Autumn Blossom: The Problem with Poetry

Autumn Blossom: The Problem with Poetry: In honour of the $65,000 prizes doled out at last night's Griffin Awards ("for Excellence in Poetry"), where "guest...

WILMA SEVILLE

The Cry

“Mama, Mama, where are you?”

 voice of desperation  

reaches me, brings tears.

Startled, I glance up

distracted from my task

eyes focus on old man

restrained in wheelchair.

Body diminished by disease

stuck in the grip of dementia

calling out for Mama

Little boy in old man’s body

longing for a long ago time

where he was loved and cherished

by his Mama, long deceased..

It  won’t be long and he shall go

to meet his Mama once again  

whose love will enfold him

as it did, upon this earth.

.

Copyright©WilmaSeville 2013

Upcoming Event June 23,2013

Working Family Stories & Treasures of the Hamilton Jewish Community (WFST) presents:

Telling Community History with Community Arts

June 23, 2013 @ Hamilton Central Library

"How To" Workshops (1:00 - 4:00 p.m.) 

Getting started: Melinda Richter, WFST Coordinator

Writing + Drama: Ellen S. Jaffe, Writer; 

Emanuela Hall, Shalom Village 

Visual Arts: Ingrid Mayrhofer, Centre[3]

Storytelling + Puppetry: Lorrie Gallant, Woodland Cultural Centre 

Music: Immigrant Culture and Arts Association

Please register for these free workshops by June 15th:

workingfamilystories@gmail.com. Space is limited.

WFST is a community arts project designed to tell the stories of Jewish working families and how they built a community in Hamilton. 

The project was delivered in schools, seniors' homes and community centres. 

DEREK BEAULIEU'S TALK ON VISUAL POETRY

DAVID HASKINS

Vispo  People

Some observations on derek beaulieu’s talk on Visual Poetry

March 22, 2013                                       929 words

            Near the curb of St Paul Street, outside the Niagara Artists Centre where Vispoet derek beaulieu is giving a talk about Visual Poetry or Vispo, lies a large glove, like the ones city workers wear in mid-winter freeze-up. A right glove, with rubber fingers and palm, stiffly shaped as though a hand were still inside it. Divorced from its left compatriot, it rests palm up, as if catching a baseball, or asking for a hand-out if you will, on this roll up the sidewalk Saturday morning in St Catharines.

            A print run of 500 poetry books for a nation of 35 million provides one book for 70,000 people. beaulieu’s point: No one reads poetry books.

            A woman in a dark cloth coat and a beige between seasons hat stops on the sidewalk beside the glove. She doesn’t see it, but fumbles in her carry bag for something, a kleenex perhaps, yes, and adjusts herself, taking her time, there being no rush to get somewhere this barren morning. The glove does not move a finger to engage her attention.

            So if no one reads poetry books, it doesn’t matter what you write. You are free to play. Try a game of Scrabble in which no words can form. Throw kitchen appliances at Fisher-Price letter magnets. Make pointilist skull drawings using hieroglyphs. Hang a calendar whose days are lettered and February the Zdth is in leap year. Put your Vispo on fb. Someone may make a tattoo of your meme and someone else may read you on his body. Maybe during sex.

            A dog walking a man in a hurry glances down at the glove and decides not to piss. His master is well trained and does not look down. The dog jerks his master’s leash and they pass by. The glove seems relieved.

            You can collect letters in a box of Alphabits and pin them like butterflies in a butterfly collecting cabinet to show that, proportionate to your own language usage, there are too few E’s in the box of cereal. Or maybe there aren’t and you just thought they were M’s or W’s and threw them out.

            Across the street a man in a yellow traffic slicker X’d with green reflecting tape is looking for something to do. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. The road is a man’s road. Men dig it up. Men fill it in. A man left a glove behind.

            Vispoets write for Vispoets. They network. They watch each other’s pages. They choose which conventions to rupture, which reputations to bolster. They know who is ahead, who is faking, who works which corner, whose ass to kiss, whose to shun. Shunning is the death knell in this tribal culture.

           

            The glove is grey, grimy, but not punctured, sliced, or torn. It looks perfect, a sculpted thing, the clay still damp and dark, the abrasions of wear barely visible. In the weekend’s climate of neglect, it remains supplicant, to no avail. 

            In the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars, misfits and adventurers from the known and the undiscovered places meet travellers going and coming back. Metal, Punk, Grunge, Hip hop, began in border places like this, but then were co-opted and absorbed by trend setters and fashion producers who saw where a buck could be turned. Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and the Georgia Straight began underground, then were seduced by the mainstream market, and gave up their edge. Avant-garde, however, has stayed on the fringe for a hundred years or more, running counterpoint to the lyrical metaphor of Modernist worded poetry, both daring and fearing to be discovered.

