River City Writer

Tomorrow night is the Roar. It’s gonna be an ass-kicker. Because I’m shameless, I’m pimping the shows that I’m involved in. Check out the Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque (details above), where I’ll be tearing up the stage with Michael Appleby, Nicole Pakan, and Patrick Pilarski. It will be a barn-burner, a pants-dropper, and a mind-blower.

Immediately following that event will be Night Moves, a show that I’m hosting at the same venue. Night Moves features Corine Demas, Laurie MacFayden, and Lisa Pruden. These women know how to rock it. They will blow your mind. Confessions and confusions about sexuality, identity, nostalgia, femininity, and the journeys in between. It’s not to be missed. I’m left breathless whenever I hear one of them read, and I’m proud to be able to present them to the festival with this show.

For complete event listings and show times, check out the Roar schedule.

It is officially Edmonton Poetry Week. This means that I’m going to be busier than usual, as I’m going to be attending events, and also performing in one, and producing/hosting another. I will try to blog about the Festival as much as possible, but my posts might be sporadic, and may not be published at the usual 10:00am (Mountain Time) publishing time.

In the meantime, here’s a brief listing of some of the events that I’m hoping to check out. There are a few that I probably won’t get out to, just because of the time and location at which they’re occurring, but hopefully those constraints won’t stop you from checking things out.

CORTEX - Cortex is a multidisciplinary event, featuring poetry, visual & video art, music, and dance. I know a few of the people involved, and they’re all insane geniuses (some more insane than others, but all artistic geniuses, in my opinion). Cortex occurs today at Latitude 53 (2nd Floor, 10248 – 106 Street), from 7-9:30pm. Admission is $5.

Poets Across Borders - Showcasing the incredible cultural and ethnic diversity that exists in Edmonton, Poets Across Borders teams poets from Sudan, Pakistan, Croatia, the Phillipines, Chile, Kurdistan, India, and the Caribbean with English-speaking poets to perform collaborative works. I believe that the writers who have come from non-English countries will be performing in their native languages, but I’m not 100% sure about that. Poets Across Borders will be performing daily, at noon on CBC Centre Stage in City Centre Mall.

The Roar Spoken Word Festival - On Friday, September 21, the dynamo of spoken word and performance poetry in Edmonton is back for a 3rd year. A 3 hour literary pub crawl across the downtown core, the Roar features the best and brightest poets from Edmonton, and beyond. A blowout finale party featuring the Raving Poets Band follows the pub crawl. The finale will be held at Axis Cafe (10349 Jasper Avenue).

Small Words, Big Moments - Edmonton-based DailyHaiku launches it’s first ever print edition on Saturday, September 22. Current editors, and poetic power couple, Patrick Pilarski and Nicole Pakan host a Zen-like afternoon of tea and haiku at Cafe Select (8404 109th Street). A haiku workshop will follow the readings.

Coffee Lines Stroll - 40 readers, 4 coffee shops, 2 hours. Some of Edmonton’s most prolific poets will be out in full force on Sunday, September 23 from 2-4pm. Check the event web page for locations and a full list of readers.

For a full listing of Edmonton Poetry Week events, visit the www.edmontonpoetryfestival.com.

Last night, I was at a meeting with some of my fellow poets to finalize the details of our show for this year’s Roar Festival—Patrick Pilarski’s “The Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque,” which I am performing in. I’m also producing a show called “Night Moves,” which will take place immediately after the Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque. Both of this shows will be absolutely kickin’.

Because I was at this meeting, and because the Roar is only 7 days away, there is little else on my mind. Next week is Edmonton Poetry Week. The Roar will be the highlight of the week, but there is a lot of other stuff happening that week, as well. Check out the schedule for full event listings.

There will be something for everyone at this year’s Edmonton Poetry Festival, as well as at the Roar. Both festivals include a wide range of poetry. If you’re into confessionals, you’ll be able to see that. If you love Zen and haiku, you’ll find some of that, as well. And, of course, there will be a full metric tonne of ass-kicking performance poetry going on during the Roar.

If you think that you don’t like poetry, I invite you to check out any of the events happening at Three Bananas Cafe during the Roar. It will be the poetic equivalent of a rock show. You might find that you like poetry after all.

The Labour Day long weekend marks the tragic end of summer in Champion City. While it’s not technically the end of summer, it might as well be. All of the summer festivals are over. The sky gets dark before 10pm. The cold slowly starts to creep back into the air (though, I do like the “crispness” of an autumn morning).

The beginning of autumn in Edmonton does, however, have some good points. To me, autumn means long, aimless walks. The river valley is great for this, though I actually prefer wandering around downtown with a hot cup of coffee and a good friend to chat with. Maybe it’s because I’m not-so-secretly in love with the concrete, but walking the Core with the leaves on the ground, and a scarf around my neck is one of my favourite things in the world.

Autumn also means that the CFL is in full swing. For some reason, I never really pay attention to football until the Labour Day Classic, even though the season actually starts in the summer. This year, I’ve paid enough attention to know that the Esks aren’t doing as well as they usually do. But, after last season, I’m not overly surprised. I blame the loss of Jason Maas (okay, not really, but it does seem like the team has gone downhill since he was traded to the Ti-Cats).

Even though the summer festivals are over, that doesn’t mean that Festival City is suddenly devoid of festivals in the fall. September brings with it the Edmonton Poetry Festival, as well as the Roar Spoken Word Festival (this year’s schedule was posted recently—check it out).

