The changing of the blog

The short of it: This blog is finished. The new version is here: http://commutiny.wordpress.com

The long of it: I've been blogging intermittently since 1999. The first incarnation was a home-made HTML version I cobbled together on Geocities, before it joined the Yahoo! team (remember Geocities?! *nostalgia*). It was mainly an excuse for me to acquire basic proficiency in HTML, and after that was accomplished the blog fell by the wayside.

In 2000, I signed up with LiveJournal, but eventually abandoned that site for the greener pastures of Moveable Type. My MT blog (called nether or commutiny.net/her) featured thoughts on Toronto's lit scene, with summaries of local events I'd attend or organize. In 2002, I used it to show work-in-progress from LOGYoLOGY and theories/discoveries surrounding that hypertextperiment, finding it intriguing and challenging to offer text in transformation, with option for readers to feedback as it happened (to affect the course of the work, possibly, or to trouble the mystique of a writing practice/process). A real-time archive?

2003 found recurrent angst over the blog's raison d’être, and it fell silent... But my fascination with blogging couldn't be suppressed for long. With ample discussion around the need/desire for more reviews of Canadian poetry, as well as online access to ANY reviews (which, at that point, was sparse), I invited fifteen writers across the country to post reviews on a group blog I called the review diablogue. The diablogue was hoppin' for a spell, but went the way of the dodo when posts dwindled and other lit mags/journals began uploading content to the interweb.

In June 2005, I gave up MT maintenance and moved to Blogger to try my hand at solo blogging again with 537neon. The blog's been a space for publication/event/review updates, favourite quotes, musings, and frequent excited yelps. The raison d’être angst has cropped up occasionally (and there was a spell in 2007 for the bulk of content was removed for a period of months as I wrestled with persistent concerns around the responsibilities of blogging). Despite this (or perhaps because of it), 537neon morphed into HUMAN visits NATURE earlier this year.

And to mark this third anniversary of mostly consistent blogging, I've decided to try out WordPress' software. So, here we are. New look: snails. blues, categories. If you've got the old address linked, please change to http://commutiny.wordpress.com. Takk!

Aural June

Toronto, how incredible is this?!

Jaap Blonk with Robin Minard
Isabel Bader Theatre
June 4

Kronos Quartet with Tanya Tagaq
Isabel Bader Theatre
June 12/13

Laurie Anderson
Danforth Music Hall
June 13/14

Reading this Tuesday

Ciara Adams and I will perform some old slumberish work, as well as some newer echological texts, at Plasticine Poetry Series (The Central, 603 Markham St., Toronto, 8pm). Other readers include Andrea Thompson and Phoebe Tsang.

New Monk

Meredith Monk's new CD, Impermanence, is out. NPR interview here. So much of what she does rhythmically and vocally on this album relates to where I'm playing with sound-poem drafts for echology and dear s. Reams of love and respect for MM!!

Adventures in Belgium: Brussels

After Ghent, I spent a few days in Brussels hanging out with YA novelist Leila Rasheed, whose debut Chips, Beans, and Limousines: The Fantastic Diary of Bathsheba Clarice de Trop! is quite clever, delightful, romptastic. Copious thanks to Leila for her generous hospitality!! We enjoyed a fab walking tour of Brussels, one of the most exciting meals of my life (Comocomo, where Basque cuisine is created fresh and travels on a conveyor belt), and text/dancing at the Iceland on the Edge Festival.

For the festival, we met again with Helen, Jelle, and Maja at the BOZAR, in the cavernous Henry Le Boeuf Hall (seats 2100, with a King's box) to watch several poets. First up was Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, who read his series of dictator sound poems. Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason lip-synced his Montevideo poem via video broadcast. Kristín Svava's Icelandic/English poetry was accompanied by silent video of assorted dance-film clips. And Sjón ended the evening in a wrestling mask.

Following the poetry, we moved to a smaller subterranean space for music concerts. The audience felt largely confused in such a gallery space, unsure whether to view the music as an exhibit (passive in their watching) or to move, seethe, writhe to the cacophony. Leila, Maja, and I chose the latter, as the music of Stillupsteypa and Ghostigital infected us with flail.

