Monday, December 26, 2005
inklings of linkings
Adding links was tricky as they weren't already part of my default template, and I'm slightly blogtarded... anyway, please check out the sidebar! Neat lit peeps and friends within, long overdue.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
It's been suggested one should make odd rules and follow them in an attempt to create experimental poetry. Can you posit a keycode?
(Or starting line from which - ? )
.
e
le.
. ble.
l. k able. e
ll. 't ck r eable.. ve
! all y n u. n't ack ur zeable g. t. ave
H! mall ay an ou. an't rack our izeable gg I. at. ave
HO! small gay man you. can't crack your sizeable egg I. A hat. have
II.
.tah a evaH .gge elbaezis ruoy kcarc t'nac I .nam yag llams uoy !HO
tah vaH gge lbaezis uoy carc 'nac nam ag lams oy HO
ah aH ge baezis oy arc 'ac am g ams y O
h H e aezis y rc 'c m ms
ezis c s
zis
is
s
.
e
le.
. ble.
l. k able. e
ll. 't ck r eable.. ve
! all y n u. n't ack ur zeable g. t. ave
H! mall ay an ou. an't rack our izeable gg I. at. ave
HO! small gay man you. can't crack your sizeable egg I. A hat. have
II.
.tah a evaH .gge elbaezis ruoy kcarc t'nac I .nam yag llams uoy !HO
tah vaH gge lbaezis uoy carc 'nac nam ag lams oy HO
ah aH ge baezis oy arc 'ac am g ams y O
h H e aezis y rc 'c m ms
ezis c s
zis
is
s
Shittr! Alfred Jarry on Wikipedia
Have heard online encyclopedia Wikipedia is full of shite; have also read it's found to be as accurate as others, which is also scary when amongst 'others' cited sits Britannica. Is this the real Alfred Jarry? Either way, it's amusing! This, lifted from Wikipedia:
Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1873 – November 1, 1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side, a fact which would have a profound impact on some of his writings.
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the theatre of the absurd, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i.e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", ably translated into English by Barbara Wright as "Shittr!"), he invented a science called 'pataphysics.
Biography and works
A precociously brilliant student, Jarry enthralled his classmates with a gift for pranks and troublemaking.
At the lycée in Rennes when he was 15, he led of a group of boys who devoted much time and energy to poking fun at their well-meaning, obese and incompetent physics teacher, a man named Hébert. Jarry and classmate Charles Morin wrote a play they called Les Polonais and performed it with marionettes in the home of one of their friends. The main character, Père Heb, was a blunderer with a huge belly; three teeth (one of stone, one of iron, and one of wood); a single, retractable ear; and a mishapen body. In Jarry's later work Ubu Roi, Père Heb would develop into Ubu, one of the most monstrous and astonishing characters in French literature.
At 17, Jarry passed his baccalauréat and moved to Paris to prepare for admission to the École Normale Supérieure. Though he was not admitted, he soon gained attention for his original poems and prose-poems. A collection of his work, Les minutes de sable mémorial, was published in 1893.
That same year, both his parents died, leaving him a small inheritance which he quickly spent.
Jarry had meantime discovered the pleasures of alcohol, which he called "my sacred herb" or, when referring to absinthe, the "green goddess". A story is told that he once painted his face green and rode through town on his bicycle in its honour (and possibly under its influence).
Drafted into the army in 1894, his gift for turning notions upside down defeated attempts to instill military discipline. The sight of the small man in a uniform much too large for his less than 5-foot frame—the army did not issue uniforms small enough—was so disruptively funny that he was excused from parades and marching drills. Eventually the army discharged him for medical reasons. His military experience eventually inspired the novel, Days and Nights.
Jarry returned to Paris and applied himself to drinking, writing, and the company of friends who appreciated his witty, sweet-tempered, and unpredictable conversation.
The spring of 1896 saw the publication, in Paul Fort's review Le Livre d'art, of Jarry's 5-act play Ubu Roi—the rewritten and expanded Les Polonais of his school days. Ubu Roi's savage humor and monstrous absurdity, unlike anything thus far performed in French theater, seemed unlikely to ever actually be performed on stage. However, impetuous theater director Aurélien-Marie Lugné-Poe took the risk, producing the play at his Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.
On opening night (December 11, 1896), with traditionalists and the avant-garde in the audience, King Ubu (played by Firmin Gémier) stepped forward and intoned the opening word, "Merdre!" ("Shittr!"). A quarter of an hour of pandemonium ensued: outraged cries, booing, and whistling by the offended parties, countered by cheers and applause by the more forward-thinking contingent. Such interruptions continued through the evening. At the time, only the dress rehearsal and opening night performance were held, and the play was not revived until 1907.
The play brought fame to the 23-year-old Jarry, and he immersed himself in the fiction he had created. Gémier had modeled his portrayal of Ubu on Jarry's own staccato, nasal vocal delivery, which emphasized each syllable (even the silent ones). From then on, Jarry would always speak in this style. He adopted Ubu's ridiculous and pedantic figures of speech; for example, he referred to himself using the royal we, and called the wind "that which blows" and the bicycle he rode everywhere "that which rolls".
Jarry moved into a flat which the landlord had made by horizontally dividing one flat into two. He could just manage to stand up in the place, but guests had to bend or crouch. Jarry took to carrying a loaded pistol. In response to a neighbor's complaint that his target shooting endangered her children, he replied, "If that should ever happen, ma-da-me, we should ourselves be happy to get new ones with you" (though he was not at all inclined to engage with females in the manner implied).
Living in worsening poverty, neglecting his health, and drinking excessively, Jarry went on to write the novel, The Supermale, which is partly a satire on the Symbolist ideal of self-transcendence.
Unpublished until after his death, his fiction Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician (Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien) describes the exploits and teachings of a sort of antiphilosopher who, born at age 63, travels through a hallucinatory Paris in a sieve and subscribes to the tenets of 'pataphysics. 'Pataphysics deals with "the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one". In 'pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.
Jarry once wrote, expressing some of the bizarre logic of 'pataphysics, "If you let a coin fall and it falls, the next time it is just by an infinite coincidence that it will fall again the same way; hundreds of other coins on other hands will follow this pattern in an infinitely unimaginable fashion".
In his final years, he was a legendary and heroic figure to some of the young writers and artists in Paris. Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, and Max Jacob sought him out in his truncated apartment. After his death, Pablo Picasso, fascinated with Jarry, acquired his pistol and wore it on his nocturnal expeditions in Paris, and later bought many of his manuscripts as well as executing a fine drawing of him.
Jarry lived in his 'pataphysical world until his death in Paris on November 1, 1907 of tuberculosis, aggravated by drug and alcohol use. It is recorded that his last request was for a toothpick. He was interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux, near Paris.
Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1873 – November 1, 1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side, a fact which would have a profound impact on some of his writings.
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the theatre of the absurd, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i.e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", ably translated into English by Barbara Wright as "Shittr!"), he invented a science called 'pataphysics.
Biography and works
A precociously brilliant student, Jarry enthralled his classmates with a gift for pranks and troublemaking.
