On The Street

Sometimes I discover little things or happenings that please me deeply. One such happened at the most recent Art Crawl here in the city, that evening when all the galleries and related businesses on James Street North open wide and party. The street fills with people, in clusters and individuals, moving from one to another to sample the art and other attractions in the area. Some galleries provide incidental music or other performance. You can find buskers on the sidewalks: musicians, dancers, and more.

Often you'll find a display of books in front of a shop. There may also be a used book dealer displaying his wares. But this most recent Art Crawl offered something dear to my heart; a young lady had positioned herself in front of a gallery and was offering poetry for sale! She was sitting on a blanket on the sidewalk, copies of her first (self-) publication spread out on display. Without even reading one poem, I bought a copy. (She said I was the first person to purchase her work; I feel proud of that!) It didn't matter if the poetry was good or bad, what mattered was that the young lady was putting her words and her craft where it belongs - out on the street with all the other arts.

It reminded me of myself, hawking copies of my own poems in Yorkville in '67-'68. (Gestetner, remember those?) And a plan that never came to fruition, of chalking poems on the sidewalks of Barton Street a number of years ago. Then there was the International Village's initiative that displayed poems monthly in storefront windows. There is the current project of Simon Frank incorporating a poem in the sidewalks of Locke Street as public art, rather than the usual mural or sculpture.

Poetry on the street. Poetry in the markets. Poetry for people where the people are.

(By the way, that book "Poetry's Dead - on Love, Despair, Hobo-ism and produce" was worth the price. Nyki Hamilton, I'd love to be in touch with you!)

Multidiscipline Improvisation

It was not just another Saturday night at the ArtwordArtbar. This Saturday night was special. No musical act had been lined up and since the venue is inclined toward all the arts (and with the availability of some of the guests at this time) the proprietors decided to hold a multidiscipline improvisation evening.

They had done something of the sort before: dance, some music, video projection on a screen behind the dancer. This session was intended to be expanded. An artist who created and layered sound and music on his laptop computer was available and eager. A new projection program needed to be tried in a more public situation. Several dancers and various musicians were ready to take part. And to this mix I suggested myself.

What I wanted to do was something I had tried before, a good number of years before. I wanted to place some of my poetry before an audience ― with enhancements not of my own making. Back in the eighties I had come together with a saxophonist and a male dancer; we had begun work on a suite combining words – music – movement to explore a primitive understanding of the world. Although the concept was never fully fleshed out for anything like public presentation, the urge to see my work interpreted by other artists has always remained in the back of my mind. Here, I believed, was the chance to do something similar. I would speak my words. My voice would stand alone without my usual stage presence and physical movement. Instead the flow of words would be interpreted instantly and without prior consultation by a dancer or dancers there on the stage.

My idea was welcomed. I would present two poems, one in each set, and then be obligated to take part in a free, unstructured performance of all the artists involved.

I decided that the first poem would be just myself and the dancers, three ladies. I wanted to recite from off stage but they preferred me onstage as they moved around me. I compromised, sitting on the front of the stage with my words and microphone, presenting the poem as they moved and controlled the open space before me while the projectionist worked her magic on the screen behind us. At the break between sets we discussed the presentation. My difficulty had been that I was not able to see their movement and use that to vary the pacing and tone; one of the dancers expressed a slight frustration that sometimes my presentation didn’t match what she expected from the words. All valid and useful comments.

My second presentation was not as concrete in imagery, leaving it more open to interpretation. I also asked the musicians ― bass, percussion, violin, and the aforementioned computer keyboardist ― to come in wherever they felt they could. This time, I stayed off-stage and was able to watch the dancers, vary the pace and intonation; the musicians were doing the same. This ensemble seemed to work together well, not flawlessly but to the satisfaction of the whole group.

