About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
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Description
Passionate critic, principled citizen, attentive reader and editor, and energizing teacher – Roy Miki is all these and more, a poet whose writing articulates a moving body of work. The two main areas of his passionate research and writing – social critique and poetics – inform each other in these essays, poems, and artwork compiled to mark a milestone in the life of an important public intellectual.
Contributors from across North America take Miki’s literary and artistic achievements as a starting point for analytical and creative reflections on key artistic, social, and political movements of the second half of the 20th century. Essays on poetics by Daphne Marlatt and George Bowering combine with original poems by Fred Wah and Michael Barnholden, among others, to explore topics ranging from voice, to love, to translation. Mona Oikawa, Dave Gaertner, Phinder Dulai, and Cindy Mochizuki write or create artwork on social justice, placing Miki’s redress work in relation to the politics and art of other historical reparations. Ashok Mathur, Ayaka Yoshimizu, Mark Nakada, David Fujino, and Hiromi Goto present various views of biotext. Jerry Zaslove, Susan Crean, Alessandra Capperdoni, and Smaro Kamboureli discuss the public intellectual’s relationship to institutions. The collection ends with an interview with Miki on interrelations between his photographic and poetic practices.
Miki’s history reflects that of the West Coast’s literary world. Not only did he found the influential literary journal West Coast Line, but he has researched and written works on poets Roy Kiyooka, George Bowering, and bp Nichol. Miki taught many of the poets and academics now working and writing on the West Coast.
Contributor Notes
Maia Joseph focuses on Canadian urban literature, urbanism and regionalism, the ethics and politics of artistic practice and the interdisciplinary theorization of space and community.
Christine Kim researches Asian North American literature and theory, contemporary Canadian literature, feminist theory, print publics and diasporic writing.
Larissa Lai is also a novelist and poet. Her first full-length poetry book, Automaton Biographies (Arsenal Pulp, 2009), was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.
Christopher Lee is the author of The Semblance of Identity: Aesthetic Mediation in Asian American Literature (Stanford University Press, 2012).
Editorial Review
“Readers of this anthology will certainly appreciate the variety of pieces categorized under the four main sections: Poetics, Social Justice, Biotext, and Institutions. They are introduced to varied tastes, styles, collaborative initiatives, and techniques. … In the end, readers will discover that the lines of thought and expression here converge, and the paths (from light and playful to serious) intersect to articulate something meaningful and worth reading.” – Canadian Literature
