DEATH HAS NO STING (ON THE INTERNET)

Ran holds the mirror to FPE. Photo by Susan Coolen.

It always amazes me to find things I wrote five, ten, fifteen years ago still floating around out in the ether known as ‘The World Wide Web’. This is a byproduct of the net’s ever-increasing capacity to archive anything and everything ever posted.

I did some personal internet ‘house-cleaning’ a couple of months back, and deleted four of my old blogs. They’d been up for three or four years, and a lot of the content had grown rather stale. While I don’t really regret doing that, there always is the temptation to just leave it all up there in perpetuity, just because I can.

Although Fish Piss the zine is no longer active, it lives on in the form of reprints and a complete internet archive. Just the other day, someone was telling me they’re read one of my pieces – ‘Letters To Ran’, actually two letters I’d written to fellow Fluffy Pagan Echo Ran Elfassy back in 1995 – in a Fish Piss they picked up at this year’s Expozine. I’ve contributed many pieces to FP over the eons, including poems, reviews, and articles about things like K-Tel Records and 45s. You can find links to all of them here.

Tireless poetry promoter and poet Todd Swift (he just recently launched his first UK collection, he’s already got several Canadian poetry books under his belt) accepted a couple of politically-concerned poems from me when he was poetry editor at nthposition.com, an online zine that’s still active. In their archives you’ll find a couple of the free downloadable chapbooks I appear in, as edited by Swift: 100 Poets Against The War and Babylon Burning.

And let’s not forget the jillions and bzillions of pieces on the topic of poetry and spoken word events that I’ve written for the Montreal Mirror since 2000. Mostly short blurbs, but there’s also articles covering all kinds of interesting folks.

As we move further into this crazy fucking century, I suspect more and more ‘content’ will find its home, not on the printed page, but on this evanescent, screen-dependent ‘platform’. I don’t know what to say about this trend, except that at least it’ll save some trees. One thing we should all realize, of course, is that the more it becomes the dominant system for the delivery of everything from music to movies to books, the more we’re gonna have to pay for what is currently ‘free’ (excepting internet fees, of course).

In the meantime, books as a physical artifact will survive, of course, just as movies survived the advent of video, just as painting survived the advent of photography. And maybe they’ll become much, much more beautiful …

POETIC CANADA

I’ve just been published in Canadian Poetry no. 64, a poetry review put out by the English Department of my alma mater, The University of Western Ontario. (HBA in History, 1982.) It’s a special issue on Anglo-Quebec Poetry, guest edited by Jason Camlot, and featuring scholarly studies on Rob Allen, David McGimpsey, Erin Mouré and Carmine Starnino, among others.

My piece is in a class of its own, “Documents.” ‘in search of the poetic in everyday life’ began as a rumination on the day when Canadian poetry was transformed from a distant, fusty concept to a vibrant, living presence in my life. I suppose it’s also about my own birth as a poet. Jason Camlot heard me read the piece at Erica Ruth Kelly’s chapbook launch at Cagibi last year, and asked me if I’d contribute it to Canadian Poetry.

An earlier version of ‘in search of the poetic in everyday life’ appeared in my November 2008 prose chapbook Drift.

100 SHOWS AND COUNTING …

Kaie Kellough rocks the mic.

I’m co-hosting a gala spoken word show Sunday, October 25th at Sala Rossa. It includes some of the most talented spoken word / poetry purveyors of Montreal. There’ll also be a dash or two of cabaret, a yummy side order of performance art, and a simmering thick trance vibe courtesy of Pharmakon. With spacial guest star T.L. Cowan coming all the way from Edmonton, and members of the Throw Collective national slam team. Information is below:

Our 100th Wired on Words and Music Show is coming up this weekend,
on October 25th, in a special showing at the Sala Rossa, 4848 St-Laurent, Montreal.

