Last week in a nutshell

Well, it's a torrent of activity in the land of raw. In a nutshell:

• spent my second-last OAC AiE project with students at Aldershot Secondary School in Burlington last week. There was such enthusiasm for the work we covered, and I was particularly impressed by the willingness to take risks and explore new ground exhibited by grade twelve students. Some fascinating linguistic and sound experiments offered by students, too. A great memory. I'm sure I'll encounter these students again in the future, and look forward to returning to Aldershot next year.
• visited Parkdale Collegiate to work with drama students on poetry and sound improvisation. Again, such open-minded and thoughtful participants. Wholly impressed.
• lost my voice due to overuse and so spent half the week froggy.
• enjoyed Coach House Books spring launch, with new work by Maggie Helwig, Jen Currin, RM Vaughan, Claudia Dey, and Jordan Scott (see note below for more on Jordan's book).
• also enjoyed an intimate reading by Rachel Levitsky and Gail Scott. It was a real treat to hear Rachel's work, as I'd not had the pleasure. She even read a poem in Icelandic, one of hers translated into Icelandic by Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl (and hey! I even understood part of it as she pronounced it!! Gold star for me slooooooowly learning elements of the language). Gail shared work in progress that was playful, strong, and kept my brain busy pondering subtext. Can't wait for this book.
• met with Dennis Lee for inspiring conversation in preparation of Influency next month. Dennis is deeply cool, and his last book (yesno) felt like a sibling to Wide slumber in an odd way.
• 'risi aged! Rocka!
• Ciara and I attended the Summerworks Theatre Festival launch, to represent bluemouth inc. Finally got to see an excerpt from Anorexican, the one play I missed last year but really wished I'd caught. Just stellar comedic performance, dark delivery. Now I want to see it entirely. Remount, please??
• chased this with a photo shoot for a Luminato project called Milles Femmes.
• and then a bluemouth board meeting, which netted a few quite thrilling ideas which may come to pass this summer, in anticipation of their next major Toronto project, The Dance Marathon. I'll post more once plans are confirmed.
• and throughout it all, work work work. I'm in a mad dash to finish several contracts and get ahead on others before I leave for Europe next week. More soon on that. I'm remiss in posting my countdown to Belgium, but it'll happen. Ridiculously hyper for this excursion, feeling so fortunate and awed. I wake up everyday ready to jig!

blert by Jordan Scott

blert

by Jordan Scott

Hot off the Coach House printer: blert by Jordan Scott. This blog entry deserves fair warning: my usual propensity of overusage of adjectives and positive critical feedback will be at a high.

As some of you might know, Jordan's a close colleague of mine. It's been a pleasure getting to know him the last few years. We've shared a kinship over our rural obsessions and our curiosity for alternative approaches to poetry-making.

During the time we've known one another, I've had the privilege to experience many an intense and eye-opening conversation around blert, which has just emerged from the Coach House Press cutter a freshly bound and trimmed creature. Jordan gave a brief though generous reading at the Toronto launch last week, and he's now set out on a tour across the country. Do pop by an event if he's near you; he's an incredible reader.

I hope and plan to post more on this book in the near future. It's an important one for me, as it examines many issues central to my own practice -- especially attention to sound and its relationship to written text, kinesthetic response to text, uncommon English vocabulary, biological/zoological/environmental/ecopoetic references and study. This is just a cursory note to encourage anyone popping by this blog to seek out blert for yourself. Perhaps we can discuss it together!

Writers in Electronic Residence

This week, I began my first term with Writers in Electronic Residence. I'm working alongside Margaret Christakos, Robert Priest, and Carolyn Smart to offer editorial feedback and facilitate discussions for high-school students across Canada (there's even a group from Wyoming!). What a cool program!

Stereogum revisits Post

Stereogum offers a spring gift to enthusiasts of Björk's music. They've revisited her mid-90s album Post, inviting fellow musicians to cover each track. Xiu Xiu does "Isobel!" Final Fantasy and Ed Droste do "Possibly Maybe!"

The tribute also includes a juicy interview with Björk, liner notes with brief discussions by the contributing musicians, and an essay on the project.

Yum! Three thumbs up.

(Thanks for Kevin Hehir for pointing me Stereogumward.)

bpNichol celebration this Wednesday!

I'm stoked for the bpNichol celebration at Toronto's Supermarket this Wednesday. Full details below. I'm honoured to have been asked to participate, and to join the awesome roster of readers. I'll read a brief excerpt from one of my most loved Nichol texts, Journal.

