Sacuta, Norman 1962-

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Sacuta, Norman 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born 1962. Education: University of Alberta, M.A., 1987; University of British Columbia, M.F.A., 1988; also studied at the University of Sussex.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

CAREER:

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, instructor, 1990s.

AWARDS, HONORS:

New playwright award, Alberta Culture Playwriting Competition, 1990, for Ismay: A Play about the Titanic; Canada Council for the Arts grant, 1997-98.

WRITINGS:

Garments of the Known (poems), Nightwood Editions (Robert Creek, British Columbia, Canada), 2001.

Also author of Ismay: A Play about the Titanic. Work represented in anthologies, including Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing from Alberta. Contributor to periodicals, including Antigonish Review, Dandelion, Grain, Matrix, Edmonton Journal, NeWest Review, Canadian Forum, and Outlooks.

SIDELIGHTS:

Norman Sacuta produces work that appears to invite an analysis of contradictions. Often about rural Alberta, his poems set up opposing themes of light and darkness, that which is clear versus that which is hidden, and images of roughnecks and other "real" men juxtaposed against homoeroticism and scenes of domesticity. The verses also hint at the political revelations that Sacuta experienced while attending the Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change Program at the University of Sussex in England during the 1990s. His first collection, Garments of the Known, is a slim book of poems ranging from sonnets to experimental forms. The unifying focus of the work is the idea that there is an ever-widening gap between the things people feel and the things they are willing to admit aloud. In a review for the Lambda Book Report, Jonathan Alexander remarked that "Sacuta's verse plays on our emotions to remind us—again—that not all desire is sanctioned, not all love so easily rendered in couplets, quatrains, and sonnets," adding that he "dwells, as much as he can, in describing the situation of the inarticulate." Alex Boyd, writing for the Danforth Review, commented that Sacuta's debut effort "shows promise even as it is a frustrating mixture of clarity and obscurity." Boyd added that his ideas "cover a variety of landscapes and situations, and I wanted to read the poems without guessing at his meaning."