Torontoist » “Michael Ondaatje”

The Royal Ontario Museum Takes a Modern Approach to the Cradle of Civilization

Jamie Bradburn — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:00:32 +0000

The ROM's new exhibit offers a glimpse into ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of urban civilization.

The name “Mesopotamia” derives from a Greek term meaning “land between the rivers.” The Royal Ontario Museum’s latest major exhibit, which opens on June 22, takes this literally, as visitors flow between painted representations of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on the floor.

Presented by the British Museum and rounded out with pieces from institutions in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World covers 3,000 years of human development in the cradle of urban civilization. Most of the 170 artifacts on display have never been shown in Canada.

Passion Play‘s Journey Through Time

Steve Fisher — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:30:39 +0000

At four hours long, this sprawling, religious epic makes demands of its audiences—but it's worth the trouble.

There are a lot of chefs in the kitchen for the Canadian premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, a triptych set in three time periods that tells the stories of amateur actors (played by real actors) involved in staging performances of the story of Christ. Three different Toronto independent theatre companies, all with reputations for innovative staging and creation in their past work, each tackle one of the three acts. Ordinarily, such a complicated arrangement would be to a show’s detriment, but not in this case. While you need to be prepared for a marathon of theatre (the show runs four hours, incluing two intermissions), you’re certainly going to get your money’s worth.

Luminato 2013: A Literary Picnic

Peter Goffin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:00:02 +0000

Sixty acclaimed authors will gather in Trinity Bellwoods Park to read from their work and talk with fans.

“A cross between Woodstock and the Algonquin Round Table,” is what Michael Redhill called it. Dorothy Parker grinding out an electric cover of “The Star Spangled Banner”? Well, not quite. Rather, Redhill, the literary curator for Luminato 2013, was describing A Literary Picnic, the annual festival’s celebration of storytelling, creativity, and the written word.

A Guide to the 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival

Tracey Nolan — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:45:41 +0000

The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival features international legends and local favourites. Plus, the first night is free.

The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Scadding Court’s Swimming Pool is Now a Fishing Hole

Chris Dart — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:45:41 +0000

Each year, Scadding Court Community Centre fills its swimming pool with fish, so urban families can have a taste of the wild.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

The (Surprise) Heartthrobs of Canadian Poetry

Kelli Korducki — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:00:27 +0000

A new exhibition reveals previously unseen photos of Canadian poets at the dawn of their careers. And, they're really cute.

Photo of Michael Ondaatje by Shelly Grimson.

How Beautiful We All Were…
Portraits of Sixteen Canadian Poets by Shelly Grimson
Miles Nadall JCC (750 Spadina Avenue)
April 3–30; Monday to Friday 9 a.m.–9p.m., Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m.–7 p.m.
Opening Reception: April 3, 7–9 p.m.
FREE

A young Michael Ondaatje lies outstretched on a bed of pebbles, shirtsleeves rolled up with the top buttons undone, gazing intently into the camera beneath a corona of thick, tousled, dark hair. Before the lens of a 20-something hippie named Shelly Grimson, the revered author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion was a veritable pinup.

“He didn’t even want the picture!” Grimson, now in his mid-60s, remembers. “I think he didn’t like that image of himself, looking like that. He doesn’t really think of himself as a good-looking guy.”

Grimson was a hobby photographer attending the University of Toronto when Oxford University Press hired him to take a series of photos of up-and-coming Canadian poets for a new anthology. He spent the next few months palling around with the likes of Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Earle Birney, and others. While a few of the resulting photos were featured in the anthology, the majority were left untouched; the negatives were tossed in a drawer and all but forgotten for the next three decades, until Grimson—now a criminal lawyer—decided to develop them. The resulting photos are being featured in a gallery exhibition that opens tonight at the Miles Nadal JCC.

Most of the prints have never been seen by the public before, though some have been shown in private literary exhibitions over the past several years. Grimson notes that, on occasion, even the subjects of the photos are taken aback by the images of their former selves. “One of [the photos of herself], Margaret Atwood saw. I said, ‘Take a look at this one.’ And she broke out in a smile when she saw it. I think even she was struck by how beautiful she was.”

Photo of Margaret Atwood by Shelly Grimson.

The photos, all taken around 1970, capture not only a generation of Canadian poets at the dawn of their careers, but a period of mini-Renaissance in Toronto’s literary history. Grimson remembers a number of quirky stories from the epoch, such as one told to him by Raymond Souster—the “banker poet,” who funded numerous poetry publications through his banking day job and is also featured in the exhibition—of a reading organized with Gwendolyn MacEwen, during which the roof began leaking so violently that a bowl had to be arranged mid-verse to collect the water.

