Andreas Gripp retiring

Andreas Gripp, one of London’s most well-known and liked poets, has decided to take “an indefinite hiatus” from the poetry scene.

In the announcement on his website, Gripp said, “After 23 years of writing poetry, I have decided to retire from actively writing, performing, and publishing my poems, effective June 7th, 2015. My latest books as well as my back catalogue will be available from the Harmonia Press website: http://harmoniapress.blogspot.com My thanks to those kind souls who showed an interest in my work and who offered support and encouragement along the way.”

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Over the years, Gripp has proven to be one of London’s hardest working poets, authoring 20 books of poetry and 16 chapbooks.

Gripp’s long involvement in the city’s poetry scene proved to be an invaluable resource to London Open Mic Poetry Night during its planning phase. He was the first person the series’ organizer turned to for advice, and made many important suggestions based on his own experiences organizing several earlier reading series in London. He also offered the names of local poets who might feature, and was the first person to recommend Mykonos Restaurant as the venue.

On Oct. 3rd, 2012, Gripp was London Open Mic Poetry Night’s first featured poet, and has read at most of it’s three seasons of reading events since then.

His final London Open Mic reading will be June 3rd, 2015, and his final reading anywhere will be at the Old East Village Street Festival (Dundas and Ridout) on Sat. June 6th.

We can always hope that Andreas Gripp will one day change his mind.

Born in London, Ontario, in 1964, Andreas Gripp entered the literary field as editor and publisher of Afterthoughts, a poetry journal that existed from 1994 to 2000. His first chapbook appeared in 1999 and his first full-length collection in 2001. His early work was often prose-laden and focused on social issues as well as the lives of marginalized, fictional characters. His later releases, including 2009's The Lesser Light and 2010's The Fall, centered on personal relationships and human interaction with nature, many of the poems written in a metered narrative. His more recent poetry collections, The Apostasy of Daylight (2012) and The Breakfast of Birds (2013), dealt with themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. An 18th full-length collection, The Better Kiss, was released in the Spring of 2014. He followed that up in 2015 with Holy Rollers and Apocrypha: Poems Selected & New Volume 3, his 19th and 20th books. A comprehensive collection of both his older and more recent verse appears in the 2013 compilation, Selected Poems 2000-2012.

His work has also been published in several anthologies and literary periodicals, including Arborealis: A Canadian Anthology of Poetry (Volumes 1 and 2), Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami, Van Gogh's Ear, Ascent Aspirations, Myth Weavers: Canadian Myths and Legends, Carousel, The Toronto Quarterly, The Prairie Journal, Canadian Zen Haiku, Literary Review of Canada, Possessions: The Eldon House Poems, Descant, Tower Poetry, Pigeonbike: Semi Permanent Death, Goodbye Billie Jean: The Meaning of Michael Jackson, Under the Mullberry Tree: Poems For & About Raymond Souster, Window Fishing: the night we caught Beatlemania, Quern: An Anthology of Contemporary Poets, and Moon Shine: A Canadian Poetry Collection.

His first collection of selected verse, Anathema: Poems Selected & New, was shortlisted for the 2010 Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry.

In 2005 Andreas Gripp created a new haiku form called Shan-zi. The new haiku is written in 7 lines with breaks of 2,2, and 3. The poem contains 31 syllables arranged in the following manner: 4-5, 5-4, 4-4-5. Shan-zi may be titled.

Video of Andreas Gripp reading at the May 6th, 2015, London Open Mic Poetry Night: https://youtu.be/WtvCL6V0--w…-