Eastern Comma Writer-in-Residence
Open House, Reading, and Walk
With Poet and Philosopher Karen Houle

Saturday, November 8, 1-4 PM 2014
North House at rare Charitable Research Reserve (681 Blair Road, Cambridge ON)
The location is physically accessible and admission is free.

The leaves crunch underfoot. The ground cherries ripen, dusty. Join us for an autumn afternoon at an open house hosted by Eastern Comma writer-in-residence, Karen Houle, a poet and philosopher.

On Saturday, November 8, drop by North House (681 Blair Road, Cambridge) from 1-4 PM. At 1:45, Karen will lead a walk on the Butterfly Trail to read some of the poetry she has written. To join us for the gathering, catch the bus at 12:20 PM from 6 Dublin St. South, Email danica@musagetes.ca/musagetes-old or call 519-836-7300 x103 to reserve your seat!

There is a species of butterfly—found often at rare—that bears on its wings a writer’s best friend: the comma. It flies about the fields of asters and black-eyed susans, flutters in the community garden, and hangs out near puddles on the walking trails. With the comma always at its side, the Eastern Comma butterfly measures the shape of its surroundings—just as the writer does—adding a clause here, inserting an adjective there, offering, with words and dashes and commas, a vision of the world. That’s why this butterfly inspired the name of this new initiative at rare: the Eastern Comma Writer-in-Residence. Over a period of a few months, Karen is writing and interacting regularly with the community of people who are present at rare including gardeners, educators, students, artists, botanists, ecologists, geologists, archaeologists, and historians.

Karen Houle is the author of two nationally-acclaimed books of poetry: Ballast (House of Anansi Press, 2000) and During (Gaspereau Press, 2008). She also published a co-edited anthology, Hegel and Deleuze: Together Again for the First Time (Northwestern, 2013, with Dr. Jim Vernon, York University) and a monograph titled Complexity, Responsibility and Abortion: Toward a New Image of Ethical Thought (2014).

North House is literally a house. It was designed and built by architecture students at the University of Waterloo, Ryerson, and Simon Fraser Universities as Canada’s entry to the prestigious US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon in 2009. With the capacity to produce twice as much energy as it consumes, the high-tech North House is permanently located at rare as a research and education facility. While in residence over the next few years, the writers will share their experiences living in such a leading-edge house, complementing scientific research into the mechanical systems of the building. This will be an invaluable contribution to our understanding of how we might live in the sustainable houses of the future.

The Eastern Comma Writer-in-Residence is a joint initiative of Musagetes and rare Charitable Research Reserve, founded by their mutual benefactors, Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum. Musagetes is a philanthropic artistic organization based in Guelph with a mandate to make the arts more central and meaningful in peoples’ lives. Working in small cities in Canada, Italy, and Croatia, Musagetes creates intersectoral collaborations between artists and communities. (www.musagetes.ca/musagetes-old)