Other highlights from my time in Brussels included much schlepping around the city with Eiki, and a visit to Sterling Books ("the English bookshop in the heart of Brussels"), where Helen works. You can see Wide slumber and Lemon Hound on the Sterling bookshelf, below!!

Adventures in Belgium: Post-Zaoem Snapshots

Merendree: Out of the city, into rural Belgium. We wound our way through cobblestone roads and cowfields to an art gallery for the visual poetry exhibit Woord en Beeld, including work by Helen White (Krikri hostess extradordinaire) and Maja Jantar (an incredible and unclassifiable artist working in polypoetry and multimedia theatre, among other grand things). The range of work in the two-storey exhibit was impressive, and it was eye-opening to see Belgium's visual poetry scene. An excellent post-festival adventure!!

~

Wenduine: He took us to the place of his childhood, stretches of sand and flat ocean and horizon and the Flemish sky with its suspended turbulence.

~

Bruges: Rain. Green. Clean. Any tourist's medieval wet dream.

~

Ghent: We sat in the tetrahedron and, though talk was small, our past lives commingled and the subtext instinctively traced a cellular map. Longevity itudinal ing. Oh, big words. Big, big words big as Belgian hail. The sun was skyward and then it hailed and then it hailed again, the tetrahedron filled with din, our talk diminished, except. What happened next has yet to happen.

~

Partyafterparty: We made a spectacular feast, ate chocolate, and made zen gardens in red-wine salt. We improvised Jelle's klankpoezie score. Kristof, Helen, Jelle, and Maja read aloud numerous poems by Canadians, a cacophonous familiarity. Maja and I improvised on a Flemish grammar book (video below). Querida watched.

~

And so: how to return to Ghent? There's so much begs doing.

Adventures in Belgium: Maja and a.raw Improvise Flemish

Our first attempt at an improvised duet (using a Flemish grammar book) picks up midway once we suss the other's sensibilities. Hopefully we'll have more opportunities to play in the future!

Surrender strange matters

“I see that it’s important that we surrender ourselves and expose ourselves to things that we don’t necessarily understand, that through innocent, impassioned excitement we can’t help share.” – Lisa Gerrard

“To make the familiar strange, but also to use the materials of the familiar to make something highly recognizable and personal.” – Amina

“What matters isn’t what you could do but what you really did.” – Björk

Adventures in Belgium: Zaoem, Day Two

April 26th was an enchanted day for a poetry reading: warm weather, bright sky, lots of sleep, and savoury pannekoeken with Leila. Following an afternoon stroll, I prepped for the evening's performance at the Minardschouwburg. Pre-event dinner was comforting, and provided an opportunity to chat with Rozalie Hirs as well as the music performers of the evening, Ghalia and Moufadel.


Jelle Meander introduced Spanish polypoet eduard escoffet to kick off the night, and midway through his set I knew I was in love. eduard's poetry is studied and self-aware, providing performative buffers of humour between poems direct in their chaos, generous in their depths, swirling with repetition, insistence, languages rubbed into agitation/excitation. Every gesture from eduard was timed to punctuate moments in text; every movement proved necessary, careful, poignant... slow, engrossing, exact. I video-taped the end of a poem I assume was about rural cabin life, which eduard embellished by spraying some flowery air freshener. I also caught a snippet of him eating a newspaper. I missed snagging my favourite of the night, though -- "por," a list poem that ended his set. With the final lines of

por a no ser tu
por a no ser tu
por a no ser tu

eduard then stood stock still, the hiss of his tape players feeding the microphones. To stare at him in this moment had me with a rush of thought, how naked he became onstage, how potentially confrontational or open or courageous an audience member might read this gesture. And just that: like a word, eduard invited, possibly dared, each audience member to read him, to read into him, into his lit existence on that stage.

Well, that had me! Whoever programmed the evening deserved kudos for leading with eduard, a consummate performer committed to his work and so inviting to his audience.


I nearly needed a breather then, but Dutch poet and composer Rozalie Hirs was introduced, and she offered a counterpoint performance to eduard's. Rozalie focused on longer texts, looping her voice multiple times with her computer. The Dutch lyricism wove its oneiric threads around the audience, an alchemic lullaby, dulcet. I managed to snag a longer video clip of her performance, so please check below.