The event will be a packed literature and music show and will feature some of the top names in spoken word, many of whom have appeared in our shows over the years, including:

Alexis O’Hara – audio artiste extraordinaire
D. Kimm – poet, audio artist and director of voix d’ameriques festival
Taqralik Partridge – slow-burnin’ Inuit spoken word artist
Pharmakon MTL – eerie trance improv music – spoken word & multiple guitar and vocal harmonies
TL Cowan – in from Edmonton for one night, she puts the GRRR in girl.
Fortner Anderson – the spoken word man
Kaie Kellough – Excellent D-D-D-dub/poetry specialist and author of Lettricity.
Geneviève Letarte – fabulously talented Québec poet, performer and translator

Hosts for the evening will be Vincent Tinguely and Ian Ferrier

Think of it as a big celebration for a show that grew up with spoken word in Montreal.

Wired on Words and Music
100th Show
at the Sala Rossa
4848 St-Laurent
Sunday October 25th
$5
doors open 8:30; show starts 9:30

First 25 people at the door get a free CD from Wired on Words Productions

All proceeds go to send the Montreal Slam Team to the national slam finals in Victoria, B.C.

For more info, write to the

poets@wiredonwords.com

WALKING SPANISH DOWN THE HALL

The latest issue of The Apostle's Review.

Just a couple of random and unrelated things literary / artistic that I have had the honour to be included in. First, an artists’ book called Drop Names that I co-created with Victoria Stanton in 1995 has appeared in the newly-launched ‘virtual’ exhibition Artists’ Books: Bound in Art. The exhibit is a project of Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. Our work is only represented by a single picture, but there’s more than 140 artists’ books digitized on the site and available for browsing.

Second, two of my poems have appeared in the latest issue of The Apostles Review, a Spanish-language literary magazine published here in Montreal. The poems, ‘The Aesthetics of Emotional Control’ and ‘Prayer’, originally appeared in my triple-chapbook set SEX, POWER, MYTH, which I self-published back in late 2004. Alejandro Saravia bought a set at the launch party, and was quite taken with a few of the pieces.

Some of you might remember our performance at the April 2008 Words and Music at the Casa, where I read my poems in English and Alejandro then read the translated versions. At first, he’d translated a few of them just for his own pleasure. Then he floated the possibility that they might appear online. Imagine my delight when they actually appeared in print! It’s a really nice magazine, too, and features a lot of Spanish poets and prose writers, including Saravia himself, Angel Mota and Nela Rio.

CABARET CARTE BLANCHE

I’ll be doing an experimental sound art piece with John Stuart (as FINGERDOG) at this upcoming show.

Throw Poetry Collective Presents a night of mixed mediums; dance, music and poetic experiments served:

Cabaret Carte Blanche

Friday June 5th, 2009

Doors 7:30 Show 8:00

Theatre St. Catherine – 264 St. Catherine St. E.

$10 at the door

Throw Poetry Collective is bringing together Montreal based artists working in the disciplines of spoken word, music, contemporary dance, theatre and performative visual art -including those who skirt the lines between mediums, mixing talent and technique. The cabaret will feature both emerging and established talents such as Ian Ferrier with his band Pharmakon MTL, spoken word poet and songstress Moë Clark, live body painting by artist April-Anna, the haunting voice of Michelle Tompkins, and experimental spoken word performances by members of the Throw Poetry Collective, including Chris Masson and Alessandra Naccarato.

Featuring:

Music by Pharmakon MTL, Michelle Tompkins, James Irwin, Jindalee Lehman

Spoken Word by Moë Clark, Larissa Diakiw, The Throw Collective (including Chris Masson & Alessandra Naccarato)

Mixed Media Performances by Tender Morsels, Rachna Vohra, Fingerdog (Vincent Tinguely & John Stuart)

Live Body Painting by April-Anna

& more

Voila: Cabaret Carte Blanche!

JOHN GIORNO COMES ALIVE!

Giorno at 2008 FVA. Photo by Isabelle Hayeur.

