A Dream in the Eye

Contributions by: Diana Hayes

Edited by: Stephen Collis

First collection of visual work by renowed Canadian poet Phyllis Webb *

A Dream in the Eye presents colour reproductions of the paintings and photocollages of renowned poet Phyllis Webb. A Governor General’s Award–winning poet and a member of the Order of Canada, Webb was a major Canadian cultural figure from the 1950s through the 1980s, publishing ten collections of poetry and prose and co-founding the CBC Radio program Ideas (in 1965). When “words abandoned” her in the early 1990s and she was no longer able to write, she took up photography, photocollage, and eventually painting. Webb’s visual work – a surprising “late style” (the work of an independent artist in her sixties, seventies, and eighties) – is in many ways a response to and extension of concerns explored in her poetry: the natural world of the West Coast, global political strife, the artist’s struggle to express themself. All of this is explored in her more formalist collages and expressive, abstract paintings. 

In addition to Webb’s seventy-four paintings and eighty collages, A Dream in the Eye includes introductory material by the book’s editor Stephen Collis and art historian and curator Laurie White, as well as supplementary material including some of Webb’s own reflections on her visual work, an essay by Betsy Warland, and a selection of poems written in response to Webb’s paintings by her long-time friend Diana Hayes.

AUTHOR

Stephen Collis

Stephen Collis is an award winning poet, activist, and professor of contemporary literature at Simon Fraser University. His poetry books include Anarchive (2005), The Commons (2008), On the Material (2010, awarded the BC Book Prize for Poetry), and To the Barricades (2013). He has also written two books of criticism, including Phyllis Webb and the Common Good (2007). His collection of essays on the Occupy movement, Dispatches from the Occupation (2012), comes out of his activist experiences and is a philosophical meditation on activist tactics, social movements, and change. A Jack and Doris Shadbolt Fellow at Simon Fraser University in 2011/12, Collis has read and lectured across Canada, the United States, and Europe. The Red Album is his first novel.

AUTHOR

Diana Hayes

Diana Hayes was born in Toronto and has lived on both coasts of Canada. She studied at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia, receiving a BA and an MFA in creative writing. She has six published books, including Gold in the Shadow (2021), Deeper into the Forest (2020 Spoken Word/CD), Labyrinth of Green (2019), and This is the Moon’s Work: New and Selected Poems (2011). She has lived on Salt Spring Island – the Traditional and unceded Territory of the Hul’q’umi’num’ and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples – since 1981. www.dianahayes.ca


Reviews

“A sumptuous presentation … accompanied by an insightful introduction … the book honours Phyllis Webb’s artistic vision, her dream of life.” – British Columbia Review


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Excerpts & Samples ×

First collection of visual work by renowed Canadian poet Phyllis Webb *
* A Dream in the Eye** presents colour reproductions of the paintings and photocollages of renowned poet Phyllis Webb. A Governor General’s Award–winning poet and a member of the Order of Canada, Webb was a major Canadian cultural figure from the 1950s through the 1980s, publishing ten collections of poetry and prose and co-founding the CBC Radio program Ideas (in 1965). When “words abandoned” her in the early 1990s and she was no longer able to write, she took up photography, photocollage, and eventually painting. Webb’s visual work – a surprising “late style” (the work of an independent artist in her sixties, seventies, and eighties) – is in many ways a response to and extension of concerns explored in her poetry: the natural world of the West Coast, global political strife, the artist’s struggle to express themself. All of this is explored in her more formalist collages and expressive, abstract paintings. *
* In addition to Webb’s seventy-four paintings and eighty collages,
A Dream in the Eye* includes introductory material by the book’s editor Stephen Collis and art historian and curator Laurie White, as well as supplementary material including some of Webb’s own reflections on her visual work, an essay by Betsy Warland, and a selection of poems written in response to Webb’s paintings by her long-time friend Diana Hayes.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

128 Pages
254.00mm * 254mm * 10in * 203.00mm * 8in * 203mm * 10mm0.375in
22.50oz
635gr
22.5oz

Published:

September 20, 2023

City of Publication:

Vancouver

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Talonbooks

ISBN:

9781772014334

Book Subjects:

ART / Women Artists

Language:

eng

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