Then, to end the evening after another break for refreshing mind and body, the improvisational “free-for-all.” The focus of this extensive … I suppose you could call it a “jam” … was the dancers on stage: as individuals, in twos, as a trio. To their actions each of the other artist/participants added their own layer, using their own medium. As a poet, I am not able to compose and speak out on the spot but I did not withdraw from the fusion. I used the opportunity to add voiced sounds ― sometimes words, phrases, short sentences, but more often hums or unstructured voice. I would take a clear vowel and slowly run it through different shapes of the mouth or flit it back and forth. Throw in a few do-wop phrasings (often at greatly reduced rhythms) and I knew I was contributing to the whole, even wordlessly.

Ah, the magic! Layers of creative expression, unrehearsed and spontaneous.
I look forward to the next time I can be part of such an experience.

Word as Sound

A couple of evenings ago I walked into the Artword Artbar late because I wanted to take a quick listen to a group I had heard making some intriguing music the weekend before. The Blues Explosion (Sarah Good et al.) had finished one set; in the interval a group calling themselves slowly, slowly were performing. I thought they sounded interesting enough to wait through until the last set. It turned out that they were the ones who impressed me.

The five person collective performed on a number of various instruments, interspersed by vocal phrasings rather than typically structured “songs.” With the interplay between voice and instrumentation and the minimal of layering over and against each other, it made for a presentation quite intriguing to the ear.

Most interesting to me as a poet and spoken word aficionado was one piece when the group read text as part of the presentation. The music faded out (it did not stop abruptly) and the focus became the speaking voice, first by a few and then involving the whole collective. As this continued it felt to me that the content, the subject matter, the meaning, were not as important as the voices as they wove together. It felt like overhearing conversation at a party but standing away from direct involvement with it.

Later I wondered if this had any relationship to what sound poets do. They take words and parts of words, combinations of sounds that usually have specific meanings, and turn them into a pattern that may not have been there before. These musicians took ordinary words and sentences and did not change anything except the presentation as music, placed them in a different context and asked you to hear them in an unusual way.

It’s one thing to read aloud a newspaper article and, through emphasis, inflection and intonation, make it sound like poetry. (I have heard/seen that done.) It’s another to take the banality of the human voice in conversation and make it music. But then there’s the creative spirit that joins the poet and musician. There is not and should not be a wall between artistic disciplines, no cubbyholes to hold and contain.

Just as a postscript, when Sarah Good returned to the stage (alone this time) and began a series of electronic sound manipulations I slipped away. It seemed almost common compared to what I had experienced.

Beautiful Ugly

We all have our individual concepts of ugliness. Usually it is something that is not pleasing to the senses, that causes an immediate reaction against it. We know a stink when we smell it, a cacophony when we hear it. We turn away from that which does not please the eye and spit out what offends the palate.

But in everything we consider ugly or distasteful there can be found touches of beauty if we make the effort to seek them out. Even the most visually unpleasant will have some combination of lines or colors, some underlying balance that can be pleasing if we ignore the rest. If we can follow the pattern of a single sound through masses of discord we may find a kernel of music.

The same goes for writing, for poetry. Poetry is by definition aesthetically pleasing; I can’t imagine anyone setting out deliberately to write an ugly poem. Even though it should be done, I don’t know many beautiful poems about ugly things or subjects. Even so, such materials should be subjects for good poetry.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. So perhaps some poet should stop to envision the beauty in the unattractive.

Where are the poems about scrap metal in a junkyard? Who will wax lyrical about the sights of decomposing garbage? Is there an ode or a sonnet to the nature and beauty of a manure pile?

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, Keats proclaimed. Poetry makes beautiful that which is distorted, wrote Shelley. I’m asking for some appreciation of ugliness, the truths of the unpleasant.

Poetry In Public

What is it in modern Western society that has created such a public aversion to poetry? Poetry should not be hidden, much less tucked away in some secret spot to be enjoyed only by those few who know it. Poetry has a proper place in our community, right there with music and dance. So, why can’t we find it there?

Granted that the industrial/material nature of development created great changes in all the arts: how they were perceived, delivered, appreciated. But music is an ever-popular endeavor, and dancing is still a communal activity. Literature, the novel and short story collections, is available everywhere. What about poetry?

Poetry has lost much of its populist and popular appeal. Ask a butcher, a roofer, a long distance trucker about poetry and few will light up, glad you asked. There is no sense of what they can identify as poetry in their lives except perhaps the rhymes found in greeting cards. And these, too, are being replaced by jokes and other forms of word play.