We'd all been invited to perform a cover text, and I'd had some last-minute hmming and haaing over what to read. Given that it was a spring night, I thought I might read my favourite Hagiwara Sakutaro poem (Hiroaki Sato translation), but indecision gripped me after Rozalie's set, as I thought how nicely Ted Berrigan's "Sonnet XXXVII" would segue between our bits. I took the intermission to wrestle with the cover, and eventually decided to go with Jordan Scott's "What is the utterance?" from blert, which had been my initial plan for some weeks. Both the cover and a favoured rendition of Wide slumber for lepidopterists went well; video clip of the slumber below.


Leevi Lehto anchored the night, proving a crowd favourite with his morphemic and lipogrammatic sound poetry. I've been looking forward to meeting Leevi, as a fan of his Google Poetry Generator and also curious about his writing practices and ntamo, so it was a pleasure to not only see him perform but also share the stage with him and chat about many things during the festival. Truly a lovely person. I started to get a little more adventurous with the video at this point (fear of running out of recording power kept my clips short early on), and so have four snippets of Leevi below. Enjoy!!

To close the evening, Tunisian musicians Ghalia and Moufadel performed Arabic music. Just gorgeous work.

Adventures in Belgium: eduard escoffet @ Zaoem

eduard escoffet performs at the Zaoem Polypoetry Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

Adventures in Belgium: Rozalie Hirs @ Zaoem

Rozalie Hirs performs at the Zaoem Polypoetry Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

Adventures in Belgium: a.rawlings @ Zaoem

I perform at the Zaoem Polypoetry Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

Adventures in Belgium: Leevi Lehto @ Zaoem

Leevi Lehto performs at the Zaoem Polypoetry Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

Adventures in Belgium: Zaoem, Day One

Day one of Zaoem: Poëzie van Nu (an international polypoetry festival) featured the unveiling of a visual poetry exhibit, readings by Flemish and Dutch poets, and an open stage. Before the festival began, I enjoyed a tour of Poëziecentrum, the regional poetry facility with library, performance space, and bookshop. The tour's highlight included an historical exhibit of experimental Flemish poetry from the last 150 years.

Pre-festival dinner found introductions to many Zaoem participants, including Mark Insingel, Vrouwkje Tuinman, Stijn Vranken, Leevi Lehto, and eduard escoffet. Leevi, eduard, and I wandered Ghent before planting ourselves at the Flemish/Dutch reading. I was particularly entranced by the poets' use of pause as they read. All voices felt quiet, intimate and invitational, and they used silence in most delicious ways.

The visual poetry exhibit was a super introduction to several new works I'd not yet seen, and it was neat to see the works crisply displayed on computer screens, sliding one after another.

Adventures in Belgium: Ghent Arrival

I arrived in Ghent on April 24th, met by visual poet/Krikriian/Zaoem co-organizer Helen White. After a bumpy wander to the hotel (dragging my suitcase over cobblestone), Helen and I took a tram downtown this Flemish city to find dinner on a boat-turned-restaurant. For the uninitiated (read: me), Ghent's a maze of canals, dollhouse architecture, chocolateries, and curving streets; I was instantly charmed despite directional confusion.

While checking the vegetarian status of numerous menu options, polypoet/Krikriian/Zaoem co-organizer "Dr." Jelle "Meander" arrived to dazzle us with overlong fiscally inclined Flemish vocabulary. Dinner proved to be the first of a string of delicious meals; Ghent was kind to this vegetarian.

Jelle and Helen gave me a night tour of the city after dinner (including Helen's favourite tree), which included a surprise stop at The Logos Foundation. A tetrahedron-shaped concert hall, Logos was founded by Godfried-Willem Raes and Moniek Darge. I had a love-at-first-sight experience upon entering this space: robotic orchestra. I could barely keep my eyes in my sockets. After a few pictures, it was agreed I should return the following day to have a wee tour of the facility.

And so, after a peaceful sleep, that's what I did! I met with local composers Kristof Lauwers and Sebastian Bradt (who both work with Logos) and had an excellent introduction to their music and magic. I filmed a little of the instruments at work, as well as a brief interview with Kristof where he tells me some instruments' pet names. Clips below.