At the lycée in Rennes when he was 15, he led of a group of boys who devoted much time and energy to poking fun at their well-meaning, obese and incompetent physics teacher, a man named Hébert. Jarry and classmate Charles Morin wrote a play they called Les Polonais and performed it with marionettes in the home of one of their friends. The main character, Père Heb, was a blunderer with a huge belly; three teeth (one of stone, one of iron, and one of wood); a single, retractable ear; and a mishapen body. In Jarry's later work Ubu Roi, Père Heb would develop into Ubu, one of the most monstrous and astonishing characters in French literature.
At 17, Jarry passed his baccalauréat and moved to Paris to prepare for admission to the École Normale Supérieure. Though he was not admitted, he soon gained attention for his original poems and prose-poems. A collection of his work, Les minutes de sable mémorial, was published in 1893.
That same year, both his parents died, leaving him a small inheritance which he quickly spent.
Jarry had meantime discovered the pleasures of alcohol, which he called "my sacred herb" or, when referring to absinthe, the "green goddess". A story is told that he once painted his face green and rode through town on his bicycle in its honour (and possibly under its influence).
Drafted into the army in 1894, his gift for turning notions upside down defeated attempts to instill military discipline. The sight of the small man in a uniform much too large for his less than 5-foot frame—the army did not issue uniforms small enough—was so disruptively funny that he was excused from parades and marching drills. Eventually the army discharged him for medical reasons. His military experience eventually inspired the novel, Days and Nights.
Jarry returned to Paris and applied himself to drinking, writing, and the company of friends who appreciated his witty, sweet-tempered, and unpredictable conversation.
The spring of 1896 saw the publication, in Paul Fort's review Le Livre d'art, of Jarry's 5-act play Ubu Roi—the rewritten and expanded Les Polonais of his school days. Ubu Roi's savage humor and monstrous absurdity, unlike anything thus far performed in French theater, seemed unlikely to ever actually be performed on stage. However, impetuous theater director Aurélien-Marie Lugné-Poe took the risk, producing the play at his Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.
On opening night (December 11, 1896), with traditionalists and the avant-garde in the audience, King Ubu (played by Firmin Gémier) stepped forward and intoned the opening word, "Merdre!" ("Shittr!"). A quarter of an hour of pandemonium ensued: outraged cries, booing, and whistling by the offended parties, countered by cheers and applause by the more forward-thinking contingent. Such interruptions continued through the evening. At the time, only the dress rehearsal and opening night performance were held, and the play was not revived until 1907.
The play brought fame to the 23-year-old Jarry, and he immersed himself in the fiction he had created. Gémier had modeled his portrayal of Ubu on Jarry's own staccato, nasal vocal delivery, which emphasized each syllable (even the silent ones). From then on, Jarry would always speak in this style. He adopted Ubu's ridiculous and pedantic figures of speech; for example, he referred to himself using the royal we, and called the wind "that which blows" and the bicycle he rode everywhere "that which rolls".
Jarry moved into a flat which the landlord had made by horizontally dividing one flat into two. He could just manage to stand up in the place, but guests had to bend or crouch. Jarry took to carrying a loaded pistol. In response to a neighbor's complaint that his target shooting endangered her children, he replied, "If that should ever happen, ma-da-me, we should ourselves be happy to get new ones with you" (though he was not at all inclined to engage with females in the manner implied).
Living in worsening poverty, neglecting his health, and drinking excessively, Jarry went on to write the novel, The Supermale, which is partly a satire on the Symbolist ideal of self-transcendence.
Unpublished until after his death, his fiction Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician (Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien) describes the exploits and teachings of a sort of antiphilosopher who, born at age 63, travels through a hallucinatory Paris in a sieve and subscribes to the tenets of 'pataphysics. 'Pataphysics deals with "the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one". In 'pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.
Jarry once wrote, expressing some of the bizarre logic of 'pataphysics, "If you let a coin fall and it falls, the next time it is just by an infinite coincidence that it will fall again the same way; hundreds of other coins on other hands will follow this pattern in an infinitely unimaginable fashion".
In his final years, he was a legendary and heroic figure to some of the young writers and artists in Paris. Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, and Max Jacob sought him out in his truncated apartment. After his death, Pablo Picasso, fascinated with Jarry, acquired his pistol and wore it on his nocturnal expeditions in Paris, and later bought many of his manuscripts as well as executing a fine drawing of him.
Jarry lived in his 'pataphysical world until his death in Paris on November 1, 1907 of tuberculosis, aggravated by drug and alcohol use. It is recorded that his last request was for a toothpick. He was interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux, near Paris.
Friday, December 09, 2005
filling Station
Check out this website to see what's appearing in the latest issue... good stuff!!
http://fillingstation.ca/
http://fillingstation.ca/
Two Short Reviews: Bateman & Wilson
Dearst whomever,
Here are a couple of reviews as published in Calgary's local street weekly, Fast Forward. While both are intended to be positive on the whole, I've gotten quite a bit of flack from a certain local poetess who felt my review just wasn't glowing enough. (Yes, Sheri-D, not Bateman - sheesh! :) ) Good thing I didn't write what I was originally going to, or she might have sent someone to break my legs! I haven't been condescended to so badly since I was five and rode my bicycle into a lady by accident. Well, sorry to both of you ladies I've either literally or figuratively crashed into. Still, these were written for a certain audience, a mainly young, Fast Forward-reading, mostly non-poet audience, which perhaps ought to be considered. No matter who's reading, though, I stand by the fact that Wilson's poems on the page, for me at least, couldn't stand on their own at all until I heard her read. But after hearing Wilson read, one can at least tell what she's trying to do, whether one likes the results or not. 'Nough said. And, I also assert again that both book and CD are certainly worth checking out if you're into spoken word, thus encouraging people to buy both.
Anyhow, those reviews:
Invisible Foreground by
David Bateman
ISBN 1-897181-78-7
Frontenac House 2005
Poet, playwright, and bona fide Doctor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary, multi-talented David Bateman recently won over The New Gallery at his excellent one-man-show Lotus Blossom Special. A glorious chameleon on page or stage, he tries on as many styles and forms of poetry in Invisible Foreground as he does costumes in his individualized spoof of Madame Butterfly.
Invisible Foreground is as balanced as a practiced set of gams in highheels. You laugh, you cry, you console yourself with Haagen Das. Different line lengths, stanza sizes, concepts, and a terrific instinct for line rhythm in both performance poems as well as page poems, all pieces complement one another rather than clash. Bateman’s creative works, through self-representation, lovingly address the similar joys and difficulties of an entire generation of closet outcomers who, if they dared so much as rattle hangers, faced even more homophobia years back than today.
Still, Bateman rarely makes specific cases for political action. Instead, he bravely opens himself up, through his art, to hurled flak or flowers, confessional and earnest as hell but with the dark protective edges of one whose very subject matter has prepared him to defend the publication of it.
In Storey and a Half, Bateman shows how to blueprint the ephemeral sense of one’s life between lines of the actual. Try applying today’s insight to memory’s cue images: “I lost my mind in these tyrannous locations / there was a white leatherette rocker / furniture was like countries to me then”.
