Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Colin Morton


Colin Morton has lived in Ottawa since 1981. He has published seven books of poetry and a novel, and has collaborated with other writers and artists in a variety of inter-media performances, including the animated film Primiti Too Taa. Two of his poetry books have won the Archibald Lampman Poetry Award: This Won't Last Forever in 1986, and Coastlines of the Archipelago in 2000.

His 2003 book, Dance, Misery, published by Hamilton's Seraphim Editions was short listed for the same award. His second Seraphim book, The Cabbage of Paradise: The Merzbook and Other Poems, is a new edition of his best-known work, after a decade out of print. An excerpt from The Merzbook received a CBC award in the 1980s. The Cabbage of Paradise combines Morton's visual and experimental poetry with his narrative series about the early 20th-century German artist Kurt Schwitters, creator of a one-man art movement he called Merz. In reviving the spirit of Schwitters, Morton's book also builds on the experimental poetic tradition in Canada.

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