Former Comox Valley resident, Matt Rader, returns to the Valley to launch his new book Visual Inspection (published by Nightwood Editions).
Composed over a period of profound illness, Visual Inspection is a searching reflection on poetry, power and our embodied lives. With works featured in magazines across the globe and four previous poetry collections, Rader is critically acclaimed for his keenly observed, direct style. Drawing on his own struggles with intense chronic illness, Rader gives a fresh poetic voice to pain, struggles and triumphs with disability.
Visual inspection is an empathic exploration of the role our senses play in art, and how we can write from within bodies that challenge assumptions and expectations. Rader’s experience of disability leads him to question notions of what is ‘complete’ or ‘whole,’ and to prioritize the process of poetry over a stable finished form.
Radar is the author of four books of poems. His poems, stories, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications across America, Australia and Europe. He and his family live in Kelowna, where he is a core faculty member in the Department of Creative Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
A book launch event on Thursday, May 9 will feature readings and conversation with Rader and special guests: Spencer Sheehan-Kalina, Traci Skuce, Jordon Scott, Grant Shilling and Sophie Gillmore.
Held at the Comox Valley Art Gallery, the evening will begin at 5:30 p.m., with the doors open at 5.