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Posts Tagged ‘poetry in Ottawa’
“Ottawa is a poetry town.”
VERSeFest is bringing O-Town’s wide-ranging poetry communities together with a festival full of readings, performances, slam, spoken word, workshops for kids, discussions and much, much more. If you want it, and it’s connected to poetry, then VERSeFest has it. And they also have some big plans for the future.
Running at the Arts Court (2 Daly Avenue) from Tuesday, March 8th until Sunday, March 11th (with pre-festival shows starting today and tomorrow, March 5th and 6th), VERSeFest has 20 events, each sponsored by one of the 14 groups that make up VERSe Ottawa.
The festival kicks off at 7 pm, Tuesday, March 8th with World Slam Champion Ian Keteku, David McGimpsey, Brad Morden, and recent Ottawa Book Award (English) winner Craig Poile.
“Ottawa is a poetry town,” says organizer Rod Pederson. “We put the numbers together and realized that somewhere between 600 to 1000 people attend poetry events here every month. And we have a line-up for our first year that is a bounty of diversity and talent, including the current winners of the Governor General Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. (Richard Greeen and Karen Solie, Tree Reading, Saturday, March 12.)
Formed in 2010, VERSe Ottawa came together when, “A number of poets and organizers felt the need for our poetry community to have a common voice,” says VO’s Jessica Ruanno. “And VERSe Ottawa works to better promote Ottawa’s wide-ranging poetry community, to act as an effective voice and to provide support to those involved. And what better way to promote the community than with VERSeFest.”
Photo by Jennifer Huzera
One of the many different groups that makes up VERSeFest is In/Words (Tuesday, March 8, 9 pm). For Justin Million, “VERSeFest is an opportunity for us to come together, with Moose and Pussy and Apt. 9 Press, to promote local poets. Michael Dennis and Ben Ladouceur were chosen to read because I feel they may be two of the finest poets in the city who do not receive enough attention for their incredible bodies of work. The festival lets us introduce them to new audiences.”
Apt. 9 Press publishes limited edition, hand stitched, poetry and fiction chapbooks and will be unveiling their first broadsides that night. Says Cameron Anstee, press founder, “I’m thrilled to work with Michael and Ben and it means the world to me that they trust me with their work.”
Wednesday night starts with Voices of Venus, a reading series which celebrates women writers who focus on poetry and spoken word. They are organizing an all-erotica performance with Beth Anne Fischer and a line-up of women writers.
Christine McNair and Sandra Ridley will follow at 9 pm (with blUe mOnday, and they are both reading as part of the AB Series pre-festival event). Says Christine, “I’m looking forward to seeing the other events and readings at VERSeFest. There seems to be a wide-range of participants and I’m all for eclectic diversity. And possibly balloons.”
Christine McNair
Ditto for Sandra, “By virtue of the fact that two different events are being highlighted each night, at the same venue, there will be an overlap of audiences. And I’m looking forward to reading to different audiences who I might not usually get to see. And to see other readers, of course.”
And on it goes for the whole week, though it’s not just about readings, page, stage or otherwise.
For rob mclennan (Factory Reading Series, Friday, March 11, 7pm, featuring Marcus McCann and Monty Reid), VERSeFest is a chance to do something different. “I’ve been wanting to run a lecture series for a decade now, &, through VERSeFest, finally have the opportunity to begin. With so much of the festival featuring performances, I thought it would be an interesting mix to ask some local and locally-known writers to discuss writing, to allow the audience some deeper and/or different perspectives into how they (Marcus and Monty) might approach the craft itself.”
Monty Reid and Marcus McCann
Likewise for Dave O’Meara (Plan 99 Reading Series, Saturday, March 12, 5pm), who will be hosting a discussion on words and music (with guests Jim Bryson, Mike Dubue and Megan Jerome). “Lyrics are a form of poetry, and I wanted to get some songwriters together to ask them how they write their songs, but from a word angle rather than a music angle.”
Adds Dave, in his role as a festival organizer, “We hope that our festival of poetry, by emphasizing original thought, bold oration, startling imagery, fresh, innovative language and artful phrasing, will represent another articulate part of the extensive culture of music, dance, theatre, visual arts and literature here in our city.”
David McGimpsey
If that’s not ambitious enough for six months of hard work, the future holds more. “Our intention,” says Rod Pederson, “is to become an international festival, drawing on the strength of page and stage poets from across the world, while still focusing on Canada and showcasing the Ottawa region.”
For a full schedule of events and ticket information, check out the VERSeFest site.
2010 Capital Slam Team,
Capital Slam: Saturday, March 12, 9 pm
The pre-festival fun begins today (March 5, at 7pm) and tomorrow, with the AB Series Reading Series, featuring reading and “playback, a poetry reading” which will see seven different poets reading, reconfiguring and responding to Michelle Provost’s new work: playlist.
And if that’s not ekphrasis to the nth degree, then I no longer have a hat.
Looking back and looking within…
As the new year begins, and I am looking back on what has been accomplished and covered over the past 12 months over at Ottawa Tonite, and I am really forced to examine why anyone would want a space like this to exist. What is the value of showcasing Ottawa artists and experiencing art?