            The road at curbside is designated for angle parking. The glove lies between one space’s angled lines. Red brake and white reverse lights ease a brown compact car backwards into the space, over the glove. Now safely in the shade of the car’s undercarriage, the glove finds protection but no rescue. The driver has no idea what he has covered up.

            In The Last Vispo Anthology of 2013, some Vispoets are making art similar to the visual representations in Steve McCaffery’s Sound Poetry Catalogue published in 1978.beaulieu claims that the Vispoet can write about any subject, exactly what the Imagists said a century ago. beaulieu’s preferred technique harks back to an age when small publishers used dry transfer letraset. His letter lizards roam the graphic spacial design of M. C. Escher. These links are not noted by the young among us, for whom everything is new, not new again.

            The car moves off, leaving the glove unaltered in daylight, still petitioning the heavens for some raison d’etre. The city worker in the yellow slicker watches the car pull out, and sees the dark object left behind. Unhurried, but with a mission most welcome, he crosses the empty street towards it. He is carrying something. When he reaches the glove, he takes his lobby broom in one hand and sweeps the glove into the trash collector he holds pressed to the asphalt with the other hand. 

            What, how, why, to what purpose, these are questions the Vispoet chose not to discuss. Yet every schoolboy learns that criticism is the consideration of four questions: what is it, how is it done, how well is it done, is it worth doing.

            Does emperor Vispo have no clothes? Best not tell the government, or the academy. They just might drive away. I knew where an abandoned glove could be found, until a few minutes ago.         ~

Poetry Contest

The Saving Bannister

28th ANNUAL POETRY ANTHOLOGY CONTEST

The Niagara Branch of the Canadian Authors Association is holding its 28^th Annual Poetry Anthology contest for residents of Ontario. 

Entries must be in English, previously unpublished and not submitted for consideration elsewhere. Print should be black in 12 pt. Times New Roman on 8.5 x 11inch white bond paper, one side only, one poem per page.  Line lengths exceeding 44 characters may be broken at the discretion of the committee.  No poems over 2 pages will be accepted. Poems running to two pages require a title and page number at the top of each page. Your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and titles of your poem(s) must appear on a separate title page only. Number of entries is unlimited, but no more than six poems from one poet will be included in the anthology.

Include with your entry:

(1) your poem(s)

(2) a cover page

(3) a cheque or money order: $15 for up to three poems and $4 for each additional poem, payable to Canadian Authors Association - Niagara Branch. 

Mail your entry to

Canadian Authors Association – Niagara Branch,

Poetry Anthology contest,

P.O. Box 1512

4 Queen Street

St. Catharines, ON  L2R 5G3

Please indicate where you heard about our contest. Submissions willnot be returned. However poets without internet access may include a SASE for replies.  Only poets included in the anthology will be notified.  Contest results will be posted on the website. 

By entering the contest, you agree to give the CAA-Niagara Branch first rights to publish your poem in The Saving Bannister. 

Deadline for entries is May 31, 2013.

First Prize-$200    Second Prize-$100    Third Prize-$50

www.canauthorsniagara.org

Page to Podium | Open Book: Toronto

Page to Podium | Open Book: Toronto


Very valuable information for those of us who read their work before audiences.

Enjoy!

SARNIA AND AREA NEWS

Media Release

Local “Books and Biscotti” Event to Showcase Award-winning Poets/Authors during National Poetry Month Celebration

Bright’s Grove, Ontario: April 3, 2013: Three well-known Italian Canadian poets from Toronto as well as two award-winning poets from Lambton County will present new work as part of a National Poetry Month celebration planned for “Books and Biscotti”, Sunday, April 14, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Dante Club, 1330 London Road (side entrance hall) in Sarnia.

      Guest readers include: Toronto publisher and Guernica Editions co-owner Michael Mirolla, poet/author/performer/artist Sonia Di Placido and Len Gasparini, a 2010 winner of the NOW Open Poetry Stage event plus local poets Debbie Okun Hill, an Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Reserve recipient and first prize winner of the 2013 Sarnia-Lambton Alzheimer Society’s “Forget Me Not” poetry contest and Lynn Tait, first prize winner of The Ontario Poetry Society 2012 Arborealis Contest. Four of the featured poets are members of the League of Canadian Poets, a professional organization for established and emerging poets.

       Several books are expected to be launched in this free community presentation hosted by the Dante Club in conjunction with the Italo-Canadian Cultural Club/Laziali di Sarnia and the Association of Italian Canadian Writers (AICW).