Only a minimal effort has been made to counter this. Without patrons willing to support an art so invisible as poetry, it has been left to government to represent the society’s support. So poets decide what funding crumbs go to poets. A poet laureate institutes programs for poets. The whole structure of being a poet continues to feed upon itself.

What can be done? Take poetry back to the streets, to everyday living where it belongs. For those who want to discontinue public prayers to open a meeting, replace it with a poem. Radio and television presenters, when faced with a minute or so to fill, could read a poem rather than subject us to inane and purposeless conversation. Poets could join other buskers and read random poems on street corners for tips. The list of possibilities is endlessLet’s have a poetry contest for policemen on the theme of uniforms. Urge all grocers to write imaginatively about fresh vegetables. Ask cabbies to wax poetic about the foibles of human nature. We need real people to write and dispense poetry. Poets talking to poets about poetry and letting others listen in if they want to make the effort isn’t working.

There is a program known as “Random Acts of Poetry” that is a start for what I advocate, but rather than confine it to one week in October this kind of activity should be going on all the time. Let poets bring the beauty of language to the streets and workplaces, to meeting halls and supermarkets. A poem can contain so much joy and experience. It needs to be shared.

Words and Pictures

The old saying goes,"A picture is worth a thousand words." How do you compare the value of words with the value of pictures?

A short time ago I bought myself a painting. For several reasons. First, it speaks to me; it has a sense about it that connects the two of us, my self and the painting. That sense is intrinsic and has little to do with the artist. I don't know her, have never met her. Second, after loooking at it on the gallery wall several times, then taking some time to inspect it closely I felt something intimate towards it, a need to take it home and live with it. Third, the price was right, something I could afford.

And that brings me to the question currently on my mind. How do artists put a price on their work? Materials + labour + time and then what about the idea, the craft, research - whether specific for this or just general to the work? Is there a measure of self-valuation, of other-valuation?

"A picture is worth a thousand words." Could I sell a thousand words on the open market and make enough to buy the picture? As an article, a review, or should it, too, be artistic: a short story, a long poem, a series or collection of poems? Does it matter if I collect the poems in a book, sell a number of copies of the book to purchase an uncopied painting?

No, let the questions chase themselves.

Because of intangible and incalculable things about the painting, I was willing to pay the price asked. It had nothing to do (for me) with "worth." Similarly when I sell my poetry, I hope it goes to someone who has a special appreciation for the poems no matter what I put into them.

And then we cut our creations loose to exist without us, in someone else's care.

The Olympic Flame as Metaphor

Yesterday evening the Olympic torch, carrying the flame lit using a concave mirror at Mount Olympus in Greece and heading to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games at Vancouver, came to Hamilton as part of the relay that brought the symbolic spirit of those Games to many of the communities throughout the land. (Whew, what a mouthful of words that is!) Although it was cold and dark, I decided to go and take part in the festivities. Just to be able to say I did, you know. Like dipping your foot in the ocean when you're on the coast. And it was taking place only a few blocks from my home.

Several thousand enthusiastic supporters had gathered. There was music by several local artists. There was another creating a painting on stage. A troupe of acrobats cavorted. Drummers drummed. There was video when the stage wasn't monitored. And always the words from the sponsors and their displays and their hand outs.

The flame arrived as and when it was supposed to. Stirring speeches were made. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So what's it all about? Symbol and metaphor, the stuff of poetry. There was no poetry there last night even though the event (to my mind) cried out for something to embody that symbol, to use it in its full metaphorical context. I wondered if that had ever been done; someone must have put their mind to it but, unlike the record books, was any trace left?

Later at home I researched my question. (Alright, I googled "Olympic poetry.") I discovered some interesting facts. The early Olympic games in Greece BCE was a combination of several regional contests; one of those had included competitions of poetry and rhetoric. Imagine, barrel-chested men roaring poetry to an audience or to each other! And then I discovered a proposal to reinstate this at the London Games in 2012 with a poetry slam! Hmmmmm.

