Poet Walid Bitar
Sunday, May 20, 3:00 PM
The Elmdale House, 1084 Wellington St. W

It's an ever shifting political and geographical map we look across -- East and West strain and intermingle in ways that are not always easily defined or comfortable. Poet Walid Bitar latest book "Divide and Rule" examines our world in a series of rhymed quatrains. His voice is constantly shifting perspectives, sometimes an argument breaking out in the midst of the poem. Strictly speaking, the work is not confessional in nature -- although there is the feeling of recognition that you've met the person speaking their monologue.

They have no maps. Ours, I'll redraw.

Isn't itself, their neck of the woods;

needs a rest -- something more than a nap,

and less than death, though death wouldn't hurt.

Walid Bitar was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1961. He immigrated to Canada in 1969. His previous poetry collections are Maps with Moving Parts (Brick, 1988), 2 Guys on Holy Land (Wesleyan University Press, 1993), Bastardi Puri (The Porcupine's Quill, 2005) and The Empire's Missing Links (Signal Editions/Vehicule, 2008). He lives in Toronto.

Do you write with all your soul to create beautiful poetry or insightful stories? Do you sing or play an instrument in a way that would make the sirens pause in their song? Stay for the Open Set and share your work.

Admission is free. Donations will be lovingly accepted.

See you there!