The Zaoem Festival had not begun yet, and I'd already met four fascinating people with whom I'd like to spend more time and collaborate. Ahhh, Ghent!

Adventures in Belgium: Kristof Lauwers' Burden Birds @ Logos

Kristof Lauwers' "Burden Birds" performed by the robotic orchestra at the Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium.

Adventures in Belgium: Sebastian Bradt @ Logos

An excerpt from a Sebastian Bradt composition performed by the robotic orchestra at the Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium.

Adventures in Belgium: Logos Foundation Tour

Kristof Lauwers introduces the robotic orchestra at Logos Foundation.

KSW's Positions Colloquium

I'm convinced more and more everyday that Vancouver's a pretty fantastic place to exist, and the announcement of this upcoming colloquium is my daily affirmation. Organized by the Kootenay School of Writing, the Positions Colloquium is "thematically open-ended," and will include readings, talks, panels, and performances over a five-day period this August. The list of invited participants has me scratching my head on how I can get myself west this summer to witness the event. Cross-Canada road trip, anyone?

Flemish recap

I'm in Brussels currently, relaxing after a week of Belgian mischief with many wonderful writers and composers in Ghent and an Icelandic connection dans Bruxelles. I'll post with more detail soon, but in the interim, Flemish poet Tine Moniek! reports on her experience of the Zaoem Polypoetry Festival.

Já, Eiki!

Congratulations to Eiríkur for snagging the Icelandic translation prize for Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn.

I have an article on my early poetic adventures in collaboration in the new Gig anthology, ANTIPHONIES: Essays on Women's Experimental Poetries in Canada. Details from Nate Dorward, the publisher:

Antiphonies is a primer on some of the most exciting work in contemporary Canadian poetry. These essays deal with the period from the 1980s to the present, and discussa wide range of work, from books already acclaimed as modern classics--such as ErinMouré's O Cidadán, Lisa Robertson's Debbie: An Epic, and Karen Mac Cormack's Implexures--to the equally remarkable work of Susan Clark, Catriona Strang, LissaWolsak, Christine Stewart, Deanna Ferguson, Lise Downe, Nancy Shaw, a.rawlings,Marie Annharte Baker and others. The essays are complemented by brief selections of poems, interviews and poetics statements. Contributors include Gerald Bruns, Miriam Nichols, Edward Byrne, John Hall, Susan Schultz, Caroline Bergvall, Chris Daniels, Peter Larkin, Peter O'Leary, and many others. A full table of contents is available at http://www.ndorward.com/poetry/books/antiphonies.htm.

*256pp, 5.5" x 8.75", perfectbound; ISBN 978-0-9735875-4-8.

$20 CDN/US (includes postage in North America) £16 / 23 euro (includes airmail overseas). Make out cheques to Nate Dorward (not "The Gig").

linh dinh on english

linh dinh's been influential in pushing my thought to tricky areas, and for this i'm most thankful. his recent post to the harriet blog is incredible, and has my brain active as i process. i encourage you to check it out!

Countdown: Zaoem in Belgium

I'm en route to the Zaoem Polypoetry Festival in Ghent, Belgium (April 25-26), where I'll join poets from Belgium, the Netherlands, and other foreign locales. Festival cohorts include Eduard Escoffet, Rozalie Hirs, Mark Insingel, Leevi Lehto, Tonnus Oosterhoff, Maggie O'Sullivan, Vrouwkje Tuinman, Peter Verhelst, and Stijn Vranken. Zoom zoom zaoem!!

Zaoem poster photo courtesy Helen White, one of the excellent festival organizers.

Gadzooks! talks poetry

Gadzooks!, an online arts publication, offers an article written by Lisa Young on the Toronto poetry scene. The article features interviews with Dani Couture, Paul Vermeersch, and me.

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).

Review of Trent's poetry symposium

There's an all-encompassing review/report posted online of last weekend's Doing It in Public: Trent University's Performance Poetry Symposium. It includes a goofy/lovely image of Ciara and me hoosh-haaaing.

Reykjavík! in Toronto!