On a more realistic note, the Australian poet Mark O'Connor had written a series of poems about the Sydney Games as they were happening. What's more, he was supported with a grant by the Aussie government; the IOC, which he did approach, wanted nothing to do with an "official" poet, a sort of Sport Poet Laureate." Among the poems Mark created are two dealing with the torch. One is called "Torch Running," about the relay as it passes from place to place. The other is titled "The Olympic Torch As Metaphor."

That takes the necessity out of my hands! Only goes to show.

Erotic or Pornographic

The warning here is that this entry is more personal in its opinion than usual. Don't let the XXX fool you; there are no pictures or descriptions here of people engaging in sexual activities for your 'prurient' pleasure.

I do want to take a little space to explore the porno-erotic question, not as a legal matter but as it applies to my own writing. Some of my more socially conservative friends think my poems and stories that have a more or less sexual basis are "pornographic." If writing or portraying any and all sexual activity is so then what they do in their bedrooms is not love but pornography (or prostitution, to revert to the Greek root of the term.)

Sex is a natural daily part of human life. Talking about it, writing about it, depicting it in any of the arts, is just as natural. It is the diverting of the relationship to a not inherent purpose that, in my eyes, makes pornography.

The matter arose some time ago when I answered a call for erotica with three poems and a short story. In due time they were returned to me with a note that my entries were not explicit enough. Oh, I agreed with that, but the editors had asked for erotica; I consider erotica to be suggestive rather than descriptive, a lyrical treatment rather than a prosaic one.

A good poet and a good story teller presents more than one level of meaning. My poems do that by approaching the actions and emotions from a certain point. My short stories will often use sexual activities to explain and explore character rather than be the total focus of the plot.

So, what does it all boil down to? The main fact as I see it is that both sides of the presentation of the material have to be in agreement for the work to be either erotic or pornographic. Let me explain. If I write something that I think is erotic but you read it, treat it as though it were pornographic, then it has lost its eroticism. But vice versa, if I write something with only pornography in mind and a reader finds it erotic instead, that too has lost its purpose.
Heaving a tired sigh, I will remark: one man's eroticism is another man's pornography.

At least as I see it.

Collaboration Among the Arts

I recently finished writing a poem for an acquaintance of mine who wants to use it as part of a framework for an interdisciplinary project for which she is approaching a television network for funding. You may know how lukewarm I am about writing for a special occasion or purpose, but when she outlined the project for me I was intrigued. Using my poem as narration, spoken by a professional voice (i. e. actor), as well as video of a free-form dancer (perhaps in situ) she would explore in film the waterfalls of Hamilton.

I like the idea; I can see it work. I am honoured that she chose me to write the words as an artistic narration rather than a descriptive or historical line of approach. I have been involved with a group that is heralding Hamilton as the "City of Waterfalls" to replace the old "Steel City" image and have visited and observed the wonder of many of the more than one hundred places where water falls over the edge of the Niagara escarpment.

The initial problem was one of approach; how was I to portray the waterfalls? There were several false starts that bogged me down for a time. I finally came up with one that satisfied me, and I hope it works for my friend and her presentation.

I used as theme the ancient concept that all the world consists of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. I briefly explore the attributes of each element and show how they interconnect, and how a waterfall is the majestic manifestation of the elements coming together while remaining separate.

I've done this type of thing before. I had in mind a series of poems based in native symbology. With a musician/composer and a dancer/choreographer onside, we worked out a program of poetry, music and dance. We submitted it to the Canada Council for the Arts and applied for funding as an Interdisciplinary Project. The project was denied, and instead of fine-tuning it and elaborating on it as we might have, we abandoned it and went our separate ways. In some ways, I have no great expectations; been there, done that. But this is interdisciplinary and not mine. I hope she gathers her material in the way it needs to be presented, that it all comes together and gains for her the funding she needs.

Me, I'm content to be a small part of a common effort.

Literary Genres

I don't know if it's because of envy or what, but sometimes I find myself getting irritated by writers who, having achieved a successful reputation in one genre of literature suddenly switch to another. And find even greater acclaim there!