        “Each year, we try to introduce new Italian Canadian writers to our local community,” said Venera Fazio, one of the co-organizers for the annual event. “This year, we are thrilled to spotlight several writers from Guernica Editions, a Toronto press that deals in one way or another with the pleasurable understanding of different cultures. Since 1978, this press has published over three hundred titles and five hundred authors from around the world.”                                                                                                

         Mirolla, the editor-in-chief, will be reading from his new collection of short stories: The Giulio Metaphysics III as well as promoting his Bressani Prize winning novel Berlin, his poetry collection Light and Time and his short story collection The Formal Logic of Emotion (translated into Italian as La logical formal dell emotion).

         Di Placido will be reading from Exaltation in Cadmium Red, a body of poems that “revels in this fanatical, fantastic colour to express the heights and depths of passion – engaging in meditations on prayer, spirituality, feminism, and the breadth of existence in a post-colonial, trans-national and transsexual age.”           

         Gasparini will be reading new poems from a forthcoming book titled Mirror Image.

        According to co-organizer Delia De Santis, the Sunday event also represents the Sarnia launch of EnCompass 1 (Beret Days Press): a poetry anthology featuring the work of Tait, Okun Hill and three other Canadian poets: Bernice Lever (British Columbia), Jan Wood (Saskatchewan) and Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews (Ontario). Okun Hill and Tait will read their award-winning work as well as several selections from the anthology.

The afternoon will be emceed by Luisa Zoncheddu Solinas.

AICW is a national organization that brings together a community of writers, critics, academics, and other artists who promote Italian-Canadian literature and culture.

For more information or to set up a media interview contact:

Delia De Santis 519-869-6852 deliadesantis@yahoo.com

A short bio of the participants has been attached. Photos available upon request.                

Books and Biscotti National Poetry Month Event -- April 14, 2013

SPOTLIGHT READERS/PERFORMERS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

Sonia Di Placido is a poet, writer, performer, and artist currently completing the Creative Writing, Optional Residency, MFA Program with the University of British Columbia. She is a graduate of the Ryerson University Theatre School and holds an honours BA in Humanities from York University. Sonia has worked as a Supernumerary with the Canadian Opera Company, is a member of the Association of Italian Canadian Writers and the League of Canadian Poets. She has published profile pieces and creative non-fiction with Tandem News, poems in literary journals in Canadian and International anthologies.

Len Gasparini is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, five short-story collections, including The Snows of Yesteryear (Guernica, 2011), two children’s books, a work of non-fiction, and a one-act play. In 1990, he was awarded the F.G. Bressani Literary Prize for poetry. In 2010, he won the NOW Open Poetry Stage event. He lives in Toronto.

Debbie Okun Hill is President of The Ontario Poetry Society, a co-host of Sarnia’s Spoken Word event and a recent Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Reserve grant recipient. Her poems have been published in Descant, Existere, Vallum, and The Windsor Review in Canada plus Mobius, The Binnacle and Still Point Arts Quarterly in the United States. She has read her work throughout Ontario including the Fringe Stage of the 2011 Eden Mills Writers’ Festival and during the 2012 PoeTrain Express/Spring Pulse Poetry Festival in Cobalt. Black Moss Press will publish her first full collection in the Fall 2013.

Novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright, Michael Mirolla’s publications include a punk-inspired novella, The Ballad of Martin B.; two novels: Berlin (a Bressani Prize winner), and The Facility, which features among other things a string of cloned Mussolinis; three short story collections: The Formal Logic of Emotion (translated into Italian as La logica formale delle emozioni), Hothouse Loves & Other Tales and The Giulio Metaphysics III; and two collections of poetry: Light and Time, and the English-Italian bilingual Interstellar Distances – Distanze Interstellari. A poetry collection, The House on 14^th Avenue, is scheduled for Fall 2013 from Signature Editions, and a short story collection, Lessons In Relationship Dyads, is scheduled with Red Hen Press in the U.S. His short story, “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence,” was selected for The Journey Prize Anthology, while another short story, “The Sand Flea,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A poem, “Blind Alley,” was shortlisted for the Winston Collins/Descant Prize for the Best Canadian Poem in 2007. Along with partner Connie McParland, Michael runs Guernica Editions publishing house.

Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario. Her poems have appeared in numerous American and Canadian magazines including The Windsor Review, Quills, Contemporary Verse 2, Feathertale Review, and in over 60 anthologies including two previous Arborealis anthologies. She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, The Ontario Poetry Society, and two local writing groups Writers in Transition and After Hours Poets.