“The roots of the Toronto poetic tradition are really rich,” says Grimson. “I don’t think anyone’s ever really mined it yet. I’m glad I was lucky enough to be able to catch some of it visually.

“I like to think of them as the images we’ll always remember these writers by. That’s what gives me pleasure. That’s what I’m in it for.” He adds, wistfully: “It’s an emotional gift. It’s something personal.”

Urban Planner: January 9, 2012

Steve Fisher — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:00:56 +0000

To do today: Michael Ondaatje on adapting his work for the stage; Trampoline Hall on worms and cults; Next Stage continues celebrating theatre; and Second City, the newbie edition.

Improviser Darryl Hinds plays with Nicole Elsasser at the Wheel of Improv show. Photo by Ann Pornel.

LECTURE: Two Canadian giants in their respective fields—author Michael Ondaatje and theatre creator Daniel Brooks—will be speaking about the process of adapting Ondaatje’s novel Divisadero into a play. David Young, the Reference Library’s most recent playwright in residence, will be interviewing the creative duo. Toronto Reference Library Beeton Auditorium (789 Yonge Street), 7 p.m., FREE.

LECTURE: The first Trampoline Hall of 2012 is even more difficult than usual to peg when it comes to the lecture topics, but here’s what we do know: Mayana Slobodia is talking about Cargo Cults, Nadia Moss has become an expert on worms, and Laura Perlmutter will tell everyone what she knows about Pleasing Mama Olga. The usual Trampoline Hall warnings apply (show sells out in advance, door tickets must be lined up for early, don’t show up late, et cetera). The Garrison (1197 Dundas Street West), doors at 7:40 p.m., show at 8 p.m., $5.

COMEDY: The Second City Training Centre, just around the corner a block from the busy Second City Theatre, has been teaching aspiring comedians for years, but it’s only in the past few that they’ve started to host regular public performances. It’s a major benefit for the comics, as stages on which to perform in Toronto have dwindled (and improvisers only get better with stage time in front of an audience.) Tonight, The Wheel of Improv series is celebrating its third year with a special show on the Mainstage; alumni from classes and the Mainstage will be on hand to watch, play, and party. Second City Toronto (55 Mercer Street), 10 p.m., $5 in advance, $10 at the door.

THEATRE: The Next Stage Theatre Festival (which is the curated winter edition of the Toronto Fringe Festival, complete with heated beer tent) features a selection of previously produced hits, and is programmed to be all killer, no filler. Check out our preview here.

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com.

IFOA 2011: Interview With Michael Ondaatje

Kelli Korducki — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:00:35 +0000

In Michael Ondaatje's latest novel, fiction mirrors reality.

Author Michael Ondaatje. Photo courtesy of IFOA.

“Now, I believe you when you say that The Cat’s Table isn’t autobiography, but thousands wouldn’t,” half-joked Eleanor Wachtel, the venerated host of CBC Radio One’s Writers & Company, at the start of her sold-out interview with author Michael Ondaatje on Saturday. Indeed, the parallels between Ondaatje and the protagonist of his latest novel are undeniably uncanny: both are named Michael, both immigrated to England from Sri Lanka by boat at the age of 11, both attended Dulwich College, both became famous writers. So, how does the Michael of reality distinguish himself from the Michael of fiction?

“I really did not remember very much [of the journey to England],” said Ondaatje. “So I think I had this gift of not knowing, of having a story which I could kind of improvise on: a location, a time, a young 11-year-old boy. So that’s what I did—I kind of invented the story as I went along.”

As Ondaatje explained it, the idea for the novel was prompted by the shortcomings of his recollection; he insists he has virtually no memory of life before arriving in England, an 11-year haze that ends with his disembarkment from the ship that brought him there. This book is not a memoir or an autobiography, the author stresses, and he has no desire to approach such genres. The similarities between his character and the Michael of his fiction are purely functional.

“I think that if the book had been written by an unnamed narrator, it would have seemed more autobiographical,” explained Ondaatje. “And by naming him [with] my own name, it maybe made me realize I had to separate him from me. It made the story more intimate in one way, because that was my name. But he also became someone out there.”

Ondaatje considers the decision to make the novel’s Michael character 11 years old, the same age as Ondaatje himself was when he left his birthplace, a functional one. “Generally speaking, there are some ages where you change your life. One is when you’re in your late teens and one, I think, the age of about 11.”

The decision to set the novel on-board a ship was also, Ondaatje explained, a pragmatic one. After all, everyone has at least some idea of what a ship is like. “We know enough about ships from movies and so forth, so we can kind of build up the landscape,” he said. Because of this, a better focus could be placed on characters and the relationships developed between them over the course of the novel-length voyage.