I'm thinking of people like Atwood who had a fine reputation as a poet before she began publishing novels. Ondaatje went the same route. Nowadays the poems that they publish are few and far between. They concentrate on the novel; that's where the glory and the money are. As representative of those who continue to struggle in their original genre, I sometimes feel that we have been discarded. Poets and their work are not worth much to a modern society. It must be fed on massive tomes of prose.


It's not that I write only poetry. I've written some fiction, some non-fiction, essays (some of them, like these blog entries, short and pithy.) My problem, if "problem" it is, lies in the fact that I believe in poetry. Any other writing is, for me, an adjunct to my single purpose. I ride the horse I bought and am not looking to trade for one more handsome or stronger.


Once I wrote most of a novel. It had reached just over a hundred pages, when I lost it. I considered beginning it over again but figured that if the forces that control the universe saw fit not to let me bring that work forth, it could probably exist without it. No one will ever know.


I continue to compose, write, publish, and share poetry because I must. It defines who and what I am: a poet, not a novelist or essayist; a writer, not a singer or musician; an image maker, not an actor or dramatist. I can live with that, and do so gladly.

Mixed Arts

Friday I went to watch my friend Klyde Broox perform at the Artword Artbar. Klyde is an outstanding poet and performer in the Dub tradition. His performance went well. He had provided for musical breaks, a marimba player who accompanied him for several numbers,improvising a rhythm behind him. Klyde also saw fit to introduce a couple of up-and-coming young spoken word artists.

The main point of interest for me, however, was his expressed desire to run a word/performance evening here once a month. He had done this before at the Staircase a few years ago. As he explains, it is an attempt to get the different cultures to work together on the same stage, in the same venue. He envisions black dub poets and white spoken word artists, mixed with musicians and dancers, performers together in a real potpourri. I performed regularly with him at the Staircase and would gladly do so again.

The Artword Artbar, with its already eclectic establishment of entertainments including film, theatre and dance could be the right venue at the right time. The vibes seem positive.

So, let the action begin! Let the colours blend! Let the multitude of cultures come together and present a heady brew!

Literate Rock

Rock and roll can be a strange beast. A lot of the music will set your toes tapping, involve you in a peripheral way. Some will take you over so physically that you can't help but move your body, to make you dance. And there is a small segment that urges you to listen, to hear the words as well as the music, to sense the combination that makes it more than tune and lyrics.

I was at a concert the other night celebrating the release of a new recording by Tiny Bill Cody and the Liquormen. One of the reasons I have always liked Tiny Bill's music is because he is a writer as well as a musician, an artist expressing himself in several disciplines. The performance and the new disc carry on with his established reputation.

I like what he does to me, moves me physically and mentally. I can't turn off either mode of perception. For me, most classical music doesn't need the body; much of modern music doesn't engage the mind. Granted, there are singer/songwriter/poets that engage all the modalities; Cohen and Dylan stand out for me. A good blues number will engage my soul and leave mind and body behind. But a driving beat and the crash and flash of new images in the language carry for me a special magic. And much of it depends on the words, the poetry, the way the Taupin/John combination did for me years ago.

Yes, you can set literature to music. The music need not be etherial, contemplative, nor primally rhythmic. The nature of art is that it adapts to what it needs and the result is more and greater art.

Breaking Out

I want to borrow a conceit from an old Rodney Dangerfield joke. He used to proclaim that he "went to the fights and a hockey game broke out." Well, I'm a man of words and letters, so I was surprised the other evening when I went to an opening at an art gallery and a poetry reading broke out.

Now there's nothing new about holding poetry readings in art galleries. It's a good use of dormant space, a means of drawing in customers who might usually not enter the place. Advertise a poetry reading and you attract people not usually drawn in by the visual.

The venue is new. The name perhaps explains its purpose. The Artword Artbar is trying for all it says: a bar/hangout for artists with gallery space and performance space for musicians and writers to showcase; a video component is in development, theatrical pieces are more than welcome.

