Serpentine Loop reprinted

March 14th, 2017

Elee Kraljii Gardiner grew up as the daughter of U.S. Olympic figure skating gold medalist Tenley Albright. Gardiner’s first collection of poetry, Serpentine Loop (Anvil $18), references ice skating but soon glides into other topics, including gender issues, as she explores ideas of femininity, control and language. Imagery from the rink “pervades in symmetry, joy, endurance, crescendo and accent, revolution and response.”

Gardiner is herself a former skater whose sister, Elin Schran, is a professional figure skater and co-founder of Boston-based Frozen Frog Productions, as well as the innovator of IceFlow, a yoga-inspired skating class.

To mark the second printing of Serpentine Loop, the sisters are combining with professional skater and choreographer Douglas Webster for a free public event at the Hillcrest Community Centre rink in Vancouver on March 24, 2017.

Previous iterations of the event have been held in New Hampshire and Massachusetts but this is the first Canadian event.

• When/Where: Friday, March 24, 2017, 9:00 pm-11:15 pm
  Hillcrest Community Centre Rink
  4575 Clancy Loranger Way
  Vancouver
• Tentative schedule: 9:00 pm-10:00 pm: In Hillcrest Centre Community Room 328
  Welcome, snacks and drinks, 10 minute poetry reading by Elee Kraljii Gardiner from serpentine loop, brief artists’ talk by Doug Webster and Elin Schran10:00 pm-11:15 pm: everyone (all levels and abilities) welcome to skate, rentals available

  10:15 pm: we ask people to move to edge of ice to watch Elin Schran and Doug Webster perform short demo of school figures and edges

  10:25 pm: Elin Schran performs serpentine loop, a two-minute skating program based on the book

  10:00 pm-11:15 pm: free skating for everyone

Photo by Paul Joseph

Gardiner’s second book of poems, Tunica Intima (forthcoming, 2018) has been shortlisted in advance for the Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry.

Elee Kraljii Gardiner has also co-edited an anthology, V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, with John Mikhail Asfour. The anthology evolved from the Thursdays Writing Collective, a non-profit organization of more than 150 writers at Carnegie Community Centre, which she founded. The anthology was shortlisted for the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2008. Gardiner has also edited and published other anthologies. She is originally from Boston and is a dual US/Canadian citizen.

Elee Kraljii Gardiner is pronounced “Elly Kral-jee Gardner”.

978-1-77214-054-5

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