While Ondaatje’s repeated insistence that his novel is not the story of his own life often verged on the coy, what emerged from Saturday’s interview was a nagging question of where author and creation part ways, and where that old authorly adage to “write what you know” stops short of “write what you lived.” Whether Ondaatje, or anyone, can give this a straight answer remains to be seen.

Ondaatje’s interview marked the end of Torontoist’s IFOA 2011 coverage. Until next year, we ruminate on what we’ve learned about authorship, narrative, and what the written word tells us about… well, ourselves.

Divisadero, a Tricky Jump from Page to Stage

Carly Maga — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:30:00 +0000

L-R: Liane Balaban (as Claire), Justin Rutledge (as Coop), and Maggie Huculak (as Anna) in Divisadero: a performance.

Memories⎯like butterflies, eternal youth, and the Road Runner⎯are difficult to capture. They transform at an uncontrollable pace, jolt back and forth across years or miles, and while some moments remain painfully detailed, others quickly lose significance and accuracy. Memories can also be an evocative mode of storytelling, but to harness them properly takes a master of the written word, like Michael Ondaatje. A great example is the 2007 Governor General Award-winning novel Divisadero, which tracks the story of three adopted siblings across thirty years and from the California coast and France through various points of view. Necessary Angel‘s production of Divisadero: a performance, the theatrical adaptation of that novel, likewise embraces the use of memory as a storyteller, and ultimately feels remarkably like one too⎯a few moments of stunning, stripped-down clarity, but otherwise clouded by stretches of muddled haziness.
Ondaatje’s personal style of prose of flashbacks and concurrent plotlines certainly makes for an engrossing read, but trying to transform it into two hours of live performance is a complicated and daunting task⎯which explains why it’s been over twenty years since one of his novels was adapted into a stage play. The process was long and collaborative: Ondaatje first approached alt-country musician Justin Rutledge about collaborating on a score for the play over three years ago, then joined forces with Necessary Angel’s artistic director Daniel Brooks to direct. Their efforts to bring Divisadero to the stage resulted first in a workshop in 2009 titled When My Name Was Anna. And finally, complete with an impressive cast of Rutledge, Liane Balaban, Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus, and Amy Rutherford, Divisadero: a performance saw its first public performance at Theatre Passe Muraille on February 8.

Justin Rutledge as Coop and Amy Rutherford as Bridget.

The culmination of these efforts is necessarily simple⎯a bare-boned series of monologues, interjected with short interactions between the characters and live music. The play tells the story of Anna, Claire, and Coop—who each suffer the loss of a parent while children, and form a family under the care of Anna’s biological father—and their lives after a violent incident drives them all apart. The script relies heavily on Ondaatje’s words to drive the plot and develop the characters, mostly through the voice of an older Anna looking back at the dark events of her youth. The stark, black stage transforms into a variety of settings⎯a farm, a casino, a diner⎯in the minds of the audience, through the power of Ondaatje’s imagery.
While the author’s fans may relish the descriptive language—and it is indisputably eloquent and captivating—Divisadero: a performance does illustrate why Ondaatje is a celebrated novelist, not necessarily a playwright.
Anna’s narration dominates the script, and, as passionate as it is, fails to really convey the drama of the unfolding action. From behind a microphone, she describes her tryst with Coop, the brutality of their discovery, and the breakdown of Claire, Coop, and her father as a result, violating the classic “show, don’t tell” mantra. This has the effect of rendering the altercation between Coop, Anna, and her father—a crucial turning point that destroys the family’s relationships—underwhelming and slightly predictable. Anna’s retrospective also leaves her isolated from the other characters, as we hardly ever see her younger self (briefly played by Aviva Philipp-Muller) interact with Claire and Coop (Balaban and Rutledge, respectively). This may be a conscious choice, since Anna never reconnects with her clan after they go their separate ways yet remains a constant presence in their minds, but it leaves the characters’ relationships unclear. Her passionate romance with Coop feels arbitrary, the eventual fallout seems unwarranted, and the audience never really understands her, which is especially distracting since she is the main connection between the audience and the story.
The amount of talent in the show is undeniable. First-time stage actors Balaban (from the filmsOne Week and New Waterford Girl) and Rutledge (whose latest album The Early Widows is nominated for the best Roots & Traditional Album of the Year: Solo Juno Award) are charming, Huculak and McCamus (as Coop’s card-shark buddy) show their expertise amid the heavy text, and Rutherford smokes as the Coop’s love interest, Bridget (and delivers an unexpectedly moving rendition of “London Calling,” too).
With all these performers, and the legendary duo of Michael Ondaatje and Daniel Brooks at the helm, it would be hard for this not to be an enjoyable evening. Which, in the end, it is. But despite the crafted performances, reconstructed script, and music, the memory that persists after curtain call is one of an unclear family drama that would be better enjoyed curled up on a sofa rather than on its feet on a stage.
Divisadero: a performance runs Tuesdays–Saturdays at 8 p.m., with PWYC Sunday matinees at 2 p.m., until February 20 at Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue); Tuesday–Thursday $25, Friday $30, Saturday $35.
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Urban Planner: February 8, 2011