What I’ve learned above all else through maintaining this online space - is that as human beings we all have this constant need to express and really struggle with how to do it effectively.Whether it is the like-minded people that we seek, or a place to learn more and get some new ideas – getting our emotions “out there” is essential to our well-being. Artists are actually designed to help us with that.
The artists that I have met and have been lucky enough to work with in Ottawa have depth and sensitivity that shapes their art. They struggle just like the rest of us, to express what they are feeling…and often feel things with a higher intensity. Luckily for us (and them) these people have the ability to express what they perceive - whether it’s through performance or written words - singing or speaking to us – capturing a visual or writing it all down for us to read and share. They live and breath for their art. They have figured-out how to shout it from the rooftops.
For anyone who has ever attempted to describe impact of a moment and what it is that brings tears to the eyes, or a warm feeling and new hope – it can be a relief to read a poem or song lyrics – and to hear those emotions accurately described by someone who has a gift for words or an eye for an image that speaks to for us.
Thank you to the artitsts for their work and to the incredible contributors of Ottawa Tonite for your interest and your passion throughout the past year. You are really giving us all something that we are looking for - helping us find a balance in life. This is why I want to continue to dig-in and learn from this community. You are sharing what you do naturally, and we are all benefitting.
Cheryl
CFSW 2010: Youth Workshop and Showcase
Article by Emily Kwissa
Anyone who is acquainted with Ian Keteku knows that he is a pretty awesome guy. The first time I heard him perform was in Calgary in 2008, when he performed his poem “My Name is Ian” for a national stage.
Two years later, I still freakin’ love that poem, and frequently reacquaint myself with it via YouTube.
I love Ian. He’s a great example of how poets should hold themselves (on and off the stage), and, most importantly, he is equally generous in giving the spotlight to other people as he is in taking it himself.
He started the youth workshop with an introduction of everyone in the room. What’s your name? How old are you? What insect would you be if you could be any kind of insect?
“This is not a poetry workshop,” he says, “this is boot camp.”
Indeed, the question of what insect we would be is pretty labour-intense. After merely saying it, everyone had to take ten minutes to explain why they chose the insect that they did. When asked if it needed to be a poem, Ian stated only, “There are no guidelines.”
For someone who is in high school, this was a miracle of a workshop. Teachers should be taking a leaf out of Ian Keteku’s book. Never have I seen youth – from ages ten to nineteen – so engaged, so willing to be vulnerable, so actively participating in the process of expressing themselves. Ian Keteku gave the participants a space to decide for themselves whether their explanations would come in the form of a paragraph or a poem, to decide for themselves whether they chose an insect in the heat of the moment (some did), or because the insect they chose embodied who they are (or who they want to be).
“If you’re done,” he says, “take a look at your work. Is there something to add? Are there spelling mistakes? Is the grammar good? Is this something you would perform onstage?” No judgement. He’s not saying the pieces should be longer, the spelling and grammar more accurate, or that making the piece appropriate for an onstage performance should be a prerequisite for writing. He is asking questions. Demanding that the participants think about their writing.
And everyone was so excited! These are kids who have sat in classrooms where there is a definite right and wrong, and everything must be graded and evaluated and crunched into numbers. Here, the process itself is the evaluation. How do you feel when you’re writing? Why are you choosing the words that you are?
And, finally, “Does anyone want to share?”
The workshop continued with a discussion about differences in opinions. Ian would make a statement, and the participants would move to one side of the room if they agreed, and another if they disagreed. This was a fascinating exercise to watch.
First statement: “Slurpees are good.”
Put a bunch of kids in a room and you expect everyone to agree with the statement, “Slurpees are good.” However, attendance to the “agree” side of the room was sporadic. One girl stood closer to the “disagree” side because she didn’t like slurpees, but she didn’t hate them. Another stood between the middle of the room and the “disagree” side because she likes the taste, but not the artificial sugars that make it. A few stood between the middle and the “agree” side because they didn’t know what slurpees are.
Second statement: “Bullying has gotten better in the past two years.”
No one stood on the “agree” side. A few stood between “agree” and the middle, a few stood directly in the middle, and the majority stood firmly on the “disagree” side. I have noticed, in the three years that I have attended the festival, that the poems about oppression are frequently examining race and gender. I noticed, at this workshop, that there are children who are being oppressed by virtue of the fact that the adult world does not allow children to speak for themselves.
Third statement: “Canada is a great country.”
The majority stood in the middle for this one. The general consensus was that Canadians have many rights, but we are also subjected to many injustices, and allow injustices in other countries to continue to occur.
The lesson here was that there is a plethora of opinions. After the participants had once again taken their seats, Ian explained the importance of understanding that it is impossible for everyone to totally agree with one statement, but that this did not mean opinions shouldn’t be stated.
“It’s okay to say things that not everyone will agree with,” he said.
