21 October 2002
Don McKay Nominated
for Governor General's Award

Kentville, NS -- The Canada Council for the Arts announced today that Don McKay’s Vis à Vis: Fieldnotes on Poetry and Wilderness, has been nominated for the 2002 Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction. The other nominees in this category are: Carolyn Abraham (Possessing Genius), Jill Frayne (Starting Out in the Afternoon), Stephen Henighan (When Words Deny the World) and Andrew Nikiforuk (Saboteurs).

As one of Canada’s leading poets, two-time Governor-General-Award winner Don McKay has long been known for this passionate engagement with his natural surroundings. Vis à Vis collects three of McKay’s essays on the relationship between the poet and the natural world. From bushtits and baler twine to Levinas and Heidegger, McKay charts a vision of poetics that keeps its feet firmly planted on the ground and its eyes on the horizon. The book also includes both new and previously published poems.

Don McKay has published nine books of poetry, two of which – Night Field (1991) and Another Gravity (2000) have won the Governor General’s Award. He has taught creative writing at the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick and is presently the associate director for poetry at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Since 1975, he has served as co-editor and co-publisher of Brick Books. He lives in British Columbia.

Gaspereau Press is a Nova Scotia owned and operated trade publisher based in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Publishing short-run editions of both literary and regional interest, Gaspereau Press produces quality paperbacks and limited-edition hardcover books aimed at the Canadian market. The press was established in 1997 by Gary Dunfield and Andrew Steeves and it is one of the few publishers in Canada that also operates a full-scale print shop, producing its own books. This hands-on approach has prompted Gaspereau Press to experiment with antiquated technologies along with modern production methods. While the majority of its books are produced using contemporary equipment, Gaspereau Press also preserves and employs many antique presses and hot-metal typesetters, and often uses them in the production of its books. This is the second time that a Gaspereau Press book has been nominated for a Governor General’s Award. George Elliott Clarke’s Execution Poems won the 2001 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.