Then Bateman launches into a humourous take on Elvis / Elvis paraphernalia sightings so we know it won’t all be heavy, but are still assured he might return to weightier subject matter. Order of presentation in a classic book can be as important as order of presentation in a classic album, setting reader’s expectation how Patsy Cline sets listener’s mood. We are thus prepared for Bateman’s poetry to dance between lighthearted observation and depth as different types of lover’s touches for the mind: Calgary airport begins “I like to go to the airport / check into Swiss Chalet…” and goes into one of Bateman’s spirited, magic interpretations of the usual commonplace.
In a poem like Terrain, however, Bateman reaches beneath the ribcage for startling observations on hard experiences. Of going to the funeral of a former lover, he writes, “…the big stone parlour, / like a large suburban home / imperfect, glistening, strange”. In Stark insane voice on some liminal horizon, the poet posits that experiences varying in depth affect one’s capacity of love.
Irony and synecdoche, or symbolism, are Bateman’s light and dark sinewy threads for sewing together narrative voice into a radiant living scarf, fabric as liable to choke you up as to feel you up. A poetry of extreme originality, intense muscle, dropdead honesty, tender titillation and gorgeous eclectic imagery, it will linger on the skin of all your senses til it sinks in for good.
-----------
-----------
Re:view: Re: Zoom by Sheri-D Wilson
ISBN 1-897181-77-9
Frontenac House 2005
Saying that Sheri-D Wilson is better with music is like saying her friend and consistent backer, Jann Arden, is better with music. What do you mean, you ask; after all, Jann IS music. Well, same applies to Sheri-D. Listening to her excellent CD of five years previous, Sweet Taste of Lightning, you can’t help but wonder where the disc is for her latest book, Re:Zoom. Wilson virgins reading her verse accompanied by page silence is like finding the liner notes for music you’ve never heard – and, if you’re not familiar with it, not even knowing what genre you’re looking at, since the booklet’s shaped like a travel brochure or some other misleadingly familiar shape. (Such is spoken word poetry in page-poetry book form). Or it’s listening to television, seeing radio, smelling film. Okay, enough, I made my point; Sheri-D on paper alone just doesn’t feel right
Not having heard Sheri-D aloud, she may seem too rhymey without reason in book form. Lightning-sweetness sours, Between Lovers stays in the bedroom, Bull’s Whip and Lamb’s Wool to miss targets of thigh and eyeball, Swerve hits a curb and Girl’s Guide to Giving Head, well, good thing instinct instructs. Why have critics dubbed Sheri-D the high priestess of performance, the Mama of Dada, and Susan Ellis called her the post-hippie pre-Gen-X “action poet with roots in improvisational theatre”, practicing “jazzoetry style and poem-o-logue form”? These all jive like buzzwords when the page doesn’t ring.
Re:rejoice in blue hat bill, a cute tribute to poet bill bissett, carries its own on the page. Re:Connecting the Dots shows Wilson can communicate true honesty and tenderness, sans insulating humour and sexualized pouncing, to treat a personal story about meeting a Spanish boy when she was a girl traveling through Spain. Re:The Crime Fighter and the Lover is the best example of a jazz poem in this collection, paying homage to her schooldaze in Naropa, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Still, it’s Bertolucci perfume.
But wait! Pick up a copy of Wilson’s CD, Sweet Taste of Lightning, or get out to one of her live shows. With her voice in your head, undulating supernaturally up and down a fretboard towards spectrum ends like accompanying electric guitar, becoming electric guitar, Re:Zoom sings, rather than reads, in a whole new octave. One can respect more than the occasional interesting metaphor, as per “May spring bring / sundial on rotary phone”, (from Re:call Five Old Biddies On a Fifty) or “Wrought iron shapes / cast their shadow / a filigree dress / across her skin” (from Re:visionist Balcony). Suddenly the phrasing’s casing makes sense as framing, bass and drums that beat ba-dum the song along ka-plong and keep beep beep together.
Speaking of casing, I got a case of that Sheri-D onomatopoeic naming, punnified Dada-Mamafied rhymeword-gaming. Gotta go but let’s not miss the show: Sheri-D Wilson hosts her Spoken Word Festival this season, you know.
Here are a couple of reviews as published in Calgary's local street weekly, Fast Forward. While both are intended to be positive on the whole, I've gotten quite a bit of flack from a certain local poetess who felt my review just wasn't glowing enough. (Yes, Sheri-D, not Bateman - sheesh! :) ) Good thing I didn't write what I was originally going to, or she might have sent someone to break my legs! I haven't been condescended to so badly since I was five and rode my bicycle into a lady by accident. Well, sorry to both of you ladies I've either literally or figuratively crashed into. Still, these were written for a certain audience, a mainly young, Fast Forward-reading, mostly non-poet audience, which perhaps ought to be considered. No matter who's reading, though, I stand by the fact that Wilson's poems on the page, for me at least, couldn't stand on their own at all until I heard her read. But after hearing Wilson read, one can at least tell what she's trying to do, whether one likes the results or not. 'Nough said. And, I also assert again that both book and CD are certainly worth checking out if you're into spoken word, thus encouraging people to buy both.
Anyhow, those reviews:
Invisible Foreground by
David Bateman
ISBN 1-897181-78-7
Frontenac House 2005
Poet, playwright, and bona fide Doctor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary, multi-talented David Bateman recently won over The New Gallery at his excellent one-man-show Lotus Blossom Special. A glorious chameleon on page or stage, he tries on as many styles and forms of poetry in Invisible Foreground as he does costumes in his individualized spoof of Madame Butterfly.
Invisible Foreground is as balanced as a practiced set of gams in highheels. You laugh, you cry, you console yourself with Haagen Das. Different line lengths, stanza sizes, concepts, and a terrific instinct for line rhythm in both performance poems as well as page poems, all pieces complement one another rather than clash. Bateman’s creative works, through self-representation, lovingly address the similar joys and difficulties of an entire generation of closet outcomers who, if they dared so much as rattle hangers, faced even more homophobia years back than today.
Still, Bateman rarely makes specific cases for political action. Instead, he bravely opens himself up, through his art, to hurled flak or flowers, confessional and earnest as hell but with the dark protective edges of one whose very subject matter has prepared him to defend the publication of it.
In Storey and a Half, Bateman shows how to blueprint the ephemeral sense of one’s life between lines of the actual. Try applying today’s insight to memory’s cue images: “I lost my mind in these tyrannous locations / there was a white leatherette rocker / furniture was like countries to me then”.
Then Bateman launches into a humourous take on Elvis / Elvis paraphernalia sightings so we know it won’t all be heavy, but are still assured he might return to weightier subject matter. Order of presentation in a classic book can be as important as order of presentation in a classic album, setting reader’s expectation how Patsy Cline sets listener’s mood. We are thus prepared for Bateman’s poetry to dance between lighthearted observation and depth as different types of lover’s touches for the mind: Calgary airport begins “I like to go to the airport / check into Swiss Chalet…” and goes into one of Bateman’s spirited, magic interpretations of the usual commonplace.
