English and creative writing Professor Patricia Keeney had a busy spring and summer. She spent part of April and May travelling in eastern and southern Europe. She was there to participate in several theatre and literary festivals. The most notable event was the Craioiva Shakespeare Festival in Romania where Keeney presented a paper on Venus and Adonis, one of William Shakespeare's long poems.
Right: Patricia Keeney
While in Europe, Keeney celebrated the publication in French of two more volumes from her renowned collection Selected Poems (1996) by Les Amis de la Poésie, a publishing company based in Bergerac, France. The publication is part of a series published by the poetry press titled Le Poémier de Plein Vent and constitutes a three-book release that focuses on Keeney's work, the most recent of which are Le Livre de Jeanne and Le Livre de Patrick.
In June, Keeney was a featured reader and workshop leader for the Blue Bridge Poetry Festival in Sutton, Ont.
Most recently, her long poem titled "South African Suite", created as a result of her six-month residency in South Africa, has been accepted for publication by the South African poetry journal New Contrast.
A widely published poet both in Canada and abroad, Keeney is the author of seven books of poetry and a picaresque novel, titled The Incredible Shrinking Wife. Keeney's Selected Poems (1996), with an introduction by the distinguished Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, has also been translated from English into Chinese, Hindi, Bulgarian and Spanish, this last in a series of conversations and poems on national and personal culture with Mexican poet Ethel Krauze called You Bring Me Wings.
She has also been published extensively as a literary and theatre critic.