In 2008, I was commissioned to write a review of John Giorno’s performances at the Festival Voix D’Ameriques. It’s taken a while, but it finally has found a home at Chicago-based spoken word site the e-poets network. Check it out!

If you haven’t experienced Giorno live, there’s a couple of video clips of his 2008 performances at the Festival Voix D’Ameriques here. You can also listen to some of his recordings at the fabulous UbuWeb, and read the article I wrote about him for the Montreal Mirror here.

In other Chicago-related news, Victoria Stanton’s videopoem of ‘Oilers’ (featuring text / voice by yours truly) is being screened at the upcoming 9th Annual Chicago Anarchist Film Festival.

Openly Gaia.

I am honoured to be part of the panoply of poets and writers on Saturday. This is my first ever academic conference so I will be on my best behavior and will try not to break any of the furniture.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONFERENCE MAKES SENSE OF SUSTAINABILITY

Montreal, Quebec, Canada: March 3, 2009

Scholars, artists, and activists from across North America will be converging on Montreal on Friday March 13 and Saturday March 14 to present their papers and poems which address and attempt to make sense of the various meanings of ‘sustainability’. A University of Montreal conference, ‘Sense and Sustainability’ plays on Jane Austen’s title to examine all aspects of sustainability in literature past and present, from sustaining the ‘self’ to sustaining environments.

Thirty scholars from across North America will meet on Friday to present and discuss their papers with titles like ‘Green Morality: Ecological and Ecocritical Redemption in The Lord of the Rings’, and ‘Katherine Mansfield and the Ecology of Feminine Space’. The keynote speaker is a University of Montreal alumnus, Clive Doucet, poet and author of Urban Meltdown.

Thirty creative writers and performers from across North America will meet on Saturday. Led by local celebrities Gail Scott, Sina Queryas, Mary Soderstrom, Ann Diamond, and Ian Ferrier, they will present and discuss their work. The closing speaker is Algonquin Elder, Jacob Wawatie, Director of Kokomville Academy who will present clips from Le Peuple Invisible.

Free lunch and coffee are provided between presentations and artists, activists, scholars, the public, and the press are invited to continue their conversations as they dine.

Conference organiser, Chris Dilworth, a doctoral candidate who studies cybernetics in literature, says that “as the present ecological and economic crises demonstrate, the consumer-economic model is fatally flawed. We have to start looking for other models of sustainability. We must re-examine our relationship to technology.” He adds that “only art provides an ‘essential reflection upon technology and [a] decisive confrontation with it’; art makes sense of sustainability”.

‘Sense and Sustainability’ is the sixth annual conference hosted by the English Graduate Students Society of the English Studies Department at the University of Montreal. Department Chair, Robert Schwartzwald, received the Governor General’s International Award for Canadian Studies on May 31, 2008. Research at the Department focuses on British, Canadian, and American literature; it offers both MA and Ph.D. degrees.

Contact information:

The Conference website is at:
http://www.egss-umontreal.org/colloquium/

Press contact S&S Co-Chair (e-mail only):
Chris Dilworth chris@egss-umontreal.org

Event contact S&S Co-Chair (Academic)
Brigitte Boudreau: brigitte@egss-umontreal.org

Event contact S&S Co-Chair (Creative)
Kevin D’Abramo: kevin@egss-umontreal.org

FOUR MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT LAUNCH

The latest issue of Four Minutes to Midnight!

I’m reading a little at this event on Saturday night. There’s be various bands / performers to enjoy, and you can pick up a copy of Four Minutes to Midnight no. 10, featuring great stuff by myself amongst all the other geniuses.

Boredom is Counter Revolutionary

Four Minutes to Midnight Issue 10 Launch Party

Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 8:00pm

Lab Synthèse

435 Beaubien Ouest, Loft 200

Four Minutes to Midnight is proud to launch its 10th issue at Lab Synthèse with the bands Shortpants Romance, American Devices, Little Scream and The Great Vowel Shift. BYOB!