Literary event at Supermarket celebrates three new pieces of Nicholmania from late Canadian author bpNichol

‘His wit, along with the seriousness, was there to keep the language free and untethered, to keep the poem aware of its roots, like a tuxedo worn with bare feet in a muddy river ... No other writer of our time and place was so diverse, attempted so much, and never lost sight of his intent.’ – Michael Ondaatje

A member of the sound-poetry performance group The Four Horsemen, winner of a Governor General’s Award for Poetry and writer of Fraggle Rock, bpNichol was one of Canada’s most important writers. Nichol was the author of countless publications in a variety of forms, including poetry (lyric, concrete, visual, sound). He was known as a promoter of poetry and the small press, a manipulator of the lines between genres and a prolific Canadian word artist, and they even named a Toronto laneway after him.

In late 2007, Coach House Books published The Alphabet Game, edited by Darren Wershler-Henry and Lori Emerson, a selected reader of Nichol’s work designed as an introductory overview to Nichol’s texts. This spring, Canadian literary criticism journal Open Letter publishes the first of two new bpNichol-focused issues, and the long-awaited bpNichol site, bpnichol.ca, is unveiled. The spring also sees the release of Brian Nash’s bp: pushing the boundaries on DVD.

To celebrate, Coach House Books, Open Letter and bpnichol.ca present NicholBack, a stellar night of Nichol performances.

NicholBack

with performances by Paul Dutton, W. Mark Sutherland, Nobuo Kubota, Frank Davey, Lola Lemire Tostevin, damian lopes, Gary Barwin and a.rawlings.

Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

8:00 p.m.

* * * * *

With an introduction of Alphabet Game co-editor Lori Emerson is split into two rounds of performances.

Four Horsemen member Paul Dutton leads off the evening with a short work from bpNichol, then he and fellow acclaimed sound poets W. Mark Sutherland and Nobuo Kubota perform an entirely new collaborative sound performance piece inspired by the work of bpNichol.

Following a break, five of today's most innovative writers ­– Frank Davey, Lola Lemire Tostevin, damian lopes, Gary Barwin and a.rawlings – read their favourite Nichol works.

* * *

For information on The Alphabet Game or media requests, contact Evan Munday at 416 979 2217 or evan@chbooks.com.

This Ain't the Rosedale Library

This Ain't the Rosedale Library, one of my favourite Toronto bookstores, has just announced the sad news that, after twenty-three years, they're closing their storefront on Church Street. The amazing news, though, is that they're opening a new store this May in KENSINGTON MARKET!!!

Online abyss

Paris' Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle has opened an exhibit showcasing flora and fauna of the deep ocean. Their online companion to ABYSSES is scroll 'n' click fact-filled eye candy. I feel a poem coming on...

soundweek

ahh, the week's offered a bouquet of structured improv events.

- found myself at somewhere there wednesday evening to catch quorum. the music proved quite generative for me, and i penned a few new poetic bitlets that should prove useful in the larger, ongoing manuscript. also had a few nice ideas for collaboration and sounding, which pleases.

- thursday evening kicked off with a conduction workshop lead by NYC writer/musician greg tate. great to have exposure to butch morris' conduction signals, and then to see them in action during burnt sugar's 10-piece performance later that evening at lula lounge. absolutely funky, rocktastic, soupy, and epiphanic.

- misha glouberman's terrible noises for beautiful people: the birthday edition filled friday's evening. i can't say enough positive things about what a fascinating journey it is to sound in groups of people. misha lead a larger group (started around 60 folks, i think) through a three-hour session of sound games. favourite moments include when a ten-year-old conducted ten adults (who gave wholehearted, uninhibited aural feedback) and, later, ebbs and flows of choral synchronicity.

- tonight, i'm looking forward to witnessing abattoir (kaeja d'dance).

sunday's a day of rest, and then poetry mayhem ensues next week with the tongue, stan dragland, and bpnichol celebration. the sounding returns on saturday to somewhere there with my new favourite: kidnextdoor (christine duncan, susanna hood, nilan perera).

Manuscript name-shift version 3.5

I'm thick into a writing project. The deeper I explore it, the more certain working titles resurface. It's such a different experience from Wide slumber for lepidopterists, as I had that title confirmed from the project's inception. I posted this last September about the many working titles that've affixed themselves to the current text mass, and now I'm considering a return to a working title of Environment Canada. We'll see how long this lasts. I have a feeling the eventual title for this project hasn't yet surfaced, and that the amassing titles are linked to other concepts not yet hatched.

Interactive audio

Jim Andrews offers this intriguing list of online sites focused on interactive audio.