In a poem like Terrain, however, Bateman reaches beneath the ribcage for startling observations on hard experiences. Of going to the funeral of a former lover, he writes, “…the big stone parlour, / like a large suburban home / imperfect, glistening, strange”. In Stark insane voice on some liminal horizon, the poet posits that experiences varying in depth affect one’s capacity of love.
Irony and synecdoche, or symbolism, are Bateman’s light and dark sinewy threads for sewing together narrative voice into a radiant living scarf, fabric as liable to choke you up as to feel you up. A poetry of extreme originality, intense muscle, dropdead honesty, tender titillation and gorgeous eclectic imagery, it will linger on the skin of all your senses til it sinks in for good.
-----------
-----------
Re:view: Re: Zoom by Sheri-D Wilson
ISBN 1-897181-77-9
Frontenac House 2005
Saying that Sheri-D Wilson is better with music is like saying her friend and consistent backer, Jann Arden, is better with music. What do you mean, you ask; after all, Jann IS music. Well, same applies to Sheri-D. Listening to her excellent CD of five years previous, Sweet Taste of Lightning, you can’t help but wonder where the disc is for her latest book, Re:Zoom. Wilson virgins reading her verse accompanied by page silence is like finding the liner notes for music you’ve never heard – and, if you’re not familiar with it, not even knowing what genre you’re looking at, since the booklet’s shaped like a travel brochure or some other misleadingly familiar shape. (Such is spoken word poetry in page-poetry book form). Or it’s listening to television, seeing radio, smelling film. Okay, enough, I made my point; Sheri-D on paper alone just doesn’t feel right
Not having heard Sheri-D aloud, she may seem too rhymey without reason in book form. Lightning-sweetness sours, Between Lovers stays in the bedroom, Bull’s Whip and Lamb’s Wool to miss targets of thigh and eyeball, Swerve hits a curb and Girl’s Guide to Giving Head, well, good thing instinct instructs. Why have critics dubbed Sheri-D the high priestess of performance, the Mama of Dada, and Susan Ellis called her the post-hippie pre-Gen-X “action poet with roots in improvisational theatre”, practicing “jazzoetry style and poem-o-logue form”? These all jive like buzzwords when the page doesn’t ring.
Re:rejoice in blue hat bill, a cute tribute to poet bill bissett, carries its own on the page. Re:Connecting the Dots shows Wilson can communicate true honesty and tenderness, sans insulating humour and sexualized pouncing, to treat a personal story about meeting a Spanish boy when she was a girl traveling through Spain. Re:The Crime Fighter and the Lover is the best example of a jazz poem in this collection, paying homage to her schooldaze in Naropa, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Still, it’s Bertolucci perfume.
But wait! Pick up a copy of Wilson’s CD, Sweet Taste of Lightning, or get out to one of her live shows. With her voice in your head, undulating supernaturally up and down a fretboard towards spectrum ends like accompanying electric guitar, becoming electric guitar, Re:Zoom sings, rather than reads, in a whole new octave. One can respect more than the occasional interesting metaphor, as per “May spring bring / sundial on rotary phone”, (from Re:call Five Old Biddies On a Fifty) or “Wrought iron shapes / cast their shadow / a filigree dress / across her skin” (from Re:visionist Balcony). Suddenly the phrasing’s casing makes sense as framing, bass and drums that beat ba-dum the song along ka-plong and keep beep beep together.
Speaking of casing, I got a case of that Sheri-D onomatopoeic naming, punnified Dada-Mamafied rhymeword-gaming. Gotta go but let’s not miss the show: Sheri-D Wilson hosts her Spoken Word Festival this season, you know.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Poet Nicole Henares of San Francisco writes:
Thanksgiving Greetings
by Nicole Henares
for EB White
From this academic high school of plagiarized essaysand unidentifiable lunch meat, we send forth a cornucopia of greetings to students, vice-principals,to shadows from our old middle schools. Happy Thanksgiving to our secretaries who almost had to strike to get their dependents health insurance, to Walgreens employees without health insurance, to women with frozen faces from too much Botox, to stripsearched airline passengers, and all those who have gone vegan! We greet in particular warmth sunbathers in Northern California enjoying 80 degree weather while wondering what has happened to our first snow. Happy Thanksgiving Global Warming! Happy Thanksgiving to the blue states and other despised minorities on Fox News! Happy Thanksgiving to the cult of Psy-trance djs and women who can’t wear low-rise jeans! Greetings of the season to Muslims who run corner stores and the prisoners of Guatanomo Bay; chronic indigestion and diarrhea to practicers of torture! Greetings to those who can’t check their e-mail and to slam poets who can’t rhyme with pumpkin. Happy Thanksgiving to the ignored, the confused, the obese. Joy to the writers of reality shows recorded live. Greetings to people with lactose intolerance; greetings to growers of garnish, to morticians of mirth, and to customer service agents in India enduring steady streams of complaints for .25 cents an hour. Happy Thanksgiving to the old veterans asleep on our sidewalks! Happy Thanksgiving to people who can’t stay in the same room with a Republican! We greet, too, those economically struggling on SSI in Section 8 Housing this TurkeyDay, the gutter punk duennas of Golden Gate Park in fog and biting rain, and the lonely on Craig’s List personals who get no responses to their ads. Happy Thanksgiving to people who grow organic gardens in the city; Happy Thanksgiving to farmers who allow their fowl free range! Greetings to Nano Ipods plus a download of Adam Sandler’s Thanksgiving Song. Joyous salutations to BMW owners whose road-etiquette isundeserving of their vehicle! Happy Thanksgiving tothe beleaguered, the cranky, the morose; Joy to all metrosexuals and transgenders. We greet the Secretaries-designate, the President-elect of Iraq: Happy Thanksgiving, I wish you peace, freedom, democracy, and no Halliburton! Happy Thanksgiving to couples blithe in therapy! Greetings to people whose airlines lose their luggage, to people who write a letter and pay .37 cents to mail it, to parents who can’t afford $10 for their children to see the latest Harry Potter movie. We greet ministers of Bush’s Christian Coalition who can’t think of a moral about Michael Brown, to David Letterman who can’t pick on Oprah until after she appears on his show. Greetings, too, to the inhabitants of planets Easter Bunny and Santa Claus; our global warming won’t bother you! And last, we greet all snowboarders on the incline of artificial slopes in the late afternoon. Happy Thanksgiving, skiers! Puff, snow! Wane to dusk, sky! Blow brown leaves, wind! Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good day!