Let me know what you like to in Edmonton in the fall, and I’ll do a “round-up” style post in the near future, using your suggestions. Leave a comment, or send me an email to tell me what your favourite River City autumn activities are.

The University of Alberta has a new Writer-in-Residence as the 2007-2008 school year comes to an open next week. His name is rob mclennan.

Rob is a writer of poetry and fiction, and his new blog, Alberta, Writing, seems to indicate that he’s ready to throw himself into the Edmonton literary scene with gusto. He’s also offered to be a source for River City Writer. Rob’s going to try and keep me in-the-know with regard to readings around town, and I’ll pass that information on to you.

I’ll also be feeding rob with lies and secrets about the Edmonton literati, so that he can spread news around the University, and tell people just how awesome the scene here in Edmonton is.

On a related note, I’d like to thank whoever it was who directed rob to River City Writer. Hopefully, this little relationship will prove beneficial for everyone involved.

Author’s note: I’ve been informed that it should be “rob mclennan,” not “Rob McLennan,” and have edited this entry accordingly. I’m still capitalizing “rob” when it’s the first word in a sentence, though.

It is now almost exactly 1 month until the 2007 Roar Spoken Word Festival rocks River City[1]. The festival’s new website was launched recently, so I figured I’d point you all in that direction.

For those of you who may be unaware, the Roar is Edmonton’s premiere spoken word festival. Hell, it’s really the only spoken word festival in Edmonton. It may be the only one in Western Canada. Calgary has a poetry festival, and Edmonton has Poetry Week (of which the Roar is a part), but neither of those festivals are devoted exclusively to the spoken word. Calgary also has a spoken word festival, but I’m inclined to say that the Roar is 10 times cooler.

The Roar isn’t necessarily about the genre of performance poetry that is referred to as Spoken Word. It’s about the spoken word more generally. This means any poetry that is meant to be read/performed aloud. This includes traditional slam poetry, as well as confessionals, Zen-readings, hip hop, sound poetry, and more.

The Roar isn’t just about poetry, it’s about taking the words off of the page, and bringing them to life–brutally and violently, if necessary.

If you don’t have plans for September 21, 2007, you should check out the Roar, happening in downtown Edmonton from 7pm until approximately whenever we get kicked out of our final venue. If you do have plans, you should break them.

*****

[1] Disclosure: I am involved in the planning and implementation of the Roar festival. I’m also a performer.

River City Writer was in Calgary on Saturday, doing a reading at the first of the Slarkz Saturday Showcases. I’ve got to say that they’ve got a cool thing going with this six week series of concerts/poetry readings. I had a great time doing my reading (though, I have to admit, it was definitely not my best performance ever), and the bands that I saw were pretty kickin’, so you should definitely check it out if you have a chance.

In fact, Lara T told me that she’s looking for more poets and spoken word artists to perform at the festival, and asked me to spread the word among the Edmonton scene. The whole thing has a very punk rock vibe about it, so I think the ass-kicking rebels from the Raving Poets will be the ones who’ll fit in best with the rest of the performers. If you’re interested, send Lara an email.

If you do decide to read, keep in mind that it’s an outdoor venue, in a public park. There will be children and families present, so the language has to be “family friendly.” I, unthinkingly, violated this unspoken rule within about 10 seconds of taking the stage, and let slip a few more even after the rule had moved from unspoken to, well, spoken. It wasn’t exactly a huge controversy, but swearing in your poems should be avoided as much as possible while performing at the Saturday Showcases.

Having participated in the festival series, and having poked around the Slakrz’s website, I’ve found myself inspired to get more involved in the scene here in Edmonton. I’ve been reading for a few years now, and I’ve had a minor role in organizing the Roar, but I’d like to do more.

I’d like to make realties of some of the things that have been on the back of my mind. I’ve actually already done a lot of thinking about a charity poetry slam idea that came up during a conversation with some of my poetic peers a while back. And, I’d like to organize some sort of regularly occurring poetry sweatshop type deal. I’m not sure where or when these things will happen, yet, but I really want to make them real. Stay tuned to River City Writer for more details.

Attention Edmonton Poets! The Downtown Business Association (DBA) wants your poems. Not just any old poems, either. They want your urban poetry. The poems must be about downtown Edmonton, which, if you ask me, is great.

When people think of poetry from Alberta, they tend to think of odes to the canola fields, or harsh tales of working on the oil sands. Of course, there is nothing wrong with those types of poems, but despite the stereotypes, Alberta is an urban province.

The vast majority of Albertans live in urban centres–mostly Edmonton and Calgary–so it only makes sense that we start producing art that reflects that fact. I happen to know several artists who have taken this to heart, and create work that reflects upon Alberta’s urban areas. Mike Gravel’s StreetRag is the first project that comes to mind, but it’s certainly not the only one.

Besides, the DBA is an organization that promotes downtown Edmonton, so it only makes sense that they’d commission work about the city’s core.

The prize consists of publication of the poem in the DBA Newsletter, $50 in Downtown Dollars, and a $50 gift certificate for TIX on the Square. The poem will also be read during the opening ceremonies of the Edmonton Poetry Festival. According to the Edmonton Journal, a $50 gift certificate for one downtown restaurant is also part of the prize, but it isn’t listed on the DBA website, so I can’t confirm that.

The content deadline is 4pm, August 17, 2007. For full details, visit the Downtown Business Association website.