When the youth showcase rolled around, I saw this same group of people aged ten to nineteen perform a wonderful variety of poems that expressed a wonderful variety of opinions and experiences. The showcase opened with Lanark County alternate Satinka Schilling, the youngest poet ever to qualify for a team at CFSW, performing two pieces about the different kinds of love and the importance of connecting ourselves to the greater collection of voices. Then, Pan, the leading effort behind the Youth Poetry Slam in Toronto, performed a piece about the loss of innocence, and the desire to keep children optimistic and hopeful. Then, four features performed – Dora, the poetic dynamo I saw perform at the International Women’s Day festivities in Lanark County, Alex, the wise young man who demands that we do not judge a book by its cover, Sarah, the musical, existential poet, and Fadia (God I hope I’m spelling that right), the woman whose words “speak for themselves”. After the features came an open mic segment that saw a bridging of the gap between child and adult.
Yesterday’s workshop and showcase erased the prejudice of years, and made us all people, sharing and emoting the way poets are meant to.
Video courtesy Youtube
CFSW 2010 Ottawa – Francophone Showcase
Élise Gauthier (poet, actor, director) attended the first evening of performances at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.
The following poem is her reaction to the evening’s festivities, illustrating the range of emotions, reactions one undergoes at a slam poetry event.
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Ottawa Tonite is the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s official media sponsor.
Check back for updates, blog entries, photos, and videos until Saturday, October 16. For more information, please visit www.cfsw.ca
Ottawa’s Lumière Festival will leave you feeling “light on your feet”
Ottawa’s New Edinburgh Park hosts the much-anticipated official start of the Lumière Festival this evening! The spoken word curator for the festival is Jessica Ruano. I wanted to know more about the spoken word aspect of the event, and Jessica’s response was to send me an incredible poem that touches on the theme assigned to participants in the festival.
segments
single out
each particular moment in time
sitting in a sweet coffee shop
waiting for company
drinking tea
time for a change
back to remembering
i can keep my nails sharp for awhile
if you like
it’s no trouble
it’s no concern of yours if i have trouble
walking at your running pace
that’s what bicycles are for
until we get too old to peddle
what then? what now?
i’m lost until the fall
until i start flying again
i found wings once
and now you
Jessica Ruano:
“We were told to write about ascension, heavenly bliss, reaching toward a state of perfection, as the poets will be stationed in that section of the tour that is, essentially, an exploration of death, the underworld, afterlife, and rebirth. Some poets already had poems that fit the bill; others are writing brand new ones. Either way, each one should be a little gem of a performance.”
As the festival site indicates, there has been a full month of preparation for the Evening of Light Celebration happening tonight - September 4th.
There are lantern-making and performance workshops, and community outreach initiatives designed to bring people together to celebrate “light” and community. What does that really mean for participants?
“What can I say about the festival? From what I understand, it is designed to be a celebration of light in all its forms. Literally, from the lanterns that will cover the entire park, with a beautiful glow reflected along the river…to the celebration of illuminating artistic genres: poetry, dance, theatre, storytelling, and visual art installations.”
Poets participating in the festival’s spoken word tour (all from the Ottawa/Gatineau region) are:
Mehdi Hamdad
Brad Morden
Ian Keteku
Faye Estrella
Mélanie Rivet
Graeme O’Farrell
This will prove to be a very illuminating community experience, and will indeed leave you feeling “light on your feet” with the magic of the night.
Photo courtesy to Fernando Farfan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/farfando/
Artists participating in the 2010 festival are listed here: http://lumiereottawa.com/artists/
More from Jessica Ruano can be found on her blog: The Most Exquisite Moments
the most exquisite adorkable poetry
The Spoken Word Plot presents the poetic stylings of Ottawa-based writers/performers Nadine Thornhill and Jessica Ruano. Both feisty and thoughtful, these poetesses bring their personal stories to the stage with an adorkable elegance and a hint of mischief. This event takes place on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at JR’s Downstairs Pub, 385 Ottawa Street in Almonte, Ontario. Doors open at 6pm with an open mic stage at 6:30pm, followed by the feature performers. Admission is $5, and free for open mic participants.
Nadine Thornhill is an award winning playwright
(“The Wedding Night” and “Oreo”) and actor.
By day, she is the Program Co-ordinator for
Planned Parenthood’s Insight Theatre. She was
the feature poet at Voices of Venus in January
2010, and she writes the sex-advice column
“Dirty Laundry” for Apartment 613.
Nadine also blogs at “Adorkable Thespian”
http://nadinethornhill.wordpress.com/
Jessica Ruano is a writer of press releases,
newspaper articles, brochures, romantic emails,
academic papers, and – occasionally – of short
stories and poetry. She was the feature poet at
Voices of Venus in July 2009, then at the
Newstalgica Series in October 2009. And she has
a soft spot for haikus.
Jessica also writes the Ottawa Arts Newsletter
and blogs at “the most exquisite moments”
http://jessicaruano.wordpress.com/
The Spoken Word Plot was founded in 2008 by Danielle K. L. Grégoire.
The open-mic theme for this month’s show is “the beginning of your poetry.” Poets are
encouraged to bring old and new pieces that represent the evolution of their writing style.
For more information, or to RSVP for the event, please contact Jessica Ruano
by phone at 613 355 2531 or by email at ruano.jessica@gmail.com