by Nicole Henares
for EB White
From this academic high school of plagiarized essaysand unidentifiable lunch meat, we send forth a cornucopia of greetings to students, vice-principals,to shadows from our old middle schools. Happy Thanksgiving to our secretaries who almost had to strike to get their dependents health insurance, to Walgreens employees without health insurance, to women with frozen faces from too much Botox, to stripsearched airline passengers, and all those who have gone vegan! We greet in particular warmth sunbathers in Northern California enjoying 80 degree weather while wondering what has happened to our first snow. Happy Thanksgiving Global Warming! Happy Thanksgiving to the blue states and other despised minorities on Fox News! Happy Thanksgiving to the cult of Psy-trance djs and women who can’t wear low-rise jeans! Greetings of the season to Muslims who run corner stores and the prisoners of Guatanomo Bay; chronic indigestion and diarrhea to practicers of torture! Greetings to those who can’t check their e-mail and to slam poets who can’t rhyme with pumpkin. Happy Thanksgiving to the ignored, the confused, the obese. Joy to the writers of reality shows recorded live. Greetings to people with lactose intolerance; greetings to growers of garnish, to morticians of mirth, and to customer service agents in India enduring steady streams of complaints for .25 cents an hour. Happy Thanksgiving to the old veterans asleep on our sidewalks! Happy Thanksgiving to people who can’t stay in the same room with a Republican! We greet, too, those economically struggling on SSI in Section 8 Housing this TurkeyDay, the gutter punk duennas of Golden Gate Park in fog and biting rain, and the lonely on Craig’s List personals who get no responses to their ads. Happy Thanksgiving to people who grow organic gardens in the city; Happy Thanksgiving to farmers who allow their fowl free range! Greetings to Nano Ipods plus a download of Adam Sandler’s Thanksgiving Song. Joyous salutations to BMW owners whose road-etiquette isundeserving of their vehicle! Happy Thanksgiving tothe beleaguered, the cranky, the morose; Joy to all metrosexuals and transgenders. We greet the Secretaries-designate, the President-elect of Iraq: Happy Thanksgiving, I wish you peace, freedom, democracy, and no Halliburton! Happy Thanksgiving to couples blithe in therapy! Greetings to people whose airlines lose their luggage, to people who write a letter and pay .37 cents to mail it, to parents who can’t afford $10 for their children to see the latest Harry Potter movie. We greet ministers of Bush’s Christian Coalition who can’t think of a moral about Michael Brown, to David Letterman who can’t pick on Oprah until after she appears on his show. Greetings, too, to the inhabitants of planets Easter Bunny and Santa Claus; our global warming won’t bother you! And last, we greet all snowboarders on the incline of artificial slopes in the late afternoon. Happy Thanksgiving, skiers! Puff, snow! Wane to dusk, sky! Blow brown leaves, wind! Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good day!
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Mothers and Fathers at the End of Time; Before & After
Still working at the seniors community. The first residents had mainly bought their suites before the building was even completed; purchasing was their idea, not their children's. Now, those newly arriving are mostly installed by their children. Odd how many are moving in just before Christmas - 'Hey, happy holidays, let's put Pa in the home.' Many of the new residents seem to be on the borderline between requiring independent or assisted living facilities, so there are more concerns about memory, more frequent hallway wanderings in pajamas searching for the movie theatre at 5 a.m. or expecting the bus to the Co-op at 2 a.m. I am working harder than I ever have, and now that I've moved again (5th time since arriving) I'm in the opposite quadrant of the city from where I work. Travel time is condusive to getting reading done, but not great for socializing after events. In southeast Calgary there's a neighbourhood my bus goes through called Forest Lawn. It's got a bad reputation for crime, gang activity, and a proliferation of roving teenage girls wearing poofy tight parkas short enough to show off tight jeans, each hellion wired into a rap-filled MP3 player. Who says transit can't be entertaining?
So anyway, I hate men. Couldn't think of a way to sequitor. No, seriously, I'd like to but I can't. It's just that I've accumulated some big ugly baggage that's suddenly weighing me down to a new level of low. For the first while after Blake and I broke up, I went so far as to narrow my eyes at men on the train if I found myself forced to sit with them. Why would a sensible woman keep attaching herself to men who need help, help getting by or being inspired to write songs or both, when she finds each time that for some reason, each one NEEDS that difficulty in their lives and are, deep down, unwilling to part with it? And useless me, some saviour, without a license or a car or money - all I can offer, my encouragement, faith, and loyalty, has been spent on unappreciative men who eventually begin to treat me like the doormat I become, trying to please them. No matter who he is, that's what happens. It's entirely my fault I haven't had time to write or get my own life in order. 26 years old and still moving every few months, still without the things I need to be really independent. Listen all you big-hearted little poet girls, take heed: do date for love, but hold self-preservation to be just as important.
Finally keeping a job for the long term, even if it doesn't pay well enough, has been a good exercise. (Previously: record store employee, fast food slinger (bagels, pitas, donairs), reception/office temp, waitress, busker, etc.: all the glamour jobs!). Now that I'm free again (read: FREE!!!), I'm going to focus on reading, reviewing, writing, and volunteering with the local scene. filling Station magazine here in Calgary has on its editorial board some of the nicest, most interesting arty folk you're libel to meet in any city and I find myself drawn fully into that fold, if it'll take me. Blake was jealous and suspicious, paranoid even, so I'd rarely gone anywhere social without him since coming to Calgary last December just to avoid fighting about it; that included fS meetings. Yuck, that even some of the equalist firecrackers among us can turn passive as I did. At any rate, I'm off men for now. Nope, zero, zilch, nada. It's a diet where you lose about 185 pounds of useless weight and have tons more energy. As others who diet big say, after, showing their before big-waisted pants: "It's like I lost a whole other person!"
So anyway, I hate men. Couldn't think of a way to sequitor. No, seriously, I'd like to but I can't. It's just that I've accumulated some big ugly baggage that's suddenly weighing me down to a new level of low. For the first while after Blake and I broke up, I went so far as to narrow my eyes at men on the train if I found myself forced to sit with them. Why would a sensible woman keep attaching herself to men who need help, help getting by or being inspired to write songs or both, when she finds each time that for some reason, each one NEEDS that difficulty in their lives and are, deep down, unwilling to part with it? And useless me, some saviour, without a license or a car or money - all I can offer, my encouragement, faith, and loyalty, has been spent on unappreciative men who eventually begin to treat me like the doormat I become, trying to please them. No matter who he is, that's what happens. It's entirely my fault I haven't had time to write or get my own life in order. 26 years old and still moving every few months, still without the things I need to be really independent. Listen all you big-hearted little poet girls, take heed: do date for love, but hold self-preservation to be just as important.
Finally keeping a job for the long term, even if it doesn't pay well enough, has been a good exercise. (Previously: record store employee, fast food slinger (bagels, pitas, donairs), reception/office temp, waitress, busker, etc.: all the glamour jobs!). Now that I'm free again (read: FREE!!!), I'm going to focus on reading, reviewing, writing, and volunteering with the local scene. filling Station magazine here in Calgary has on its editorial board some of the nicest, most interesting arty folk you're libel to meet in any city and I find myself drawn fully into that fold, if it'll take me. Blake was jealous and suspicious, paranoid even, so I'd rarely gone anywhere social without him since coming to Calgary last December just to avoid fighting about it; that included fS meetings. Yuck, that even some of the equalist firecrackers among us can turn passive as I did. At any rate, I'm off men for now. Nope, zero, zilch, nada. It's a diet where you lose about 185 pounds of useless weight and have tons more energy. As others who diet big say, after, showing their before big-waisted pants: "It's like I lost a whole other person!"
Sunday, April 17, 2005
new re:views!
