend both events with time for a quick dinner in between.
The Fort Gallery thanks the Township of Langley for sponsorship of First Thursday community arts events.

Gallery hours are Wednesday to Sunday, noon-5pm
Visit the website for more information: www.fortgallery.ca
The Fort Gallery, 9048 Glover Road, Fort Langley, 604-888-7411
Website: www.fortgallery.ca
Twitter: @FortGallery
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fortgallery