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This just popped up randomly in my inbox (I never know where people found my email address: ah well.) It's in Toronto, but I am kind of amused that someone's dusted off the sonnet and thrown it into the slam ring. I wish someone would do something like that here.
Hmm... maybe I'll bring that up at the next Dusty Owl meeting...
I never really pegged myself as a performing poet. I admit, I think I do pay attention to the sounds of my poems and I try to focus on reading them well, but if there's an open mike I'm happy to sit back and listen, I shrug and say, "I didn't bring my stuff," or I just don't feel quite right about jumping up and claiming time that could as easily be filled with some other poet. It's the second-stringer, beta-wolf, supporting-cast side of me, I suppose.
So I was really surprised at how exhilarating it was to be a featured reader. I read at Voices of Venus last night, to a packed room at Umi Cafe, and it was fun. I wasn't even all that nervous, really. And having a whole half hour to stretch out and inhabit my work was great. I've done great shows with the Kymeras before - the Acadian set we did for the last Windborn was a highlight - but there's something qualitatively different about being the only featured artist. I found I really got comfortable up there when I had all that time and a sense of an arc to the material I was reading.
A lot of the reason for my comfort, I think, was the crowd. Voices of Venus is a really relaxed, fun space - props to Faye, the host, for creating that - and I think it is true that you can feel when a room full of people has 'clicked' somehow, when the audience is with you. It was a great feeling. I was surprised to discover that I had some funny poems - and had to remind myself to stop and wait for the laughs I hadn't been expecting - and was even more surprised by the occasional silent moment before people clapped, with a couple of of 'mm' sounds in the room. Oooh, fun.
The open mic was also great beforehand - first-timers and veteran readers alike got up and read or told stories. I admit to being a bit nervous about having to follow some of the poets that got up. But the huge variety of work that came out during the open mike dispelled that. There was such a number of different voices that I felt just fine about stepping up and saying, Okay, this is my voice. I don't slam, and haven't done open mike at Capital Slam (though I've been asked to) for that reason: my stuff just isn't slam stage material. But then nothing about this open mike was restricted to any one style.
And I was so buzzed afterwards! The coordinator, Allison, and I were standing around in the emptied-out cafe afterwards and she just kept bouncing up and down: which was pretty much exactly how I felt. I was on a complete high.
So while I never pegged myself as a performance sort of poet - I would so totally do that again!
Oh, Texas. Wasn't it there that recently the Merriam-Webster Dictionary was banned from some classrooms because the definition of "oral sex" was too racy?
Now, I'm listening to As It Happens and catch an interview with a reporter from the American Statesman who wrote a great article on which books are banned from Texas jails. No Freakonomics (they use a racial epithet in a piece on infiltrating a KKK group) and no Introduction to Physics (the inmate might turn into a mad scientist and blow the place up, MacGyver-style). And no Grisham depicting crimes of any type, no Auto Repair for Dummies, and no National Geographic "Visual History of the World" (because it contains a picture of a naked girl. The one running away from the napalm attack in Vietnam.) Oh, yeah, and no Lovely Bones either.
But - boggle - The Hitler We Loved and Why, published by White Power Publications, is apparently okay.
What astonished me was the comments that the reporter said had been cropping up on his article, suggesting that when you're not in prison, you can read whatever you want, so obviously the lesson here is: don't go to prison, and you can read Pablo Neruda all you want.
Do I even need to go into the reasons I think this is appalling?
What the jackpine sonnet is:
A sonnet-like poem.
Where it comes from:
Milton Acorn (1923–1986), a poet from Prince Edward Island, created the genre and named it after the jack pine, a tree that seeds itself in fire.
How to write one:
Write a poem with 14 lines, each line containing 7 to 13 syllables. But, in Acorn's words, "If your sonnet cuts itself off—click!—at, say line 12, 18 or 20, leave it at that." An odd number of lines is okay too. Apply the rhyme scheme of your choice, and if no rhyme comes up, be patient. Acorn advised writers to write internal rhymes (rhymes within a line) or external rhymes (rhymes at the end of consecutive lines) "to keep the flow." In the absence of rhyme, use assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds), "to keep the rhyme alive in order to come up with a true rhyme further on."
First prize: $500
Second prize: $250
Third prize: $125
How to enter the contest: Write a jackpine sonnet and send it to Geist by post or submit electronically. Include a $10 entry fee, which buys you a one-year subscription to Geist, digital edition.