A few reviews coming out soonish... two in Calgary's filling Station magazine, for Stuart Ross' Surreal Estate anthology and Robert Priest's How to Swallow a Pig. Also some appearing in local street weekly Fast Forward, reviews of Frontenac Press Quartet books: Re:Zoom by Sheri-D Wilson and Invisible Foreground by David Bateman. Uploading these soon!
Thursday, March 31, 2005
blogged down by bogs!
Hmm, another blog? True, there's so much reading to be done at all times - bone up on the classics, keep up with the new releases, poetics, reviews, sites, etc. etc. I admit I don't always have time to read these things, though make time for certain articles on rob mclennan's and Jon Paul Fiorentino's and ryan fitzpatrick's blogs.
So I'm going to keep this very minimal, with reviews I've had published here and there, or am looking to publish, and other imported musings.
First, though, a longish thing: who the heck am I?
Having been a military brat, I've lived all over: born in Comox, moved to Cold Lake, moved to Baden Soellingen, at-the-time-West Germany til I was ten, where I took school and Girl Guide field trips all over the Schwartzwald, into Switzerland, and France; then to the little oil and military berg of Cold Lake in Northern Alberta again for hellish Junior High. Having been in Germany, where everyone's clothes came from Canex or the American PX, I was an instant outcast in Cold Lake, where everyone had to have name brands from the city. Plus, those hot pink New Kids earrings were totally out! But I got heavy into competitive figure skating, and made great friends with the local skating club kids.
Next came Ottawa, where I skated at the Minto Club under Tom Jackson. Ottawa writer Melanie Little's short story collection Confidence rings so many bells, since we apparently shared similar experiences and even some of the same coaches. Soon had to quit skating though when my one sibling, older brother Jeff (he's gettin' hitched this year!) started at the U of Ottawa and it was just too expensive.
What could possibly fill the spiritual and artistic void? I met my best friend, the poet Armour Garland, drummer for the school band. Armour would sit me down in his parent's trippy basement, crank up the Robyn Hitchcock or Syd Barrett and we'd write separate poems, then share. With Armour, I stumbled into the Dusty Owl Reading Series at the now-defunct Cafe Wim on Sussex. There, I shyly choked out one of my first notebook poems while veteran Ottawa poets like Ronnie Brown, Allison Comeau and David Collins sat kindly listening, looking cool, all scarfy and curlyheaded. Who were these people? Poet and Ottawa small press guru rob mclennan was there, my one-day first time chapbook/anthology publisher, and handed me a bunch of fliers for other readings like TREE and submissions calls.
This series of happy accidents let me know there was actually a city scene, and even a national scene, for contemporary Canadian poetry. Who'd a thunk it? Also visited Montreal several times when the $10/way Allo Stop carpooling company was still in service, before a certain monopolic bus company (that inbred bitch) found a loophole and sued them out of existance. (Next they'll sue me for libel). A Montreal, j'ai visite la poete Larissa Andrusyshyn, qui I'd met in the front row of a concert in Toronto. Lari introduced me to the amazing scene there as she knew it and showed me, by her person and by her Montrealaise lit savvy, what energy means.
Ever since, in addition to my writing, I have tried to do what I can to let other artistic-minded folk know about the poetry community, by volunteering for local small press and readings, talking about them on campus radio shows, helping with the Ottawa International Writer's Festival when I'm in town for it, and by putting out my little zine 'blue moon'. A songwriting singer/guitarist, I also get involved with the grassroots advertising of local music, designing and putting up posters.
Since 19, I've lived on my own; my Dad retired last year as Chief at 441 Squadron. (Dad hit military big-cheese type when I was in High School, amusing as nervous boys imagined Tomahawk missiles aimed at their houses if they broke my heart). The travelling I always swore quit when I had the chance became an instinct that continues, and informs my written work; somehow I end up somewhere else, ever displaced and wondering who I am. The constantly changing scenery is both exciting and disorienting. A foreign exchange student I met at Ottawa's El Dorado reading series, studying at the U of Quebec at Hull from his school in Marseille, wooed then exported me to various locales of France and Turkey for several months in 2000 (his mom was Turkish, his father French, and he'd grown up in both places). Oddly enough, though poetry isn't worth much to most people here who are much more acquainted with pop culture, it was some kind of license to be Quentin's girl overseas. It was okay that he had a Canadian girlfriend since I was, as he kept telling friends, "Lau-rie (rolled r) is _poete_." He'd ask me to read for his parents and friends, which was okay but a little embarrassing as he knew English much better than they and I knew how boring it must be for them. In Turkey, he didn't ask me to read; it was enough, apparently, to be a young white girl with auburn hair. Eventually I thought to myself, "Couldn't they just like me for me?", but of course with a language barrier, how could they? Thus the loneliness of a traveller, even with a local for company, though Quentin was equally interested in showing me off like some kind of weird prize or justification for having gone to Canada, and watching all the games of the French and Turkish teams in the World Cup of Soccer (schitzophrenia sets in when the two teams in you play each other!). He insisted we skip all the 'lame tourist destinations' like the Eiffel Tower and the Blue Mosque I'd been dying to see, although we did see a number of places I couldn't identify and he couldn't explain: eg., "Here, zees place vit za big fings, you know, ...?".
Quentin's little cousin from Istanbul thought I was great, and sat me in front of a newspaper, where she began teaching me to pronounce Turkish words. The Turkish family we visited near Pammukale, on our hot car road trip south, didn't think I was so great. Turkish women, I discovered, are mostly allowed to wear Western clothing if they want to; but they aren't allowed on the Internet to see what Western women were up to, and are taught from childhood that the best dream they could possibly have to fulfill is to serve a man as best they can. Sitting around the pool, waiting for the barbecue lambchops to cook, the men offered me first a cigarette, and then a beer. They laughed uproariously when I lit a smoke; laughed even more when I accepted the beer, then took it from me and gave me a .05. When I continued to drink it, their amusement turned to disgust, and Quentin made a longer-than-usual face. Later he told me, as we bathed clothed in an ambiant cloud of mosquito spraytruck fumes (who needs the hammam?), that he wished I could be more like the Turkish women: quiet and manserving. Oh, sure; hang on a minute while I completely efface myself. That was pretty much the end of us.
From Turkey we went back to France, and at the travel agent I was only able to get a plane ticket to Toronto, not Ottawa. Having just enough money to either get to Ottawa and be completely broke, or get to Winnipeg where my parents lived and get back on my feet, I opted to move to Winnipeg for a year. An excellent poetry scene there, and music scene too. Memorable occasions for me there included having my work edited by George Amabile when he was writer-in-residence at the Winnipeg Public Library; attending the launch of his Signature Editions Selected, called Tasting the Dark, at the Press Club, where I played pool with Catherine Hunter and her friend, cheesed off J. Gordon Shillingford (sorry J!), and tried to explain to a late-arriving CBC reporter just in for a beer what was going on, and what the worth of poetry; visiting poet Colin Smith at the Junto Library, and with him, running into his old friend George Bowering at the Mondragon Cafe prior to his Artspace reading at the Writer's Festival, who gave me a chocolate coin; reading at McNally Robinson, the prairie bookstore, with rob mclennan on one of his tours through Winnipeg, and going for beers with he and Cooley at the Mayflower; and attending events at Bread and Circuses and Borealis Books, where I finally met and/or got to hear great writerly people like Tom Schmidt and Andris Taskins, John Dowling and Di Brandt, Lynette D'Anna and Sean Virgo, Clive Holden and Terrance Cox.
