|
Richard Stevenson has been called "a human writing machine" sending out poems and prose all over the world.
He was described by the Calgary Herald as delivering "creative poetic resuscitation" with his work.
Stevenson has published widely and has been an inspiration to a younger generation of writers as a teacher in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Stevenson was born in Victoria, B. C. in 1952.
He is the former editor of Prism International. His reviews and poetry have appeared in journals all over the world.
He teaches creative writing, and also performs with the jazz/poetry group Naked Ear.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Riding on a Magpie Riff
“I don’t smoke and I’m no axe murderer,” says Richard Stevenson in his newest book, Riding On A Magpie Riff. This semi-autobiographical work is an endearing and lighthearted rendition of Stevenson’s rise in the literary world, as well as an in-depth exploration of what it means to be an aging artist.
Stevenson weaves a complicated tapestry of art and politics within various colourful Canadian and foreign settings. Riding On A Magpie Riff combines several autobiographical plots in order to instruct as well as entertain the reader with the trials and tribulations of becoming a father, a writer and a breadwinner.
The story moves all over the map from British Columbia to Nigeria, and to the prairies of Alberta. Stevenson ignores chronology, organizing his life into numerous themes that captivate and enmesh the reader. We are treated to interests in music, feathers, civil war cards, poetry, and the power of the story.
Non-fiction, 96 pages, $17
ISBN 0-88753-423-6
|
|
Parrot With Tourett e's
Parrot With Tourette's is a narrative/lyric oke at cultural pretensions with mimetic pet bird that echoses our nasty natty vernacular. It offers a world populated with missionaries, corner joggers and dog walkers and where gees can do bad Catskills stand-up. It's a place where the surreal is constantly nudging with the real. In anecdotes, monologues, a site of object poems – in tanka, haiku, senryu, haibun – you never know what the parrot will say or when it will say it. Small wonder the parrot swears like a salty seaman. Keep your fingers away from the cage.
Poetry, Palm Poets Series, $17.95
ISBN 0-88753-398-1
|
|
A Murder of Crows
The power of Stevenson's poetry lies in a reliance on the particularities of personal experience, and in a forceful combination of narrative and lyric styles that successfully portray the several seasons of being male.
–Matthew Manera, Canadian Forum magazine
There is a visceral quality to Richard Stevenson’s writing. It is down to earth and lyrical, about day-to-day events, about people on the prairies, about farmers, blue collar workers, the men and women who inhabit bars, the intellectuals who stay close to the earth. Stevenson's work is a passionate look at Canadian society.
Poetry, 72 pages, $16.95
ISBN 0-88753-317-5
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
