Sunday, May 08, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Northern Comfort (Commoners’ Press: Ottawa, 1973)
In November 2010, I published a bibliography of William Hawkins through my own Apt. 9 Press. In my brief introductory note, I wrote “this bibliography will likely be out of date upon the day of its publication. I imagine, and I hope, that once it is in people’s hands it will spark new discoveries of “lost” Hawkins work.” Before the folio was formally launched, rob mclennan wrote a review of the Folio that pointed already to further available material. Specifically, he mentions “that magnificent anthology Northern Comfort, the transcript of a reading in the Byward Market hosted by and dedicated to Hawkins.” This note is to discuss and describe that anthology. I intend to return to this space over the coming months and describe further items that have come to light since that initial bibliography was published. Northern Comfort was published in 1973 by Commoners’ Press (Ottawa). The title page elaborates on the function of the book: “being a reading of poetry by various people, given in the back yard of the Victoria Hotel 18 Murray Street, the Byward Market, Ottawa, on the evening of June 29th, 1972.” The text was transcribed from recordings provided by “Peter Lamb of Coon Hollow Films and Mariea Sparks of Ottawa Living Radio.” It was transcribed by “Monk Besserer” – two streets in downtown Ottawa.
An introduction by Neil Whiteman explains that the reading was organized by Peter Geldart, Alyx Jones and Bill Stevenson. The three were co-ordinators of “Market Projections,” a group of artists who primarily did work “of the “happening” variety.” The reading, or at least the book, is dedicated to the loss of the Victoria Hotel Building (built in 1962 at 18-24 Murray Street) as well as to “MR. WILLIAM HAWKINS.”
The text of the book is a transcription of the readings that took place on June 29 1972. The list of readers, speakers, and musicians included: William Hawkins, Alyx Jones, Robert Hogg, Marius, Kociejowski, Christopher Levenson, Neil Whiteman, Jack Nathanson, George Johnston, Ronnie Judge, “Unknown Reader,” David Andrews, The 47 Argyle Street Band, Christopher James and Bill Stevenson.
The charm of the book lies in its apparent faith to the recording. The transcription includes the speakers, the banter, the introductions, comments from the audience, as well as a generous selection of photos of the event. Hawkins, in addition to reading, hosted the evening.
Hawkins: The whole concept of reading poetry is...is rather a strange one. Uh...it sort of got a renaissance or a start back in, I think, ’58, when all the crazy San Francisco...like...Kerouac and Ginsberg, started reading. But, you know, really, when you get down to it...it...
Voice: Southern Comfort!
Hawkins:...it’s a very, very funny thing. It’s somebody talking about what they should feel very personally about and what they should not really want to talk to anybody else about. That’s the way I feel about my poems...and that’s why I don’t read very often. Because...um, they’re private. So I’m gonna start...I got this book you can’t buy at your nearest bookstore...
(Scattered applause. Drumbeats)
because...uh...freaks like Whiteman have already put it out of print.
Hawkins reads some of the early poster poems (including “King Kong Goes to Rotterdam,” and “Two Short Ones”) and Ottawa Poems, as well as reading five new poems. In my own reading and research of Hawkins, I’ve not found these poems or lines elsewhere in his published work. (Please contact me if you have!). After several readers, Hawkins returns to the stage and reads “Wilful Murder,” which was printed as new material in The Gift of Space: Selected Poems 1960/70.
Hawkins' biography modifies his own history: “William Hawkins, 33, lives in Mexico at 182 ½ Dalhousie Street. In 1967 he was voted one of Ottawa’s Finest Young Men.” The reference to Mexico touches on the poems he wrote on a Canada Council Grant in the late sixties and early seventies. The “Finest Young Man” Award was actually an “Outstanding Young Man Award.”
The historical study of literary readings is difficult to undertake. Readings are, by nature, ephemeral. While today we increasingly see detailed audio-visual records maintained by many reading series, it is difficult to reconstruct readings that occurred decades previously. Rather than authoritative texts of events, we have fragmented production and reception histories, primary details, anecdotes, memories and other forms of unreliable evidence. We can find manifestations of audience response and interaction in the wake of events, but we cannot return to the events themselves.
Northern Comfort occupies a unique position in these respects (at least so far as my own reading has turned up). While the text initially appears to offer an unadulterated transcription of the reading in question, numerous editorial comments, as well as an introductory note, make clear that this is a fragment rather than a whole. However, what is most interesting about Northern Comfort is that it was produced in the immediate wake of the reading, rather than at a later date and further distance. It was transcribed and published within one year of the reading. The effect of this, in my opinion, is to create an object that shares the spirit and intent of the initial reading. It is not total narrative, but rather a strange, bizarre, wonderful book-object that mirrors the described strange, bizarre, wonderful reading-event. The fidelity of Northern Comfort is not to the reading, but rather to the spirit of the reading. It is a baffling book but also a “magnificent” one, as rob mclennan described it. It is a nearly-forgotten piece of Ottawa’s literary history that is firmly embedded in the moment it was attempting to describe.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Jen Currin & Jonathan Ball in the A B Series
Coach House Books' most award-nominated authors of 2011 appear in the A B Series, April 16.
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| abseries.org |
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Peter Gibbon - What I like about Jesslyn Delia Smith
What I like about Jesslyn Delia Smith:
a survey of her poetry & review of “rescue poems” (In/Words, 2011)
Marble is the cross-section of a cloud.