Ryan West — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com.

They’re blue, da ba dee da ba dee. They’re also some pretty amazing performers. Photo courtesy of Ciarlo Communications.

Today in Toronto: poets share some new work, three quiet blue dudes rock out, Michael Ondaatje debuts his new play, and Simpsons enthusiasts get romantic.

WORDS: Providing a forum for both new and established artists, AvantGarden will be offering up works ranging from renovated sonnets to an interrogation of Walt Whitman. Taking to the microphone at the event will be Fenn Stewart, David Peter Clark, and Zarmina Rafi. It may be winter, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spend some quality time in the garden. The Ossington (61 Ossington Avenue), 6:30 p.m., PWYC.
THEATRE: Winter got you blue? Well, at least you still have ears. That said, members of the Blue Man Group are showing no sign of the seasonal blahs, instead bringing their energetic, percussive performance to Toronto for a three-night run. The shows will be the only Canadian stops on the group’s first theatrical North American tour, featuring both classic performances and new material. Attendees can look forward to a live band, a proscenium-sized LED curtain, and a splash zone (ponchos provided). Not since Tobias Fünke blue himself has there been such a cerulean spectacle! Living Arts Centre (4141 Living Arts Drive), 7:30 p.m., $70–$100 (children, $44 and up).
THEATRE: Michael Ondaatje adapts his 2007 Governor General Award–winning novel Divisadero for the stage, in a performance presented by Necessary Angel. Musician Justin Rutledge contributes his lyrics to the story of a family shattered by a single violent event. Liane Balaban, Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus, Amy Rutherford, and Aviva Philipp-Muller make up the cast of Ondaatje’s first theatrical work in more than two decades. Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue), 8 p.m., $25.
TRIVIA: Looking to offer your valentine something other than complete and utter dependence this year? Why not take him or her to an especially romantic Valentine’s Edition of Woo Hoo! Classic Simpsons Trivia. Just choo-choo-choose a team of up to six friends for three rounds of questions, drawn from the first eleven seasons of the show. Three classic love-themed episodes will also be shown! Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West), 8 p.m., FREE.

Urban Planner: November 6, 2009

Anne Joyce — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Still from Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, the opener for Jean-Pierre Gorin’s month-long series on the essay film. Courtesy of the Film Reference Library.

