Jennifer Footman is originally from India but spent most of her early life in Scotland. She has been in Brampton, Ontario since 1979. She has a BDS from the University of Edinburgh and LRAM from the Royal Academy of Music in Speech and Drama. She spends half her time in Dylan Thomas country near Port Eynon, writing and teaching, and half in Brampton. She is very involved in her community in Brampton, and is active in bringing poetry to the city.
Awards
The Brampton Arts Person of the Year Award, 1994.
The Mississauga Arts Person of the Year Award, 1995.
Okanagan Award for Short Fiction, fall 1991.
Canadian Authors' Short Fiction Competition, finalist, 1993.
People's Political Poem Contest, finalist, 1998.
CBC 89, Children's fiction section.
Selected Publications
Through a Stained Glass Window. (Envoi Press, Wales, 1989).
Gathering Fuel in Vacant Lots. (HMS Press, 1992).
St.Valentine's Day. (Broken Jaw Press, 1995).
Metropolitan. (Bald Eagle Press, 1997).
Mix Six. (Mekler and Deahl, 1996).
Selected Anthologies
Two Prose Poems in the Party Train. (New River Press, 1995).
The Invisible Accordion. (Broken Jaw Press, 1996).
Uncivilizing. (Insomniac Press, 1998).
Books in Print
Footman, Jennifer
Gathering Fuel in Vacant Lots. HMS Press, 1992. $8.00 ISBN: 0-919957-82-X.
Metropolitan. Bald Eagle Press, 1997. ISBN: 0-9696228-4-8.
Mix Six. (Mekler and Deahl, 1996). ISBN: 1-896367-06-2.
St. Valentine's Day. Broken Jaw Press, 1995. $13.95 ISBN 0-921411-45-6.
Through a Stained Glass Window. Envoi Press, Wales, 1989. ISBN 0-948478-65-9.
Jennifer Footman
Box7, Stn Cheltenham
Caledon On
L7C 3L7
905 838 4262
Fax 905 838 4263
footmanj@can.rogers.com
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/footman/index.htm
Poet in the School
(Brampton)
phone: 905 838 4262
Fax: 905 838 4263
email:
footmanj@can.rogers.com
Jennifer Footman is a poet, editor, fiction writer and journalist. She is an associate of the London Academy of Music and Drama and has taught speech and drama for several years. She is from India but spent most of her life in Edinburgh and graduated from that university. Brampton has been her home for fourteen years. She has had two books of poetry published, Through a Stained Glass Window, and Gathering Fuel in Vacant Lots. She has also been in many Canadian, UK and US magazines and anthologies; Grain, Descant, New Quarterly, and Arc, are just a few. She has led poetry workshops in community groups and has given readings in schools, libraries, and community centres.
Grade Levels: 5 - OAC
Fees: standard
Classroom Approach:
Her
approach is a mixture of the purely practical and the entertaining. It is not
important that students know her work. She will read from her own work and from
the works of major poets - old and new - from all lands. For a large group she
can give a lecture on a particular aspect of poetry, combining this with a reading.
For individual classes she usually reads, then follows with a workshop. She
aims to help the student find the poems inside him/herself and to appreciate
the poem being read. She can run a workshop where each student's work is discussed;
she can lead a class where exercises are done to free the poem inside the student;
or she can read her own poems and discuss technique, structure, and form. She
enjoys working with those students who are not interested in poetry as well
as those who have a positive feeling about it. Her main aim in a class is to
help students to become open to poetry and to help them find the poetry which
is out there for them.