Conor and I are pleased to host Reykjavík!, visiting Toronto for Canadian Music Week. Catch them at the Rivoli (Saturday, 2am) or Kathedral (Saturday, 11pm).

pescisomniac

...sleeps with the fishes?

Feature on ditch,

John Goodman's ditch, a poetry resource and online magazine run out of Newfoundland, has featured my work for the month of March 2008.

Trent University Symposium: Poetry in Performance

In you're in Peterborough this weekend, please join me at Trent University for poetry panel discussions, workshops, and performances.

samamidon's saro

love sam amidon's sense of humour, nico muhly's arrangement, and appalachian folk.

Anthology: A Sing Economy

Flim Forum Press has launched its second annual poetry anthology, A Sing Economy (ISBN 978-0-9790888-1-0, 7 x 9, 256 pages, $18). The anthology includes a new collaboration between françois luong and me. Contributors include:

kate schapira, barrett gordon, jennifer karmin, stephanie strickland, mathew timmons, kaethe schwehn, harold abramowitz, amanda ackerman, jaye bartell, jessica smith, david pavelich, erin m. bertram, laura sims, deborah poe, a.rawlings, francois luong, michael slosek, kevin thurston, hannah rodabaugh, and tawrin baker, and films by scott puccio

Two readings this week

York University: I read with Matt Shaw and Jacob Scheier for students in the HUMA 2900 creative writing workshop (Vanier Renaissance Room, 9:30am, Monday).

Art Bar Poetry Series: I read with Jay Ruzesky and David Silverberg (Clinton's, Toronto, 8pm, Tuesday) .

plunderasure

a couple of years ago, i joined john barlow's listserv riverspine, and after awhile of lurking felt moved to respond to kemeny babineau's depraved reportpoem about muskovie ducks and father's nuts through an erasure exercise. and so, my first post on riverspine came in response-poem format:

so his or i
"hose my"
but i as i text
as he we now my

we us i
2 us law
know he petit
as we as we
aching he cut rod
woman i land 14

my me or oat
test free i
he ten hit or
or at at o

so i ate as we lean
so i 26
if he
"hose my"

be,
a.raw

today's erasure has me mulling over my treated-text habits. as you can see, i'm obsessed with exposing persona and possession when i erase. i'm also big on repetition, and i love digging out small, oft-used words.

armchair psychology, anyone?

TANGENT #1: i recall browsing poetry shelves in an evil chain bookstore several years ago, and jotting down each instance of a title constructed thusly:

The _____ of _____

why is this such a popular "poetry" title construct?

TANGENT #2: i'll sometimes go through my own texts and highlight if, and, or, the... i was fascinated with the number of times or and of appeared as connective tissue in scientific syntax while i researched LOGYoLOGY. i even bold-faced these words in an index in 2001.

TANGENT #3: thinking about this more and more, i just can't shake my obsession with the minute. wide slumber's fifth segment is chockfull of dissecting and inspecting the wee. the becomes th; and becomes nd. minute under microscope, surfaced, present. in fact a torrent a flutter or frenzy "of 'a' or 'th': th 'of' of 'a' or 'th' of 'or' / a 'th' of th 'th' or th 'of' or th 'a'."

THE POINT OF THE POST: can anyone recommend a solid essay/article/book on the history of treated text? i'm thinking of something that documents/discusses the poetics of ronald johnson's radi os, tom phillips' a humument, erasure exercises, plunderverse, etc. etc. etc. greg touches on a history in his "cartographic manifesto"; anyone have pointers for other texts?

also, who wants to edit the wikipedia entry on erasure poetry?

new lake

UBC Okanagan offers a new arts and environment journal: Lake.

found

noticing them wherever i go, i now see the use
of computer images. text is
supported by images. images are augmented with
undefined. this means
that I am writing about nothing which is

behind Golden Ears sun-drenched the Pacific the Pacific

terrible noises for beautiful people: cobra edition

Last spring, I participated in Misha Glouberman's vocal improv workshop in John Zorn's Cobra. Rose Bianchini offers this short documentary of the 8-week workshop.

vegagerðin æsti mig.

gleðilegt nýtt ár! obsession for the new year: vegagerðin keeps us up-to-date on weather and road conditions.