Contest dead line: Canada Day, July 1, 2010
To keep up to date, join the discussion, and find out more about Milton Acorn, jackpine sonnets, and the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest, read the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Blog
Enter today!
Plus, there are some wikkid awesome women going to be stepping up to the open mic afterward and I'm really looking forward to that!
This is some of what I've been doing at work lately: editing footage from the videocamera from the Fall Edition of the Writers Festival. My first project was the interview Sean Moreland did with Dacre Stoker.
I had no idea what to expect from the book (Dracula: The Un-Dead) and I still think it reads like a sequel to the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula rather than to the novel, but I thought Sean's interview did a lot for how I thought about the book. He quite skilfully addressed the question of whether to accept the 'apocryphal' vampire mythology that has developed since Bram Stoker's book, especially about things like the humanization of vampires since then, the general public acceptance of a romance between Dracula and Mina Harker, the fusion of the original Prince Vlad and Stoker's creation into a much more sympathetic character, the possibility of half-vampires... all the stuff that I guess I was hoping not to see in a sequel to the original (I've had more than enough angsty, pain-ridden sexy vampires, thank you Anne Rice, Laurell Hamilton and Stephenie Meyer.) But I liked how Sean took those ideas on, and traced the history of the vampire as a developing and changing figure in pop culture.
Plus, Dacre turned out to be a genuinely charming and pleasant guy. Likeable right off the bat, and not at all weird or hung up about being descended from Bram Stoker.
I can't believe how out of touch with things I can be. This blog post from BookMadam says it, in a way: there are times when you realize that all of these people out there, who you pretty much take for granted, could one day - in fact will - just not be there anymore.
I met Paul a couple of times. He was a guest at the Writers Festival a few times while I've been working there, and he came up to the Hospitality Suite in the spring of 2009 when he was in the building for another event entirely. That would have been about a month before he was diagnosed with lung cancer, I now realize. I liked him. There are some people whose personalities leave an impression on me: not of anything in particular, just a sense of liking. He was one of them.
And yet somehow I never really get out there and talk to as many people as I have the opportunity to talk to, especially given my job. So I didn't really have any real conversations with him: I hovered at the sidelines of other people's conversations, as I tend to do with strangers. And now I don't have the chance.
Tonight I'm doing a show on Literary Landscape about local slam poet Steve Sauve - someone else that I assumed would always be around, and who I didn't know anywhere near as well as I wish I had. I let myself be both too shy or too busy or too tied up with my own stuff to get involved. It takes the swift kick to the head of mortality to remind me that people won't always be here. I didn't really get to know Paul in person, but I love his books, and his music, and they're what I know best of him.
So I wish I'd had more of a chance to talk to him, and I wish there were more of his books and films and songs to look forward to.
I just got this announcement from the "Global Writers' Network" - they're holding a writing contest. All well and good, but these are some of the weirdest contest rules I've ever run into. Leave aside the fact that they're asking for a story synopsis, not a story, in their short fiction category. That's slightly strange. But the rest of this, especially the limitations/prohibited content, is just too bizarre not to reprint in its entirety:
*ahem*
STEPS OF ENTRY SUBMISSION:
Follow these steps illustrated in these photographs:
(1.) Go to the event page here> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=253409678190
(2.) Follow the description of this picture> http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30711836&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=253409678190&aid=-1&oid=253409678190&id=1022673838
(3.) Then also this> http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30711837&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=253409678190&aid=-1&oid=253409678190&id=1022673838
(4.) Add your photo/entry by click the ADD PHOTOS button> http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30711838&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=253409678190&aid=-1&oid=253409678190&id=1022673838
--RGR
1st group writing competition.
Read and comprehend twice sharper than your pen. I'd write it loud so hear it clear.
1) Submit only 1 entry per writing genre. For example: if you have to join for the poetry genre competition, just submit one poem, which is related to the topic. You can join all of these 3 genres--poetry, essay, and story (only vague synopsis) but only one entry per category.
(2) Choose your preferred photo, which you think, is related to the literary piece you've written. Remember: the topic is all about LIFE.
(3) We will use the photograph application of our event page; so all entries will be posted on the photograph sub-field. Your literary piece will serve as the caption of your photograph. Follow the photograph example here> http://www.facebook.com/photoselect.php?oid=253409678190#/photo.php?pid=30707707&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=253409678190&aid=-1&id=1022673838
(4) After you have posted your entry, never comment on your entry or like on the another entries, because these features must be preserved for the voting week (January 25 - 29, 2009).
