Open Word: Readings and Ideas David O’Meara

Date: January 19, 2010 followed by an interview with poet and novelist Steven Price

Second Reading: Wednesday, January 20 at 10 a.m. at the University of Victoria

Third Reading: ArtSpring on Salt Spring Island on Friday, January 22 at 7:00 p.m.

Open Space, in partnership with the University of Victoria Department of Writing, hosted the acclaimed Ottawa poet David O’Meara as part of its reading series Open Word: Readings and Ideas.

David O’Meara’s most recent book is Noble Gas, Penny Black. Many of the book’s poems explore travel, an ongoing theme in O’Meara’s work. Being between places, in stations and airports, and in unfamiliar cities creates a psychological and emotional space rife with reassessment, where one dwells simultaneously in the future and in the past. At the same time, O’Meara imbues the domestic with a similar compelling transience in poems on love and current events, where “history’s narrowed eye” roams landscapes “felt / but never held, like wind over water.” O’Meara gives us lucid, accurate detail and music at every turn.

Born and raised in Pembroke, Ontario, David O'Meara now lives in Ottawa and tends bar at the Manx Pub. Storm still (1999) was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Award. The Vicinity (2003) was short-listed for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Noble Gas, Penny Black is his third collection.

Open Word: Readings and Ideas was funded by The Canada Council for the Arts, CRD, KOTO Restaurant, Open Space and the University of Victoria Department of Writing.