Tuesday, March 25, 2014

JENNIFER GILLIES, AMANDA LEDUC, DAVID HASKINS

Bernadette Rule's Art Wave programme on Mohawk radio 101.5  F.M. is on every Sunday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Bernadette is a well known writer herself and she has hosted this programme since 2008.  She is a superb host and keeps the interview moving along in a comfortable and efficient way.

Her guests Sunday evening were Jennifer Gillies of GRIT LIT, Amanda Leduc and David Haskins, all local Hamilton, Ontario writers.

It was a very interesting podcast with each writer reading from their work and also picking a song they enjoy to share with their audience.  Jennifer Gillies spoke about the GRIT LIT Festival coming up and the different events which will be held.  Please check out the GRIT LIT FESTIVAL WEBSITE for the many interesting and reasonably priced events commencing on April 3rd and terminating on April 6th with a free reading at Homegrown Hamilton on King William Street at 7:30..  Most of these events will be held at the Art Gallery at 123 King Street West with the last one being held at Homegrown Hamilton on King William.

To hear this interview, please go to:        https://archive.org/details/212GritLit2014Mar.232014



Thanks for dropping by and have a good day!

Monday, March 17, 2014

David Brydges - Cobalt, Ontario

 
David Clayson Brydges is a 7 year Edmonton Stroll of Poets member, associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, and Ontario Poetry Society branch manager for Cobalt and area. He’s artistic director of spring pulse poetry festival, Northern Ontario’s largest poetry/arts festival. In 2013 he completed his 4th chapbook “Crude Truths” and his first poetry themed documentary “The Poetrain Express”. He is co-chair of the League of Poets committee to promote poetry during national poetry month spring of 2015 on the Great Canadian Poetrain Tour.
This summer Spring Pulse Poetry Festival will sponsor the inauguration of the first painting/poetry competition for all northern Ontario artists called PoeARTry North.
David believes poets are storytellers exposing new cracks
between the oh so concrete truths of the status quo.
And as Leonard Cohen says, “That’s how the light gets in.

His Poetry:

Invasion
Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.
— Taras Shevchenko,
Testament (Zapovit)
25 December 1845, Pereiaslav
Translated by John Weir, Toronto, 1961




It’s a crime all nations condemn.
Putin’s delusional geo-political chess player,
attempts to checkmate Ukraine.
The world moves with a unanimous no.
A tense stalemate as paramilitary units
seize strategic positions inside Crimea.
Demonstrators throw shoes, fisticuffs
but no one shoots each other.
Russian and Ukraine flags
fly in divided loyalty.
As unmarked soldiers under
the pretext of protection muscle in.
Leader’s sanctions, speeches oppose
disregard for the games rules but
have no advantage or influence.
Diplomacies slap on the wrist
deterrent can’t stop bully tactics.
Crimea the crown jewel of united Russia,
whose tattered dynasty has suffered
decades of divorces.
King Putin’s autocratic rule of deceit
from the “royal thugs”,
try breaking his opponents arm.
To win the game and victory prize, Crimea.
Fear is a hidden power and player on the board.
When once German Chancellor Merkel met Putin
a large black dog entered the room.
Merkel is fearfull of dogs and Putin knew this.
But Germany’s queen advances and is nobody’s pawn.
Russian regime intimidates using uncivil logic.
A country inherits from its Communist past
the ever present enemy complex.
The maxim “we pretend to tell the truth
while we expect you to believe our lies” is true.
Clinging to its fictions and fate the west
waits for Russia to make its real move.


The Victory Café
(Annex District)
“Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity- Sean O’Casey.


We cannot bury the past,
or uproot history without
having an unexpected shock.
Am dinning with poet friend Kate
who last year was stunned to know
she’d been diagnosed with cancer.
Says she’s won the war on the
chemo/radiation battlefield.
Has spent a day at a writing workshop.
Kate with language Sherpa, climbs the
tallest branch on the ancient poetry tree.
Reads new poems of elevated elegance.
One of 9-11 blows me away.
It tells of a miracle pear tree once
beside the American Stock Exchange,
sucked into the violent vortex
of the twin towers collapse.
Lands 4 blocks away where
it’s rescued by children.
Shocking revelation is I planted
that pear tree one evening
in 1989 with landscaper Larry.
I was always puzzled why
someone wanted It there.
How one uneventful
evening as it stood alone,
away from the maddened
epicentre to come,
waiting for a pro-found destiny.
A parallel pair is the survivor pear tree
from the World Trade Centre.
Amidst the tangled rubble,
recovery workers found
its 8 foot burnt broken limbs.
Covered with ash, one living branch survived.
Today sits 30 feet tall at Memorial Plaza,
a prominent remembrance of
how the human spirit rises to persevere.
That eleventh day in the carnage of chaos
the world traded its centre of sanity,
for a mangled scar of pure unreason.
Replanting the cosmic pear tree, blossoms
reminders of our fragile strength, breathes 
oxygen into hope, and resurrects the ruins.
Upright and unbowed,
all hands of humanity harvest
the fruit of this ripened victory.