Back to Ottawa I went, drawn back to that fold that was first of any to enfold me. Quentin was long gone back to Fenneville, his family's farmhouse near Paris, after he'd visited Winnipeg and my parents wouldn't let us sleep in the same bed. "Canadiens barbares!" Barbaric throwbacks from stuck-up England! He also loved to throw things and break them when he didn't get his way, and my parents' Sardenian ceramics and Bossen heads were too tempting. Then there was that Turkey rift, where even the romanticism of blue olive hills and Ephesean ruins couldn't save us. The sense of disaster from all those floods and fires and ransackings Ephesus received got under our skin through the dust in our sandals, set our libraries ablaze, wrecked our Heraclitis. Stepping into the same stream again, the Ottawa River I guess, but never the same stream twice as the aphorism goes, I got another year's worth of English Lit studies in at Carleton University. Battling the same old problems with being too broke to feed myself, pay rent, and get to school, I was forced to rent a room at a ramshackle place in Mechanicsville where my roommates turned out to be ultra paranoid Slayer-metalhead crackheads ("Freebase isn't crack! We just use a spoon"), linemen for the phone company, whose basement garden almost got us all thrown in jail when the police threatened to come search for my friend Gareth, a moody musician I met in Winnipeg who'd run away from home. Spent a few Ottawa summers working at various bagel and wrap joints downtown and busking in the Byward Market, where I wrote songs and befriended street people, artists, and terrific local musicians. The relationship with one such musician became my second stalker experience; the relationship with another, a debauched degenerative low-budget drug and alc fest such as you'd read in a short story by Ottawa writer Michael Bryson or a poem by Anders Carson.
Terrible living and boyfriend conditions, along with my mother's cancer surgery, brought me back to Cold Lake, where I worked at a couple of restaurants and cafes, wrote a manuscript of poems exploring the quirkiness of a North Alberta smalltown, researched local Cree legends and started a Writer's Group.
In Cold Lake, I met my boyfriend Blake at a guitar jam, over at Richard the Drummer's place. Blake and I have tons in common: guitar, songswriting, and poetry. He was also staying at his folks' place to recouperate from a botched Cold Lake escape attempt. Together, we moved to Calgary this past December. There's tons going on here. Dammit, I need to know everything fast, get caught up, consume literature as though I'm at school, and see about attending the U of Calgary, where great writerly people like Christian Bok and Pamela Banting teach. For now, I'm working at a mountainview seniors' residence, where I gaze up at the Rockies and tell myself if I just scrub a bajillion more floors and serve a thousand more coffees I can get there next, maybe check out Banff School for the Arts, or visit Victoria, catch a reading by Tim Lilburn and Jan Zwicky... Currently reviewing poetry books for Fast Forward (the local street paper), working on poetry and songs, hitting the open stages and local readings like filling Station's flywheel and Single Onion, exploring the surprisingly wondrous and amazing indie college rock scene, and trying to save up enough money to get surrealcanada.com and its affiliate, bloom oon Canadian Surrealist Journal, out into the atmosphere - as well as get back to my home base, Ottawa, and my writing group - not the Cold Lake one I started that fizzled as soon as I left, but Ottawa's Peter F. Yacht Club, before they further disown me. Hello to Melanie, Peter, Stephen, Max, rob, James, Anita, Vivian, Bruce, who still inspire me greatly from so far. Ottawa's still my Home Base as I travel hither and thither, and yon, even, getting a feel for the country and gathering inspiration from excellent poets all over the land.
bloom oon cooming s'oon!
So I'm going to keep this very minimal, with reviews I've had published here and there, or am looking to publish, and other imported musings.
First, though, a longish thing: who the heck am I?
Having been a military brat, I've lived all over: born in Comox, moved to Cold Lake, moved to Baden Soellingen, at-the-time-West Germany til I was ten, where I took school and Girl Guide field trips all over the Schwartzwald, into Switzerland, and France; then to the little oil and military berg of Cold Lake in Northern Alberta again for hellish Junior High. Having been in Germany, where everyone's clothes came from Canex or the American PX, I was an instant outcast in Cold Lake, where everyone had to have name brands from the city. Plus, those hot pink New Kids earrings were totally out! But I got heavy into competitive figure skating, and made great friends with the local skating club kids.
Next came Ottawa, where I skated at the Minto Club under Tom Jackson. Ottawa writer Melanie Little's short story collection Confidence rings so many bells, since we apparently shared similar experiences and even some of the same coaches. Soon had to quit skating though when my one sibling, older brother Jeff (he's gettin' hitched this year!) started at the U of Ottawa and it was just too expensive.
What could possibly fill the spiritual and artistic void? I met my best friend, the poet Armour Garland, drummer for the school band. Armour would sit me down in his parent's trippy basement, crank up the Robyn Hitchcock or Syd Barrett and we'd write separate poems, then share. With Armour, I stumbled into the Dusty Owl Reading Series at the now-defunct Cafe Wim on Sussex. There, I shyly choked out one of my first notebook poems while veteran Ottawa poets like Ronnie Brown, Allison Comeau and David Collins sat kindly listening, looking cool, all scarfy and curlyheaded. Who were these people? Poet and Ottawa small press guru rob mclennan was there, my one-day first time chapbook/anthology publisher, and handed me a bunch of fliers for other readings like TREE and submissions calls.
This series of happy accidents let me know there was actually a city scene, and even a national scene, for contemporary Canadian poetry. Who'd a thunk it? Also visited Montreal several times when the $10/way Allo Stop carpooling company was still in service, before a certain monopolic bus company (that inbred bitch) found a loophole and sued them out of existance. (Next they'll sue me for libel). A Montreal, j'ai visite la poete Larissa Andrusyshyn, qui I'd met in the front row of a concert in Toronto. Lari introduced me to the amazing scene there as she knew it and showed me, by her person and by her Montrealaise lit savvy, what energy means.
Ever since, in addition to my writing, I have tried to do what I can to let other artistic-minded folk know about the poetry community, by volunteering for local small press and readings, talking about them on campus radio shows, helping with the Ottawa International Writer's Festival when I'm in town for it, and by putting out my little zine 'blue moon'. A songwriting singer/guitarist, I also get involved with the grassroots advertising of local music, designing and putting up posters.
