Bud Osborn's point of reference is the street of the disenfranchised – literally, the street corners bordered by Main and Hastings on Vancouver's notorious East Side, known as "Hundred Block Rock"--the poorest neighbourhood in Canada. While this area is well-known for its drug users, criminals, and prostitutes, it is also home to recovering addicts, single mothers, and those whom society has cast aside. As a poet who has known the nightmare of addiction and poverty himself, Bud Osborn sheds light on the unforgiving darkness of Hundred Block Rock, putting faces and names to those who somehow find ways and means to survive there. These poems are direct confessionals that speak valiantly and movingly of the community of the street: from detox centres and the wail of ambulance sirens to the poignant instances of junkies dancing in alleys, or the sound of jazz after midnight. They bring to life the squalid intensity of Hundred Block Rock, while at the same time articulating the redemptive spirit of survival that nurtures and sustains its habitués. Many of the poems in Hundred Block Rock are also featured on a CD available from Festival Distribution.

The year is 1983, and Chuck Klosterman just wants to rock. But he's got problems. For one, he's in the fifth grade. For another, he lives in rural North Dakota. Worst of all, his parents aren't exactly down with the long hairstyle which rocking requires. Luckily, his brother saves the day when he brings home a bit of manna from metal heaven, SHOUT AT THE DEVIL, Motley Crue's seminal paean to hair-band excess. And so Klosterman's twisted odyssey begins, a journey spent worshipping at the heavy metal altar of Poison, Lita Ford and Guns N' Roses. In the hilarious, young-man-growing-up-with-a-soundtrack-tradition, FARGO ROCK CITY chronicles Klosterman's formative years through the lens of heavy metal, the irony-deficient genre that, for better or worse, dominated the pop charts throughout the 1980s. For readers of Dave Eggers, Lester Bangs, and Nick Hornby, Klosterman delivers all the goods: from his first dance (with a girl) and his eye-opening trip to Mandan with the debate team; to his list of 'essential' albums; and his thoughtful analysis of the similarities between Guns 'n' Roses' 'Lies' and the gospels of the New Testament.

Essays based on a monumental-sized photograph by preeminent visual artist Stan Douglas.