That's why my visit the other evening was such a joy. The main draw was the opening of a show at the gallery in conjunction with a number of other gallery openings. (The famous 'James North Art Crawl.') Some galleries provide music; here a blues band was playing. When the band took a break, the other activities began. First came an interpretive dancer with violin accompaniment and a video backing. Then the artist whose work was on display and who is also a poet, read from his work. An attempt was made to show an eleven minute "video poem" by the artist/poet but that ran into technical difficulties. And then the band was ready to return.

So, in one evening a conglomerate of the arts. Paintings/sculpture in the gallery. On stage, music and dance, together and separate. An attempt to project videography. And in the midst of it all, poetry - poetry where it belongs, in there with and equal to all the other arts.

I wish the Artword Artbar well. We need more multi-use spaces in the arts/culture community.

(P.S. I'm reading there on Sun. October 18 as part of the launch of an anthology in memory of Al Purdy, And Left A Place To Stand On. Come down and inspect the venue, talk to the owners and the writers, buy a book or two.)

A Sense of Community

Last Thursday I attended a book launch that became something other than simply that. Let me explain.

Brian Prince, Bookseller hosted an event introducing the publications of two local writers. Because the book store is also commemorating twenty years of service to the community, the event became a celebration of that community and the store as its focus.

Aside from the obvious literary connections to a bookstore, there were artists from other disciplines involved. The venue was a private art gallery with all the plastic arts represented. As well as the authors reading - one poetry, the other creative non-fiction - there was a presentation by a singer/songwriter. And the audience gathered seemed a good cross-section from different arts groups and backgrounds.

Gathered together at that event in that place and for that purpose, it was evident how vigorous the local arts community is. Truly something to celebrate, and to take note of the many diverse venues, organisations, etc. that serve as a temporary or more permanent focal point.

The Recession and Poetry

This year's Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry (which I administer) saw the number of books entered dwindle significantly, by such a number that I had to consider seriously whether we were doing something wrong or whether the decline (in numbers only? in interest also?) was part of a process we could not control.

I believe part of the fault lies with our publicity. We seem to rely a little too much on word of mouth dissemination of information. I get e-mails that "our" website carries out of date information. (We have no website; somone has published the info on theirs and not updated it.) I have had queries, replied to them, and then nothing follows.

Another member of the committee brought up the fact that most small presses, the ones that publish poetry, are experiencing difficulties due to the current economic downturn. Some have stopped publishing, many have cut down on the number of titles they produce.

I believe it's probably a combination of both. Next year, if the Acorn-Plantos Award is to remain viable, a more vigorous approach to soliciting entries must be undertaken. Let's hope the economy has strengthened and we are healthy and free to expend some energy on promotion.

I take some comfort in the fact that all disciplines of the arts are suffering. In uncertain economic times it seems the arts are the most vulnerable. It is difficult to explain truth and beauty to an empty stomach and a burdened mind.

Theatre and Poetry (2)

As I mentioned in a previous entry, several of this year's Fringe Festival productions involved poetry. Sunday afternoon I went to see one that caught my attention.

"The Portrait," written and produced by local people, was described in the program blurb as "a play written almost entirely in poem form." The theme: murder and haunting and suspense.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, perhaps a Shakespearean performance in iambic pentameter or something equally solemn and dramatic. What I got was a narrator, the spirit of the niece of the man whose portrait comes to ... however, this isn't about plot intricacies but about the advertized "poem."

The lines were in a less conventional form; the complete play consisted of an extended ballad delivered in quatrain stanzas with lines of three or four feet and alterate rhyme. The marvel of the experience was twofold. Unless you were listening carefully for it, the rhyme and rhythm was almost unnoticeable. And even if you made yourself aware, there were enough changes to ensure that it wasn't repetitive or boring. The metric flow would often jump naturally from one character to another.

Although at the end I felt unsatisfied and wanting more, I left with a sense of amazement that the language had been so well-used.

