Interviews
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Viva Da Costa
Viva Da Costa by Patricia Robertson Award-winning writer a hybrid spirit paulo da costa enjoys earthly pleasures now, and then confesses later “The gentle morning breeze found Prudêncio in his hammock, enveloped in a blanket of butterflies. The butterflies fanned their wings. The hammock swayed. Robins, perched on the hammock’s rope, sang. Through the overcast sky, a beam of sunshine wrapped Prudêncio’s body in gold. Frogs croaked a solemn requiem. Sunflowers graciously turned their heads and bowed. A white rain of almond petals floated from the sky. The morning had arrived to greet Prudêncio Casmurro before he returned to the earth.” – from The Scent of a Lie When…
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Adrienne Rich – Does Poetry Matter?
Adrienne Rich has published more than sixteen volumes of poetry, three collections of essays, and a feminist study on motherhood. Her work has been translated into German, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, Hebrew, Greek, Italian, and Japanese. Her latest book, Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998 (W.W. Norton, 1999) has just been released in January. In the Fall of 98, Adrienne Rich, in conjunction with Dionne Brand, visited Calgary as a guest of Markin-Flanagan’s Distinguished Visiting Writer Programme. paulo da costa spoke with Adrienne Rich during her weeklong visit which included readings, panel discussions and the screening of the movie: Adrienne Rich and Dionne Brand in conversation. paulo da costa: In our technological,…
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The Magic Is Simply A Door
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The Magic Is Simply A Door
a c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h p a u l o d a c o s t a by Tamara Kaye Sellman I HAVE been having a kind of conversation with paulo da costa for at least four years now. He’d sent us a short story, “Hell’s Mouth Bay,” in response to Margin‘s first ever call for submissions. Naturally, we were slow in responding as we worked out our editorial processes, so when we finally decided we wanted to take his story, he had to write back with the unfortunate news that it had already been taken elsewhere and, consequently, it was no…
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Da Costa makes sense of the world with his writing;
Ian Doig. Calgary Herald . Calgary, Alta.: Oct 19, 2003 . pg. F.4 Interview with paulo da costa Calgary writer paulo da costa was born in Angola and raised in Portugal, before coming to Canada in 1989. His first novel, The Scent of a Lie, was awarded the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book. Q: Why are you a writer? A: There’s two parts — to make sense of the world and to explore the different facets of life through different characters’ eyes. It’s like living different lives by entering other people’s perceptions and points of view. The other part…
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At Home in Two Cultures
A citizen of the world examines his multicultural identity paulo da costa, in conversation with Fernanda Viveiros In the words of Saint Augustine, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” It could be said that writer paulo da costa has read many pages since immigrating to Canada in the late 1980s. Born in Luanda, Angola, and raised in Portugal, paulo has traveled throughout Europe and Brazil, lived in Calgary and on Cortes Island, and recently touched down in Silverton, a tiny hamlet in the Kootenay mountains. Now settled in Victoria, he is preparing to leave for a month-long stay in Portugal where…
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The Democratisation of Poetry
Bob Holman (USA) became a poet in the third grade when his teacher said, “That’s a very good poem, Robert. Where did you copy it from?” He has published five books, most recently The Collect Call of the Wild and a poetry CD, In With the Out Crowd. He has also helped to put poetry on TV, producing The United States of Poetry for PBS and appearing on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged. Currently, he teaches a course at Bard College, “Exploding Text: Poetry in Performance.” Holman works to change traditional definitions of poetry and to broaden its audience through work that has been noted for its raw power and irreverent…
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Eugénio de Andrade – Between Brutality and Tenderness
paulo da costa interviews Eugénio de Andrade Eugénio de Andrade is the most loved of the living Portuguese poets and the best known outside his country. He is thin, slightly hunched by the weight of nearly eight decades of life and there is a visible frailty in the way he walks. His hair is pure white. Of himself he has said he is a mixture of brutality and tenderness. In 1994 the city of Porto offered him a house with a view to the sea and the small colourful fishing boats rocking by the shore. The house was designed having in mind that a poet was going to inhabit it.…
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Da Costa bears criticism
Calgary Herald Tuesday, May 06, 2003 Paulo da Costa chose Canada as his place of residence despite an encounter with a grizzly bear. Paulo da Costa will read from The Scent of a Lie at noon today at McNally Robinson Booksellers as part of the Commonwealth Writers Prize celebrations. Calgary author Paulo da Costa knows a thing or two about standing his ground — in the face of both critics and carnivores. His face-to-face with the carnivore came a dozen years ago on a hike in the Alberta Rockies. The Angola-born, Portugal-raised writer hit the trail alone for a bit of soul-searching as he struggled to decide whether to…
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Erin Mouré – Dialogues and Polylogues
Erin Mouré is one of Canada’s most respected and eminent poets. Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Furious, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Domestic Fuel, the QSPELL Award for Poetry for WSW, Mouré has published twelve books of poetry, including A Frame of the Book (aka The Frame of a Book), which was co-published in the U.S. by Sun and Moon Press, and Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person, shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize and the City of Toronto Book Award. Her most recent collection, O Cidadán, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2003. Mouré lives in Montreal and writes with a…
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Quincy Troupe – On Reading Like a Sleeping Pill
Quincy Troupe is a poet, journalist, and teacher. Two-time winner of the prestigious Heavyweight Champion of Poetry and winner of American Book Awards for both nonfiction (Miles: The Autobiography) and poetry (Snake Back Solos), he leaves audiences in awe with his incendiary jazz performance style. His most recent work, the picture book Take it to the Hoop, Magic Johnson — is a dazzling tribute in poetry and pictures to the great American basketball athlete. This October paulo da costa spoke with Quincy Troupe during WordFest in Calgary. Quincy Troupe Well, let me go back to the beginning a little bit – I was a very good basketball player at…
