In(ter)ventions: Literary Practice at the Edge

Steven Ross Smith likes to bend, confuse and disintegrate that which is most popularly straightened, clarified and constructed in mainstream poetic and fictive practice – language, narrativity and meaning. He endeavours to work against convention, especially his own. As sound and performance poet, he has created solo and collaborative works with performers and  musicians in structured and improvisatory contexts including the groups Owen Sound, DUCT, and aBANDon. He has published twelve books and has appeared on various CDs and audiocassettes, including the compilations Carnivocal and Homo Sonorus. He has performed and/or been published in England, Holland, Russia, Portugal, USA, and Canada. His book fluttertongue 5: everything appears to shine with mossy splendour was published in 2011 by Turnstone Press. Fluttertongue 3: disarray, won the 2005 Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award. Pliny’s Knickers, a collaboration, won the 2006 bpNichol Chapbook Award. In 2009 he wrote the narrative libretto flown for American composer Wang Jie, performed in Brooklyn in 2009. In 2012 he wrote the libretto for Mexican composer Diana Syrse’s four-part suite Word Without Frontiers. Smith, has lived and written in Toronto, Saskatoon, and now in Banff where he is the Director of Literary Arts at The Banff Centre.

www.fluttertongue.ca