The flow of narrative carried by rhyme and rhythm in this piece, contrasted with a segment of a performance I had seen the evening before. "Tell Me Another One" was a retelling of three fables. 'Little Red Riding Hood' was delivered as an interprative dance.'Fox and Girl' was a newer puppet show which, for me, didn't cohere. The center of the presentation was the Grimms' 'The Juniper Tree,' but it was done as a folk ballad. What could have been a brilliant concept in the hands of a true balladeer or singer/songwriter was turned into tasteless pap. I hadn't heard the story before; I don't remember it now. I couldn't tell you what it was all about and it didn't interest me enough to look up the original. The accoustic guitar accompaniment was uninspired and forgettable.

All I remember is a strumming guitar and a bearded face. That is neither poetry nor drama.

Theatre and Poetry

I went to two of the shows running at the current Fringe Festival (theatre) because I had read about several that involved poetry. The first I attended was called "I Hate Poetry."


It had an interesting premise: three spoken word artists (poets) do a last minute impromptu rehearsal for a performance. They act as a troupe and as individuals, and the audience is left to consider what is "act" and what is the characters' unplanned disclosure, what is being rehearsed and what is supposedly not. But about the poetry.

It was the common spoken word genre, at times heavy on rhyme, often rhythm depended on that rhyme, and very little else that establishes language as poetry: the use of metaphor or simile, images to portray meaning that is not immediate. Any emotion or feeling was direct and in your face; all to keep the piece moving. Any contemplation would have to be done elsewhere later.

Still, with all my reservations about spoken word poetry, language, form, and meaning, I found the frantic pacing that is the nature if this type of presentation worked well. It communicated the characters as well as the concerns behind its topic. Thank you, Dream Chasers.



The second performance I went to because it was so highly recomended. "Head First" by the Toronto all-women troupe Femmes du Feu had won a main stream staging at the Toronto Fringe Festival and would only be here for four of the ten days. They had also won an audience choice at the London Fringe and so became a "must-see."

The performance consisted of interpretive dance, most of it aerial. The first segment was a pas-de-deux performed by the two co-founders of the troupe and explored the idea of two people sharing the same dream, not dreaming but existing in the same dream space; it sometimes occupied the floor, sometimes high off the stage, other times in mid-air, often in motion between those levels.

The second part was a mini flamenco performance, an interesting reflection on rhythm and movement. It was all the more intriguing because this was the only part without music; the motion and the tapping of the shoes had to say it all.

The third segment was performed by six dancers, sometimes all together and sometimes in smaller numbers. The movement and accompanying music fluttered and hung in a number of aerial silks, portraying six or seven aspects of a woman's life.
And what has this to do with poetry? There is no better explanation of how expression in poetry should be understood. Rhythm and flow. Brilliance to capture the attention, colour to hold it. The meaning suggested by the movements of the dance, by the phrases of the poetry.

Although meant to be an experience of theatre, the evening became one full of poetry.

Money for Poems

This week the annual Griffin Prizes for poetry were handed out: fifty thousand dollars to a Canadian poet and fifty thousand to an American (international) poet. Who won isn't as important as the fact that the prize exists, exists to draw attention to the art. It places a top hat on the bundle of rags on the street corner with its Hortons cup extended: Spare change, mister?

There is no poet in this land who can earn fifty thousand a year just by writing and selling poems. As prolific as he may be, however fruitful his labours, he lives by teaching, lecturing, working at other aspects of living with his hands or his mind to put cash in his pocket and credit in his account. An artist puts a price on the painting he offers for sale; if someone likes it, it will sell at that price. Musicians tour and play at rates set by their unions. Professional actors must work for scale. And literature ...

Literature. There are usually markets of all kinds that pay for short stories. With enough time and energy a good novel can be sold and published. Non-fiction and biographies are never out of the public interest. And then there's poetry. When is the last time you paid a dollar or two for a poem that impressed you?

So, how do we value poetry, place a price on an individual poem? I can remember that when I was younger I would pay the price for a complete volume of poetry just because I had heard or read one of the poems. In the same way, I would buy complete albums of music just because I heard and liked one song. No more. And no more mimeographed poems for a dollar a piece; no more four colour poster-sized illustrated poems for ten. The market we hoped existed was even more ephemeral than the foggy dew.