-
After the submission of entries week, the event page and the Global Writers' Network will be temporarily closed; that's to make sure that no outsiders can vote during the casting of vote week. The photograph sub field also will be disabled so that no one can submit entries anymore after the date of entry submission.
During our 1st writing contest, decent and order will be prescribed. We believed that there is no substitute in the art of formality and orderliness, so we must follow rules and regulations.
I'll announce it again. There are only 3 writing genres in this contest. These are poetry, essay, and story (only synopsis). The theme is all about LIFE.
For poetry - it must be not less than 14 lines. Avoid cliches. For essay - it must be at least 500 words more, not less than 450 words. For story synopsis - it must be at least 500 words more, not less than 450 words. Must have the 3 major parts: the setting, conflict, and the climax.
RULES: No plagiarism, pornographic descriptions, rebellion against government systems or of God, green words, perverse idioms or expressions, and all unseemly violations.
WINNING CRITERIA:
MECHANICS - 60 % - Content, clarity of speech, on topic, sentiment, etc.
TECHNIQUES - 40 % - metered(only for metrical poetry--like sonnet), correct contractions, etc.
AWARDS:
1ST Place - You'll be given an electronic certificate and recognition by the GWN's admins, plus your work will be posted in the GWN's group information page as the 1st placer in our first competition, and will be posted on the FRONPAGE of the official main website of GWN which can be located within this web address: http://www.wriad.webs.com .
2ND Place - Also, will receive an electronic certificate recognized by the GWN's administrators; and your piece will also be posted on the main website of GWN.
3RD Place - You'll be recognized by the admins and your work will be posted on the INFO page of this group and on the FRONTPAGE of http://www.wriad.webs.com .
WARNING: plagiarized or just copied from another author will be automatically disqualified. GWN is not liable in any form or by any means in such case as literary robbery.
NOTE: The admins are not referees. We are also such as writing freaks. So yay! We'll join the contest. There's nothing to worry because we'll play it smooth and plain. The members are the judges. But for the sonnet department, only those who can submit a sonnet entry, or the one who will participate the contest can vote. The rest writing departments, all can vote.
SUBMISSION OF ENTRIES WILL BE ON JANUARY 18 - 24, 2009
DATE OF VOTING: JANUARY 25 - 29, 2009
DECLARATION OF WINNERS: JANUARY 30, 2009
MAIN ADMIN
-RGR
PS: Way of voting will be announced during the deadline of submission! May the best writers win! Write on and be prepare!
So there you have it. I'm completely confused. And what the hell is a 'green word'? Not to mention they're prohibiting 'rebellion against God or of government systems' and 'all unseemly violations'? What's an 'unseemly violation'?
A note from Stephen Brockwell and Stuart Ross:
Comrade poet!
Since Parliament has been prorogued, you're probably just sitting on your hands, bereft. But things are looking up!
You are invited to submit a poem for consideration for a new anthology to be published by Mansfield Press just in time for the reconvening of Parliament on March 3.
The collection is titled Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament. We're looking for poems of up to 75 lines: your tender musings on Stephen Harper.
We have to move fast. The deadline is midnight on Tuesday, January 19. Payment for your contribution is one copy of the anthology. It's gonna look good and it's gonna be full of good poems.
The editors of Rogue Stimulus are Ottawa poet Stephen Brockwell and Toronto/Cobourg poet Stuart Ross. Denis De Klerck, publisher of Toronto literary house Mansfield Press, is oiling up the machinery for quick action, to ensure the anthology's timely release.
Please email your poem (preferably as a Word attachment) to: harper@mansfieldpress.net
We look forward to hearing from you.
Stephen and Stuart
So I went to see Avatar (not for the first time) with a friend this evening (I know the story's sort of simple, but it's so damn gorgeous.) We were waiting for showtime when I spotted Faye Estrella coming toward us, having just gotten out of the previous showing. So I waved, said hi, and talked to her a little bit about the upcoming Dusty Owl (which will be both a launch for the Bywords Quarterly Journal and a celebration of Steve Sauvé's life: he died on the 17th of January last year.)
And she said, "Hey wait... you want to feature at Voices of Venus in February?" (She's one of the coordinators of the series, which is an all-women poetry series that started up just this year.)
So I said yes. And I'm going to be reading at VoV, on February 9th. I'm pretty sure this is my first ever feature. Gleep!
Luckily, I can't think of a better series than Voices of Venus to break out what I have so far of my Chasing Boudicca poem cycle.