FILM: Filmmaker and scholar Jean-Pierre Gorin, companion of Nouvelle–Vague visionary Jean-Luc Godard throughout his Dziga Vertov period, is in Toronto for his self-curated series “The Way of the Termite: The Essay Film.” Gorin will introduce Chris Marker‘s Sans Soleil tonight to launch the series, which runs until December 3 and will also feature a couple of Gorin’s collaborations with Godard (Ici et ailleurs and Letter to Jane), as well as the Canadian premiere of La Rabbia di Pasolini. The films screened over the next month explore the balance between history and anecdote, fact and fiction. Each work speaks as clearly about the filmmaker as their world views, resulting in the perfect meeting of art and politics. The series invites audiences to reflect on how we think about history and how we process current events through images, which is particularly poignant in an age of media saturation. TIFF Cinematheque (2 Carlton Street), 7 p.m., check online for ticket prices.
GAME: It’s not often we get to run around with reckless abandon, reenacting the games of our youth—and even less frequently, in the middle of a huge, busy urban centre like Toronto. Organized by the creatively minded folks at Newmindspace, tonight’s adrenaline-fuelled game of Capture the Flag should prove as popular as the event was last year and the year before. Taking over our city’s financial district—the only truly non-residential ‘hood—in the dead of night, participants are divided into teams and must use whatever public means necessary (skateboards, TTC, bikes, feet) to seek out and capture the opposing team’s flag. It’s important to read the participant’s guide before you head out tonight to keep the game safe and fun for everyone. It’s also recommended that you bring a flashlight. Meet at King Street West and Bay Street, 9 p.m., rain or shine, FREE.
COMEDY: This week marks the one-year anniversary of Toronto’s latest (and arguably hottest) comedy club, Comedy Bar, located under a hard-to-miss (though classy!) neon sign in a basement on Bloor, west of Ossington. As part of tonight’s festivities, legendary comic and longtime Saturday Night Live cast member Tim Meadows takes the stage for two performances with Catch 23, then ManTown! Comedy Bar (945 Bloor Street West), 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., $8–$25.
THEATRE: Tonight, Necessary Angel gives you the opportunity to sit in on the first of three work-in-progress productions of When My Name Was Anna, the highly anticipated adaptation of Divisadero, the latest novel by Canadian author Michael Ondaatje. Artistic director Daniel Brooks joins several of Canada’s finest actors and Toronto’s well-loved and Juno-nominated musician Justin Rutledge to bring to life this violent and passionate narrative, which deals with memory, identity, love, and the power of past and present. The sneak peek will be followed up by a full production, planned for 2010/11. Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace (16 Ryerson Avenue), 8 p.m., $13 (tickets available online or by calling 416-504-7529).
ART: Aiming to blur the boundaries between porn and art, this evening’s “ArtCore” exhibition also raises funds for the fifth annual Feminist Porn Awards, the largest and longest running celebration of feminist porn in the world and produced by Toronto’s own Good for Her. Featuring a vast array of work, from performance and installation to film, the show promises “you’ll never look at fruit, hot dogs, Barbie dolls or fully clothed men in quite the same way again.” Sounds like a challenge to me! Bread and Circus (299 Augusta Avenue), doors at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m., $10.
MUSIC: Local electro darlings Junior Boys have seen their fair share of hits and misses since Jeremy Greenspan and Johnny Dark first teamed up almost ten years ago. Crafting hypnotic, minimal, and stylized “bedroom beats,” the duo’s music translates beautifully into a live context, drawing audiences out onto the dance floor regardless of mood or level of inebriation. The boys team up with Toronto’s crazed and energetic Woodhands at tonight’s show, so the atmosphere should take on all the elements of a true party. Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor Street West), 9 p.m., $20.

Griffin Prize Winners Make an Initial Impression

Jessica Ford — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Prize Founder Scott Griffin on the dance floor with trustee Margaret Atwood. Photo by Aline Sandler.

It turns out that if you want to be a successful poet and $50,000 richer, you better consider going by your initials. The ninth annual Griffin Poetry Prize winners were announced last night at the Fermenting Cellar in the Distillery District, with A.F. Moritz winning the Canadian award for his book of poetry The Sentinal and American poet C.D. Wright winning the International prize for her book, Rising, Falling, Hovering.
The prize is serious business, being the world’s largest prize for a first-edition single collection of poetry written in English. The winners were picked, and announced, by a panel of three: Giller Prize–nominated novelist Michael Redhill, Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll, and American poet Saskia Hamilton, who all read a bit fewer than 500 books of poetry from thirty different countries. In the audience were the award’s trustees, including Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, both of whom were absent at April’s announcement of nominees.

Canadian Winner A.F. Moritz, Prize Founder Scott Griffin, and International Winner C.D. Wright. Photo by Tom Sandler

Poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger followed right after with a reading of his poetry. Enzensberger was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award at Tuesday’s sold-out reading by the shortlisted authors at the MacMillan Theatre. Garnering the first of four standing ovations of the night, Enzensberger delighted in the idea that his poems were popular all over the world by recounting a time he was on Lake Titicaca and met a “chap” who had his books.
Literary critic James Wood was the keynote speaker of the evening and elicited even more laughter from the crowd, reading a poem he wrote about Toronto that ended with the line: “home of Michael Ondaatje and lately Michael Ignatieff.” A former Cambridge scholar, Woods mocked the Oxford Professorship of Poetry, which had been recently plagued by scandal. He jokingly announced his candidacy for the professorship, claiming his qualification was based on his being “thinner than Susan Boyle, also rumoured to be interested.” Turning serious, he emphasized the importance of poetic criticism because, he said, poetry “waves a flower in face of a highly utilitarian age.”

Photo by Tom Sandler

In September, the Griffin Trust will take the two winners of the prize to Reykjavik, Iceland, to read at the International Literary Festival. Moritz thanked his publisher, House of Anansi Press, which was the subject of some controversy earlier this year after the nominees were announced. (The publishing house garnered two of the three spots on the Canadian shortlist and is owned by Scott Griffin of, yes, the Griffin Prize.) Both winners delivered short speeches, but Moritz proposed to the audience, “Let’s all get together and do it next week. This time you read your poems to me.”
All photos courtesy of the Griffin Prize.