$5 / $13 with zine purchase

the re-launch of the dream weapon

Join me and a few friends this Sunday
as we use Words and Music at the Casa to attempt the

RE-LAUNCH OF THE DREAM WEAPON

featuring

Vince Tinguely (launching two awesome new chapbooks)

John Stuart (spoken guitard, co-creator of Four Minutes to Midnight)

Kevin Yuen Kit Lo (fugue flow, co-creator of Four Minutes to Midnight)

MariJo St-Amour (film-maker, poet) et equipe Skandhal

Chris Masson (of the superenergized Throw Collective)

Anna Leventhal (writer / editor of the hit anthology The Art of Trespassing)

Sherwin Tjia (performer / graphic novelist / impressario)

Jane Gabriels (jazzy spoken songster and dancer too)

Scott Duncan (visual artist and performer)

with the musical stylings of Jon Noel

at Casa del Popolo
4873 St-Laurent
Sunday, December 21
9 p.m.

$3 / pay what you can

POST-EXPOZINE THOTS

Much fun was had at this past weekend’s Expozine. Sitting to my left were intrepid hand-made book gurus Tammy and Fran, who taught me how to hand-bind my chapbooks with needle and thread. (I’d been having some difficulty with my long stapler, as the chapbooks were just a hair too thick for the staples to make it through!) We kept each other entertained with oranges, tea, much highbrow intellectual interchange and delicious Portugese bakery treats from across the park on St-Laurent. On my right was poet / writer / sick humour enthusiast Valerie, whom I hadn’t met before, although I’d seen her read on at least one occasion. She had something in her bag for any emergency, including tylenol for hangovers and a bandaid for me after I suffered a paper cut. (‘Work-related injury!’ I shouted, waving around my wounded hand, and after a dot of the red stuff showed, ‘Blood of the poet!!’) And parading before my little bit of table for two days were some of the most gorgeous members of the human species ever to walk this earth, up to and including poetry-of-film-maker Marijo (I just saw her sumptuous visual feast Sérénade – In Fragments at ImageNation this week) and Shawnda, who came by with her newest work, a chapbook of faithless proverbs called 2008-2009: The Year I Was A Burnt Marshmellow. This is the essence of the zine fair, the chance to meet tons of people, and maybe shift some home-made litero-musico units as well!

Speaking of which, Pistol Press and Invisible Publishing, who were both tabling at the fair, have launched a video-based online literary reading series, called The Kitchen Reading Series. I dragooned my videographer friend Victoria into doing a quickie with the iphotobooth program on her laptop, and the resulting video, ‘Tiny Kingdom’, is featured in the Kitchen Series’ first course. (The text was included in my Expozine freebie, 3 Poems (and a picture).) The rest of the line-up is Deanna Fong, Stacey May Fowles, Jp King, Anna Levanthal, Jeff Miller and Hillary Rexe.

Four Minutes to Midnight launched their tenth sumptuous feast of text, images, crazy collages and hyperdelic design savvy at Expozine. The Four Minutes posse were running a cosy table in one corner of the zine fair, where I also picked up a delightful hand-made mushroom card by Catherine, Under Control, a chapbook of confessions of a f(l)ailing radical educator, and John’s new CDR of poetry. Four Minutes to Midnight no. 10 is thick as a brick, and features a couple of pieces by myself, but don’t let that put you off! There’s also stuff by Hoda and Dima Adra, Emily Kai Bock, Ian Finch, Erica Ruth Kelly, Dita Kubin, Billy Mavreas, Maria Mavrig, F.A. Nettelbeck, Omen, Visualingual, and about a zillion more. Race out the door now, and run, run, run like a maniac all over town until you find a copy and then buy it!

Here are some pictures Tammy posted of her customers, and the general hurlyburly of Expozine.