Kenneth Leslie launch report

Lovely event in Ottawa the other night, belatedly launching The Essential Kenneth Leslie. Peter Richardson and Stephen Brockwell joined me in reading Leslie's sonnet sequence "By Stubborn Stars" to a small but appreciative audience (turns out we were up against not only an unofficial long weekend exodus, but also another book launch that night), who stuck around to watch Chuck Lapp's film about Leslie, God's Red Poet (thanks to the Tree Reading Series' Rod Pederson, who actually bought a projector when the one the venue had promised fell thru). It was really great to hear people say afterwards how much they appreciated being introduced to a great Canadian they'd never learned about before.

Literary photog extraordinaire John MacDonald was in the house and he took this lovely picture of me with Leslie's daughter, Rosaleen Leslie Dickson. Having her and her daughter Elizabeth (who is writing Leslie's bio) in attendance was probably the best thing about the night.

I recorded some audio and hope to get around to uploading it before too long. (I know, I still haven't uploaded the poetry.