The March Hare is Atlantic Canada's largest poetry festival. It started in 1987 or 1988 as an unpretentious evening of poetry and entertainment at the Blomidon Golf and Country Club in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, designed to appeal to a general audience. The Hare takes place in early March each year. Loosely associated with the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College campus of Memorial University

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Memorial University of Newfoundland, is a comprehensive university located primarily in St...

 through the leadership of poet-organizer Al Pittman and the involvement of other writers who taught at the College, the Hare was equally the brain-child of teacher Rex Brown and club manager George Daniels. Although still anchored in Corner Brook, the event has evolved into a moveable feast of words and music that annually travels to St. John's and Gander, Newfoundland, Toronto, Ontario, and other venues, provincial, national and international. In 2007, The March Hare visited seven centres in Ireland, including Dublin and Waterford. In 2011, March Hares were mounted in Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland, and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

As its reputation has grown, the March Hare has attracted increasingly high-profile poets, authors, musicians and storytellers, featuring in recent years Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje

Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...

, Alistair MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod, OC is a noted Canadian author and retired professor of English at the University of Windsor.- Academic career :...

, Paul Durcan

Paul Durcan

Paul Durcan is a contemporary Irish poet.-Early life:Durcan grew up in Dublin and in Turlough, County Mayo. His father, John, was a barrister and circuit court judge; father and son had a difficult and formal relationship. Durcan enjoyed a warmer and more natural relationship with his mother,...

, Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier is a Canadian poet and holds the Head Chair in the Writing Department at the University of Victoria....

, Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane is an award-winning Canadian poet. He has written in several other genres, including essays, short stories, and is the author of the novel Red Dog, Red Dog.-Biography:...

, Susan Musgrave

Susan Musgrave

Susan Musgrave is a Canadian poet and children's writer. She was born in Santa Cruz, California to Canadian parents, and currently lives in British Columbia, dividing her time between Sidney and the Queen Charlotte Islands....

, Stephen Reid

Stephen Reid (writer)

Stephen Reid is a Canadian writer, who has also been convicted twice of bank robbery.Born in Massey, Ontario, Reid began writing in 1984 while serving a 21-year prison sentence at the Kent Institution in Agassiz, British Columbia. During his sentence, he submitted a manuscript to Susan Musgrave,...

, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is an Irish poet born in Cork .-Life:Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is the daughter of Eilís Dillon and Professor Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin. She was educated at University College Cork and The University of Oxford. She lives in Dublin with her husband Macdara Woods, and they have one...

, Wayne Johnston

Wayne Johnston (author)

Wayne Johnston is a Canadian novelist. His fiction deals primarily with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, often in a historical setting.-Biography:...

, Stan Dragland, Ron Hynes

Ron Hynes

Ron Hynes is a popular folk singer-songwriter from Newfoundland. He is especially known for his composition "Sonny's Dream," which has been recorded worldwide by many artists and was named the 41st greatest Canadian song of all time on the 2005 CBC Radio One series 50 Tracks: The Canadian...

, Michael Crummey

Michael Crummey

Michael Crummey is a Canadian poet and writer.Born in Buchans, Newfoundland and Labrador, Crummey grew up there and in Wabush, Labrador, where he moved with his family in the late 1970s. He began to write poetry while studying at Memorial University in St. John's, where he received a B.A. in...

, Emiko Miyashita, Glen Sorestad, Michael Winter, Louise Halfe (Sky Dancer), John Ennis, Lisa Moore

Lisa Moore (writer)

Lisa Moore is a Canadian writer.Born in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Moore studied art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design...

, and many others. Early contributors to the March Hare included Al Pittman

Al Pittman

Al Pittman was a poet and playwright from Newfoundland and Labrador.Born in St. Leonard's, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, Pittman grew up in Corner Brook. He moved to Montreal in 1964 where he began writing poetry and plays, and in 1966 published his first book of poems, The Elusive Resurrection...

, John Steffler

John Steffler

-Biography:Born in Toronto, Ontario, Steffler was educated at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph. Since 1975 he has lived in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador where he taught at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College...

, Randall Maggs

Randall Maggs

Randall Maggs is a Canadian poet and former professor of English Literature at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College of Memorial University, in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. He is one of the organizers and now artistic director of the March Hare, the largest literary festival in Atlantic Canada.-Early...

, Adrian Fowler, David "Smoky" Elliott

David Elliott (poet)

David Elliott was a Canadian poet.Born in Garnish, Newfoundland and Labrador, Elliott grew up in a number of Newfoundland fishing outports, but spent most of his youth in Campbellton, Notre Dame Bay. He left school at age fifteen to become a telegraph operator and later served in World War II...

, Des Walsh, Clyde Rose, Nick Avis, and Pamela Morgan

Pamela Morgan

Pamela Morgan was lead singer, guitarist, and arranger for the folk rock Band Figgy Duff from Newfoundland, Canada from 1976-1995. She now performs as a solo artist and has released several recordings. She also owns Amber Music, an independent record label....

. Many continue to participate in the festival today.

The March Hare takes its name from the character

March Hare

Haigha, the March Hare is a character most famous for appearing in the tea party scene in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.The main character, Alice, hypothesises,...

 in Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...

. According to Rex Brown, the name is also intended as a pun on the words here (celebrating a sense of place) and hear (since its focus is the spoken word).