Calligraphy workshop with Kazuaki Tanahashi

Limit: 20 participants

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Enjoy the Brush with Kazuaki Tanahashi
March 04 – 06, 2011

Using bio-degradable watercolor paint, we will explore the 1,700-year-old wisdom of East Asian calligraphy and take a glimpse into the heart of the creative process by reproducing selected ideographs in the tradition of ancient Chinese masterpieces.

While learning basic aesthetics and techniques of brushwork, we will notice our own imperfections and inner criticisms that keep us from fully enjoying each moment. Step by step, we will find ways to increase the degree of enjoyment and serene excitement in the artistic process, which can be applied in everyday life. We will also experiment with artistic interpretations and expressionistic improvisations, using a variety of paper and brushes of different sizes. No previous experience is needed. Kaz will bring brushes and paper.

Kazuaki Tanahashi, born and trained in Japan, is an artist, writer, and peace worker. As a painter and calligrapher, Kaz has performed and taught worldwide, and his brushwork has been displayed in solo exhibitions, featuring new genres of one-stroke paintings and multi-color Zen circles. As a calligrapher in the East Asian style, he creates works of large single ideographs.

An evening of poetry and music with Eastern Canada, British Columbia, Vermont and California poets David Budbill, Steve Sanfield, Alanya Munce, Karen Sohne, Marshall Hryciuk, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Terry Ann Carter, Kuya Minogue, Maxianne Berger, Lena Dale Satorsky, Margaret Hogan, Pam Cooper, and Ian Christopher Goodman.  The launch of Matrix Magazine's issue 88: Zen Poetry.

In collaboration with Matrix Magazine.

A writing workshop with Jane Hirshfield

Each poem is the record of an act of awareness that draws from the whole of our awareness. In Japanese, the word often translated as "heart," kokoro, and the word often translated as "mind," shin, are less separate than they appear in English--each partakes of the other. In poetry, this is always also so--poetry, it has been said, is "thinking with the whole body"--we could as truly say, "with the whole world." This one-day workshop will be a mix of new writing, discussion, and looking at one poem by each participant.

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Poetry as the Heart-Mind's Attention

Each poem is the record of an act of awareness that draws from the whole of our awareness. In Japanese, the word often translated as "heart," kokoro, and the word often translated as "mind," shin, are less separate than they appear in English – each partakes of the other. In poetry, this is always also so –poetry, it has been said, is "thinking with the whole body" – we could as truly say, "with the whole world." This one-day workshop will be a mix of new writing, discussion, and looking at one poem by each participant. Please bring thirteen copies of a poem you don't consider entirely finished, and also one poem, a page or less, by someone else which you currently find thrilling; also material for writing, one question you may have about your writing practice, and a generous spirit.

A lecture by Steven Heine, as part of the Hsiang Lecture Series on Chinese Poetry, followed by a reception, at McGill University Faculty Club.

Co-sponsored by McGill University’s Centre for East Asian Research.

An evening of poetry and music—première of a collaboration by Steve Sanfield and Soko Paul Humphreys, with Jasmine Schnarr (viola), Susan Palmer (harp) and Bruno Deschènes (shakuhachi). Christopher Patton will also read from his recent work.

Zen instruction and meditation, with talk by Kaz Tanahashi.

Bilingual readings by Quebec poets Micheline Beaudry, Janick Belleau, Maxianne Berger, Huguette Ducharme and Monika Thoma-Petit, who write within the Japanese poetic form tanka, bringing the traditional Buddhist themes of impermanence and interdependence into contemporary poetic practice.

New poems of Ocean DeRouchie, Ian Christopher Goodman, Xavier Jacob, Valerie Meiju Linet, and Lena Dale Satorsky.

Tunes by Carlo Spidla and conversation between Steven Heine, author of Bargainin' for Salvation: Bob Dylan, a Zen Master?, and Darren Bifford, poet and Dylan aficionado.

Co-sponsored by POPMontreal

Poems of and stories about the oldest teaching Zen Master, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, with Steve Sanfield.

Panel discussion with Robert Bringhurst, Steven Heine and Victor Sōgen Hori on the language of Zen, poetry and Dōgen, hosted by Mark Dickinson.

Calligraphy demonstration by Kazuaki Tanahashi, a benefit for the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival and A World Without Armies

By donation

Readings by Jane Hirshfield and Robert Bringhurst.

Zen instruction and meditation, with dharma talk.

Literary brunch, presentation by Kaz Tanahashi on the poems of Ryokan, one of Japan's most famous poet-monks.