In poetry there is no trickle down effect. You don't hang a bright light in your garden and tell your plants, Reach for that goal. You water and feed and fertilize all the things growing in that garden and work toward greatness. To create a tall plant, you develop and stimulate the roots.

We don't need fifty thousand dollar prizes so much as the simple act of paying an artist for his work. If you hear or read one moving poem, buy the book. If it has not been published, offer the poet a dollar or two for a typed or hand written copy. He'll be thrilled. Besides, that's where the money should be going.

The Hip and the Hop

Right from the beginning, I never liked hip-hop: the breakdancing, the clothing, the graffiti "art," the music and its "poetry," the sideways ball cap attitude. It seemed vain and meaningless to me, rebellion for the sake of rebellion.Before I could let things settle in my mind, the music and song became nothing but (to me) shouts and epithets about crime, sex, violence, and gangsterism. What's more, the practitioners seemed to live it out in the media.

My attitude and acceptance are changing.

It began with an East Coast artist who calls himself Buck 65. I heard him on the radio one day and his lyrics, though delivered in true rap style, made sense in a way the rap and hip-hop thing never had before. But, I figured, that's just an abberation. Then at the Skydragon Mayday celebration a group calling themselves "Rhyme Travellers" performed on the stage and I got the whole thing live and in my face.

Four guys swapping rhymes among each other on stage, an easily discernable line of protest running through their words and their actions. Movement, language, attitude, all carefully orchestrated into an almost flawless presentation over a prerecorded rhythm track. It was more than enough to send me to find out what hip hop, rap, etc. was really all about.

A little research: hip hop as develloped among black urban youth has much of the same basis as Dub poetry from Jamaica; that began when DJs would rhyme their own words (dub) over the B sides, usually instrumental versions, of popular reggae songs. Take away the music but leave the rhythm and rhyme, especially when it has been taken away from extemporaneous and become finely honed set pieces. You have an accepted and understandable form of poetry that is immediate and vernacular.

So American black youth appropriated rhythm and rhyme for their own use, their own manner of expression, and built a culture around it. Sometimes money and ego cary it too far and produce that over-evident "gangsta" facade. But I believe in the poetry. I believe in the protest. I believe that hip hop is in some way a part of every artist in any medium.
With the beat in my blood and the rhymes in my mouth and the cry for justice in my heart, I too am a part of hip hop.

Madness and Poetry

Since the dawn of culture, the closeness of creativity and madness has been recognized. History is filled with the lives of creative people who suffered from what now would be classed as mental or personality disorder. Plato, in his Pheadrus, classifies four types of divine madness: prophecy, religion, poetry, and love. Poetry is the only artistic domain recognized as mad. We won't go into historic annecdotal speculations, neither about poets or any other artists. What started my thought train here was the explanation of John Clare and his asylum admissions when I read one of my poems dedicated to him. It reminded me how many of our most influential poets were aberrant, deviant from the usual, though not necessarily certifiably mentally ill or insane. I've been aware of some, influenced directly by some, personally touched by some. And then I found a study of what are known as "schitzotypes," people who do not suffer from schitzoid symptoms but still don't act "normal." They seem to display more creative brain activities than either of the other two, are easier to use old tools in new ways.

William Blake had his visions. Ezra Pound spent much of his later years locked in an asylum. Emily Dickenson had her agoraphobia. Edgar Allan Poe succumbed to drugs and alcohol. Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac and others drank obsessively. Some, like Thomas Chatterton or Sylvia Plath, gave up. And, of course, my friend Walter Bevan, whose Dead Leaves and Other Flowers was published posthumously.

Schitzophrenic, paranoid, bipolar (manic/depressive), compulsive/obsessive, addictive. These are some of the more common irregularities found among us poets, especially those of us who are not "schitzotype" but have to deal with the strangeness of living and other people.

I know, have been associated, with people who would easily fall into such a category but stuffing others into niches is not something I do well. I much prefer to find one for myself, and by myself. I tried on the "schitzotype" label but found it didn't fit. Every day in some way is still a breath away from my own demons, my own addiction. I suppose in my small way, I too am mad. Just another mad poet.