I had little luck/patience with FLOU, and my computer refused to recognize or plug-in the necessary Shockwave for NEONLIGHT, LA COLONIE, and ACTIONIST RESPOKE. SOUNDGARDEN, though, worked. Despite its 90s grunge moniker, SOUNDGARDEN comes across as a simplistic walk in the eponymous garden, with pixellated flowers blooming to a chorus of a capella sopranos. Feels like MYST meets "The Pool" by Tori Amos.

Jörg Piringer's digital and interactive sound poems made me smile. The second one reminds me of the structure for a sound-to-page poem on which I'm currently working. I'm in love with Piringer's take on letters as living organisms in the fourth and the sixth sound poem.

DarwInstruments has a love-at-first-site (!) effect, as the graphics and sounds are slick and chic. I feel like I need to spend more time to understand how the hybridization works, and to figure out whether this is all show, or if there's a solid execution of the concept.

Chris Dupuis blogging

Toronto's interdisciplinary artist and arts writer Chris Dupuis has started a poignant, savvy, candid blog unpacking regional performance and arts politics.

Darwin Exhibit at the ROM

Has anyone been to the Darwin Exhibit at the ROM yet?

sigur rós' glósóli

why love.

Influency 4: A Toronto Poetry Salon

Margaret Christakos has invited me to participate in her much-praised evening course, Influency 4: A Toronto Poetry Salon. Registration for the ten-week course course ends soon. Details below.

Join other poetry aficionados for this flow-chart series of prepared talks by Toronto poets becoming fluent in the work of some of our contemporaries, combined with dynamic poetry readings and discussion. Eight accomplished Toronto-based poets working in distinctive contemporary styles will appear both as guest critics and featured poets in this unique learning experience. By including poets from many of the micro-communities in the city's literary scene, we create the opportunity for social and critical interaction among them, and build our own informed enjoyment of contemporary poetry in general. Over the ten-week course, registrants will accumulate a more nuanced and engaged critical vocabulary for discussing and writing responsively about many styles of contemporary poetry.

Schedule:

April 2 Introduction by Margaret Christakos, and books distributed.
April 9 Rachel Zolf on Rachel Vigier
Book: The Book of Skeletons
April 16 Rachel Vigier on Kevin Connolly
Book: drift
April 23 Karen Connelly on Allan Briesmaster
Book: Interstellar
April 30 Kevin Connolly on Dennis Lee
Book: yesno
May 7 Gary Barwin on Rachel Zolf
Book: Human Resources
May 14 Dennis Lee on a.rawlings
Book: Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists
May 21 a.rawlings on Karen Connelly
Book: This Border Surrounds Us
May 28 Allan Briesmaster on Gary Barwin
Book: Raising Eyebrows
June 4 Registrants' Intertexts and closing party

Why: To celebrate and explore Toronto’s diverse poetry scene. To build appreciation and understanding for contemporary poetry.

How Much: $199 plus $100 course materials (8 books of poetry) for 10-week course.

Register online for course number SCS 1777 by going to http://learn.utoronto.ca.

Susanna Hood in Akureyri

Susanna's blogged about her creation/development trip to Akureyri, Iceland -- generous and contemplative posts, heaped with eloquence.

Vocable at Queen's University

Ciara Adams and I are en route to Kingston this weekend, where we'll facilitate a three-hour Vocable workshop on sound and text for Queen's University students. We had a fantastic, fast Vocable last weekend with participants from Trent University and the Peterborough area (with a mainly literary focus) and are looking forward to what magic we can weave with theatre practitioners in Kingston.

Reading: Canadian Writers in Person

If you're around York University this evening, please pop by Canadian Writers in Person, a course offered through Atkinson College. I'll be reading and answering questions.

Iceland in Toronto

And, of course, there's a festival celebrating Icelandic culture this week in Tdot. This festival's promoting the recent Open Skies agreement, which has enabled direct flights between Toronto/Halifax and Keflavík. Festival will feature a free concert by Ghostigital and a screening of Sigur Rós' Heima.

Iceland in Belgium

I've been invited to participate in the ZAOEM Festival of Contemporary Poetry this April, and am starting to research assorted activities in the area during my adventure (recommendations welcome!).

There's a large multi-month festival taking place in Brussels, celebrating Icelandic arts and culture. Looks quite promising, with activities by Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Erna Ómarsdóttir, Örvar Smárason, Mugison, Amiina, and a host more. "Iceland on Edge" has officially been added to my list of possibilities.

Live with Reykjavík!

Conor and I had an excellent weekend, celebrating a birthday and marveling over the snowstorm with Reykjavík!. They played two concerts while in Tdot. Cdot and I were honoured to join them onstage for their first song at Kathedral last night. Here's the bootleg!

If you're in NYC or Austin this week, do catch their shows (details here).