Saturday, March 15, 2014

Cobourg Festival of Poetry

Dr. William Henry Drummond Poetry Contest - Cobalt, Ontario

BLUEWATER READING SERIES

BLUEWATER READING SERIES
MEDIA RELEASE

International Celebrity John Wing Kicks-Off
Sarnia’s National Poetry Month Celebration
April 5

Sarnia, Ontario: March 14, 2014—Back in his hometown to introduce his new poetry book, Why-Shaped Scars, Los Angeles resident and internationally-known comedian John Wing will officially kick-start Sarnia’s National Poetry Month Celebration  Saturday, April 5 from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at John’s Restaurant “Famous Room”, 1643 London Line on the outskirts of the city.
      Spotlight readers also include League of Canadian Poets members Allan Briesmaster (Thornhill, Ontario), Clara Blackwood (Toronto) and Sarnia’s Lynn Tait.
     Organized by the Bluewater Reading Series, this free inaugural event aims to introduce professional out-of-town poets and their work to the general public and will reflect the League’s 2014 Poetry Month theme: “Poetry City”.  Several poetry books will be highlighted including work produced by three well-known traditional publishers Black Moss Press (Windsor), Guernica Editions (Oakville/Montreal) and Quattro Books (Toronto).
    “Poetry has always been a “spoken word” art, not a “book page” art,” said James Deahl, committee spokesperson for the new Series. “It is difficult for poetry to truly live and breathe in a city without a reading series. Fortunately, the Canada Council and the League of Canadian Poets understand the true nature of poetry. Through National Poetry Month, poets are able to travel all over Canada and present live readings. We are extremely pleased to present three important out-of-town poets — two of them reading for their first time in Sarnia — along with Sarnia’s own Lynn Tait for our NPM debut presentation.”
     Tait, an award-winning photographer/poet will be reading work from her two manuscripts Chatter Marks and Broken Days. According to Canadian poet George Elliott Clarke “Lynn has a gift for startling and stunning metaphor, for juxtaposition of casual conversational style and sudden, arresting, poetic language and for irony that moves often toward allegory.”
       Wing who was a semi-finalist on last season’s America's Got Talent will perform a half-hour reading based on his latest Black Moss Press book which according to poet reviewer  Bruce
Meyer “captures those moments that leave their enigmatic scars on our souls…he does so with
craft, power, and poetic precision.” John Wing captures those moments that leave their enigmatic scars on our souls, and he does so with craft, power, and poetic precision.John Wing captures those moments that leave their enigmatic scars on our souls, and he does so with craft, power, and poetic precision.
        Briesmaster, a freelance editor and one of the Quattro Books’ founding partners, will read from his recent and sixth full-length poetry collection Against the Flight of Spring. The back cover states that the book “explores such themes as identity, personal growth, love and friendship, Canadian landscape, climate change, visual art, and the roots of poetry itself, in moods of anxious questioning, deep affection, dread, awe, and grateful praise.”
       Toronto poet, visual artist and tarot reader Blackwood will read from Forecast, her latest and second book published by Guernica Editions. The publisher’s website states “this collection of sometimes sombre, sometimes whimsical poems takes the reader on an odyssey whereby things bizarre, miraculous and bewildering can and often do happen.”
     The Bluewater Reading Series is a new literary offering organized by Sarnia writers : James Deahl, Venero Fazio, Debbie Okun Hill, and Lynn Tait. This inaugural reading is made possible with the financial support of the League of Canadian Poets’ National Poetry Month program.
Additional national poetry month readings include: a poetry themed Spoken Word open mic where members of the general public may share their work Friday, April 25 from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Lawrence House Centre for the Arts, Sarnia and a Raymond Souster Legacy Reading to celebrate the publication of Under the Mulberry Tree (Quattro Books) to be held Sunday, April 27 at the Book Keeper in Sarnia.

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Sarnia’s National Poetry Month Celebration – April 5, 2014

SPOTLIGHT READERS/PERFORMERS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
 
Clara Blackwood is a poet, visual artist and tarot reader. Her first poetry collection, Subway Medusa (2007), was the inaugural book in Guernica Editions’ First Poets Series, which features first books by poets thirty-five and under. Her poetry has appeared in Canadian and International journals. Forecast, her second book of poetry, was published by Guernica Editions in 2014. She lives in Toronto.

Allan Briesmaster is a freelance editor, micro publisher, and one of the founding partners of Quattro Books. He is the author of six full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is Against the Flight of Spring (April, 2013), and seven shorter books, and he has been active on the Toronto poetry scene for many years as a readings organizer, workshop leader, and mentor. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has given readings, and talks at venues from Victoria to St. John’s. He lives in Thornhill, just north of Toronto.

Lynn Tait, originally from Toronto, is an awarding winning poet/photographer, who has lived in Sarnia for 40 years. Her photography has graced the covers of poetry books and literary magazines, and been exhibited in Gallery Lambton, Gallery in the Grove, Cheeky Monkey and The Lawrence House. She has been a nominee, in various categories, for the International Black & White Spider Awards for Photography, 4 years in a row. She is a member of the Sarnia Photographic Club, The Ontario Poetry Society and the League of Canadian Poets. Her poetry has been published in numerous literary magazines in Canada and the U.S., including the Windsor ReviewQuills, Contemporary Verse 2, and in over 70 anthologies including Under the Mulberry Tree,  published by Quattro Books and edited by James Deahl. She published a chapbook “Breaking Away” in 2002, a book: Encompass I in 2013, with four other poets, and has currently completed two full-length poetry manuscripts.

John Wing, born in Sarnia, has lived in Los Angeles for the last 25 years, while maintaining his Canadian citizenship. Along with six appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Johnny Carson, ten appearances at The Montreal Comedy Festival Just For Laughs, and a semi-finalist on America's Got Talent last season, John has also published eight books of poetry, A Cup Of Nevermind, ...And The Fear Makes Us Special, None Of This is Probably True, Excuses, The Winter Palace, So Recently Ancient, Almost Somewhere Else, and the new book from Black Moss Press, Why-Shaped Scars. His memoir of his early years as a comedian is When You See The Red Light, Get Off,also from Black Moss Press. John is a regular contributor to CBC Radio's Definitely Not The Opera, and The Debaters.

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