Since 19, I've lived on my own; my Dad retired last year as Chief at 441 Squadron. (Dad hit military big-cheese type when I was in High School, amusing as nervous boys imagined Tomahawk missiles aimed at their houses if they broke my heart). The travelling I always swore quit when I had the chance became an instinct that continues, and informs my written work; somehow I end up somewhere else, ever displaced and wondering who I am. The constantly changing scenery is both exciting and disorienting. A foreign exchange student I met at Ottawa's El Dorado reading series, studying at the U of Quebec at Hull from his school in Marseille, wooed then exported me to various locales of France and Turkey for several months in 2000 (his mom was Turkish, his father French, and he'd grown up in both places). Oddly enough, though poetry isn't worth much to most people here who are much more acquainted with pop culture, it was some kind of license to be Quentin's girl overseas. It was okay that he had a Canadian girlfriend since I was, as he kept telling friends, "Lau-rie (rolled r) is _poete_." He'd ask me to read for his parents and friends, which was okay but a little embarrassing as he knew English much better than they and I knew how boring it must be for them. In Turkey, he didn't ask me to read; it was enough, apparently, to be a young white girl with auburn hair. Eventually I thought to myself, "Couldn't they just like me for me?", but of course with a language barrier, how could they? Thus the loneliness of a traveller, even with a local for company, though Quentin was equally interested in showing me off like some kind of weird prize or justification for having gone to Canada, and watching all the games of the French and Turkish teams in the World Cup of Soccer (schitzophrenia sets in when the two teams in you play each other!). He insisted we skip all the 'lame tourist destinations' like the Eiffel Tower and the Blue Mosque I'd been dying to see, although we did see a number of places I couldn't identify and he couldn't explain: eg., "Here, zees place vit za big fings, you know, ...?".
Quentin's little cousin from Istanbul thought I was great, and sat me in front of a newspaper, where she began teaching me to pronounce Turkish words. The Turkish family we visited near Pammukale, on our hot car road trip south, didn't think I was so great. Turkish women, I discovered, are mostly allowed to wear Western clothing if they want to; but they aren't allowed on the Internet to see what Western women were up to, and are taught from childhood that the best dream they could possibly have to fulfill is to serve a man as best they can. Sitting around the pool, waiting for the barbecue lambchops to cook, the men offered me first a cigarette, and then a beer. They laughed uproariously when I lit a smoke; laughed even more when I accepted the beer, then took it from me and gave me a .05. When I continued to drink it, their amusement turned to disgust, and Quentin made a longer-than-usual face. Later he told me, as we bathed clothed in an ambiant cloud of mosquito spraytruck fumes (who needs the hammam?), that he wished I could be more like the Turkish women: quiet and manserving. Oh, sure; hang on a minute while I completely efface myself. That was pretty much the end of us.
From Turkey we went back to France, and at the travel agent I was only able to get a plane ticket to Toronto, not Ottawa. Having just enough money to either get to Ottawa and be completely broke, or get to Winnipeg where my parents lived and get back on my feet, I opted to move to Winnipeg for a year. An excellent poetry scene there, and music scene too. Memorable occasions for me there included having my work edited by George Amabile when he was writer-in-residence at the Winnipeg Public Library; attending the launch of his Signature Editions Selected, called Tasting the Dark, at the Press Club, where I played pool with Catherine Hunter and her friend, cheesed off J. Gordon Shillingford (sorry J!), and tried to explain to a late-arriving CBC reporter just in for a beer what was going on, and what the worth of poetry; visiting poet Colin Smith at the Junto Library, and with him, running into his old friend George Bowering at the Mondragon Cafe prior to his Artspace reading at the Writer's Festival, who gave me a chocolate coin; reading at McNally Robinson, the prairie bookstore, with rob mclennan on one of his tours through Winnipeg, and going for beers with he and Cooley at the Mayflower; and attending events at Bread and Circuses and Borealis Books, where I finally met and/or got to hear great writerly people like Tom Schmidt and Andris Taskins, John Dowling and Di Brandt, Lynette D'Anna and Sean Virgo, Clive Holden and Terrance Cox.
Back to Ottawa I went, drawn back to that fold that was first of any to enfold me. Quentin was long gone back to Fenneville, his family's farmhouse near Paris, after he'd visited Winnipeg and my parents wouldn't let us sleep in the same bed. "Canadiens barbares!" Barbaric throwbacks from stuck-up England! He also loved to throw things and break them when he didn't get his way, and my parents' Sardenian ceramics and Bossen heads were too tempting. Then there was that Turkey rift, where even the romanticism of blue olive hills and Ephesean ruins couldn't save us. The sense of disaster from all those floods and fires and ransackings Ephesus received got under our skin through the dust in our sandals, set our libraries ablaze, wrecked our Heraclitis. Stepping into the same stream again, the Ottawa River I guess, but never the same stream twice as the aphorism goes, I got another year's worth of English Lit studies in at Carleton University. Battling the same old problems with being too broke to feed myself, pay rent, and get to school, I was forced to rent a room at a ramshackle place in Mechanicsville where my roommates turned out to be ultra paranoid Slayer-metalhead crackheads ("Freebase isn't crack! We just use a spoon"), linemen for the phone company, whose basement garden almost got us all thrown in jail when the police threatened to come search for my friend Gareth, a moody musician I met in Winnipeg who'd run away from home. Spent a few Ottawa summers working at various bagel and wrap joints downtown and busking in the Byward Market, where I wrote songs and befriended street people, artists, and terrific local musicians. The relationship with one such musician became my second stalker experience; the relationship with another, a debauched degenerative low-budget drug and alc fest such as you'd read in a short story by Ottawa writer Michael Bryson or a poem by Anders Carson.
Terrible living and boyfriend conditions, along with my mother's cancer surgery, brought me back to Cold Lake, where I worked at a couple of restaurants and cafes, wrote a manuscript of poems exploring the quirkiness of a North Alberta smalltown, researched local Cree legends and started a Writer's Group.
In Cold Lake, I met my boyfriend Blake at a guitar jam, over at Richard the Drummer's place. Blake and I have tons in common: guitar, songswriting, and poetry. He was also staying at his folks' place to recouperate from a botched Cold Lake escape attempt. Together, we moved to Calgary this past December. There's tons going on here. Dammit, I need to know everything fast, get caught up, consume literature as though I'm at school, and see about attending the U of Calgary, where great writerly people like Christian Bok and Pamela Banting teach. For now, I'm working at a mountainview seniors' residence, where I gaze up at the Rockies and tell myself if I just scrub a bajillion more floors and serve a thousand more coffees I can get there next, maybe check out Banff School for the Arts, or visit Victoria, catch a reading by Tim Lilburn and Jan Zwicky... Currently reviewing poetry books for Fast Forward (the local street paper), working on poetry and songs, hitting the open stages and local readings like filling Station's flywheel and Single Onion, exploring the surprisingly wondrous and amazing indie college rock scene, and trying to save up enough money to get surrealcanada.com and its affiliate, bloom oon Canadian Surrealist Journal, out into the atmosphere - as well as get back to my home base, Ottawa, and my writing group - not the Cold Lake one I started that fizzled as soon as I left, but Ottawa's Peter F. Yacht Club, before they further disown me. Hello to Melanie, Peter, Stephen, Max, rob, James, Anita, Vivian, Bruce, who still inspire me greatly from so far. Ottawa's still my Home Base as I travel hither and thither, and yon, even, getting a feel for the country and gathering inspiration from excellent poets all over the land.
bloom oon cooming s'oon!
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