What, then, if the forms we know
are sections of a full body
whose dimensions are timeless
and bodiless, like poems,
whose unseen dimension is the mind?
Louis Dudek, from Poems from Atlantis (Golden Dog Press, 1980)
In his introduction to The Long Poem Anthology (1979), Michael Ondaatje pontificates on a genre coined the “serial poem”—a much-loved form in the 1970s, and most popular among the contributors he anthologized. He addresses some interesting characteristics of his contributors: “In the 70’s some poets talked out loud and some listened. These poets listen to everything” (13). I like the distinction made here because it suggests the work of serial poets is quiet, modest and deeply personal. This is also what I like about the poetry of Jesslyn Delia Smith.
I have no doubt that Jesslyn writes frequently. Her blog (http://jesslyndelia.com/) is updated regularly with new poetry and (more recently) prose. She’s had 4 chapbooks published in the last 2 years, most by In/Words press, one self-published: so it’s the first really warm day (In/Words: 2009), doorhinge (In/Words: 2009), sun, scrambled (self-published: 2010), rescue poems (In/Words: 2011). Their thematic content is constant: love, memory, allegiance. It is the slight shifts in tone between the individual poems that add depth to her body of work and give her poems a remarkable accumulative quality deserving of attention [...]
Read the full article in the February 2011 issue of Bywords here.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A B SERIES presents SHERI-D WILSON / ÉLIZ ROBERT / KEVIN MATTHEWS
“Queen of Canada’s Performance Poetry Scene”
ÉLIZ ROBERT
& KEVIN MATTHEWS
Perform in The A B Series
+ Poetry in Three Languages!
Come & witness the fiery instant translation from Sheri-D Wilson’s English to French & Spanish performed by Éliz Robert
An A B SERIES Presentation
at The Mercury Lounge in Ottawa’s Byward Market
Happening Saturday, January 22, 2011
Doors open at 7:30pm
Show starts at 8:00pm
SHERI-D WILSON is Artistic Director of the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival & Director of the Spoken Word Program at the Banff Centre.
ÉLIZ ROBERT is a graduate of the 2010 Banff Center Spoken Word Residency & has toured in Europe & The USA. She lives in Montreal.
KEVIN MATTHEWS has performed his poetry in front of audiences around Canada — from hundreds to handfuls, from symphonic concert halls to correctional facilities.
**
The A B SERIES is Ottawa’s reading series for experimental, sound & performance poetry. Initiated in the autumn of 2007, The A B Series has quickly become one of Canada’s most distinguished & dynamic venues for performance poetry.
Contact:
Max Middle
Artistic Director
The A B Series
Monday, January 03, 2011
AngelHousePress seeks visual poetry for Nationalpoetrymonth.ca
AngelHousePress seeks visual poems, assemic writing, collages and concrete poems
for the 2011 nationalpoetrymonth.ca.
Please send high resolution JPGs (1200 pixels on the longest side), a short bio
and a photograph to me by February 28, 2011.
(do NOT send me PDFs or word processing documents.)
Please send only one poem. I will consider both previously published and
unpublished work for publication.
Please send work to amanda at angelhousepress dot com and put NPM in the subject line.
Participants from all countries are welcome.
If you want your poem to be titled, please put the title in the jpg.
Happy new year to all!
Amanda Earl
AngelHousePress
www.angelhousepress.com
the angel is in the house
for the 2011 nationalpoetrymonth.ca.
Please send high resolution JPGs (1200 pixels on the longest side), a short bio
and a photograph to me by February 28, 2011.
(do NOT send me PDFs or word processing documents.)
Please send only one poem. I will consider both previously published and
unpublished work for publication.
Please send work to amanda at angelhousepress dot com and put NPM in the subject line.
Participants from all countries are welcome.
If you want your poem to be titled, please put the title in the jpg.
Happy new year to all!
Amanda Earl
AngelHousePress
www.angelhousepress.com
the angel is in the house
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Sheri-D Wilson, Éliz Robert & Kevin Matthews perform in The A B Series
+ Poetry in Three Languages! Come & witness the fiery Insta-Translation performances of Sheri-D Wilson & Éliz Robert
+ Poésie trilingue! Venez voir naître sous vos yeux des performances d'insta-traduction entre Sheri-D Wilson & Éliz Robert
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
ROBERT PRIEST, THE RECIPE, SOBOL & LAVERY
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| ABSERIES.ORG An Evening of Poetry & Music with Robert Priest, The Recipe, John Sobol & John Lavery |
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Bywords Fall Reading, Sunday, November 21, 2010
You are invited to the launch of the fall edition of the Bywords Quarterly Journal to take place at 5pm on Sunday, November 21, 2010 as part of the Dusty Owl Reading Series, Swizzles, 246-B Queen St.
Music by Kevin Grant and poetry readings by Frances Boyle, Reid Cooper, Marilyn Irwin and rob mclennan.
Followed by the Dusty Owl's Open Mic.
Contact info: amanda at bywords dot ca
Cover photo by Jayni Bloch
Bywords thanks the City of Ottawa for funding us again this year.
A reminder that we are always looking for poetry by former and current Ottawa residents, students and workers. Deadlines are the 15th of the month.
Go to http://www.bywords.ca/ and click on guidelines for further information.
The next issue of Bywords.ca comes out November 15.
To receive daily updates of literary events, please follow us on Twitter.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
See www.apt9press.ca for further information.
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=167389499951641
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