Poetry is alive, young, and sexy

Amanda Earl nicely posted about this on her blog here.
Hopefully this is the party favour she's after.

In/Words Magazine and Press is proud to present Ottawa’s best young literary talent at the Avant-Garde Bar on March 29th. We're publishing more works this month than in all of 2006, and we'll be celebrating this milestone with an open mic featuring music, prose and poetry. Join us.

In/Words has gathered an eclectic collective of prolific, young writers, all of whom contribute to the creative community quickly growing at Carleton University. It is being fostered by weekly writer’s circles and events such as the open mic, which normally takes place the last Thursday of every month.

“They all look really sexy on-stage,” says Jeff Blackman, writer and regular at the monthly event.

One such “sexy” writer is Mark Sokolowski, whose poem is featured below. This poem is included in his chapbook entitled Pruning the Catalpa. It is one of the many publications available for free on March 29th.

This also marks the release of the second issue of Blank Page, the magazine’s sister publication. Blank Page exclusively features first year students from Carleton University.

“It feels great to be published by Blank Page,” quotes Caitlin Oleson, “As a first year undergrad, it’s nice to get a word in edgewise once in awhile.”

In/Words has hosted a wide variety of performers including Juno-award winner Buck 65 in November of 2005.

S&M
Mark Sokolowski

Don’t try
and tell me Mother
Nature’s not
into kink –

I’ve seen the red
and purple welts
left from the way
she makes the
sun go down on her.

Blood Transfusions

I read an article in this week's issue of Macleans about Jehovah's Witnesses refusing life saving blood transfusions because they believed it was against what the Bible said. They once published an article in their magazine Awake! citing 24 cases wherein children had died as a result of refusing blood transfusions. The catch is that they labelled them as martyrs. This to me seems problematic and is one of the main reasons institutionalised religions have such a bad rap. The fundamentals aren't so bad; it's the human interpretations and dogmas that lead to child "martyrs." Anyways, here's a found poem from the certificate they sign refusing transfusions:

Found Poem: No Blood Transfusions

“No Blood Transfusion!
As a God-fearing Christian and a believer of Jehovah’s
word, the Bible, I hereby demand that blood, in any
way, shape or form, is NOT to be fed into my body;
however, blood substitutes may be used in case of
extreme loss of blood.
‘YOU MUST NOT EAT THE BLOOD OF ANY SORT OF FLESH’”

Supposing one signed this and promptly died
could we consider that suicide? Paraphrasing,

I hereby wilfully submit my life by refusing treatment.

How does one see hope in this religion?

The John Newlove Award

First the "award winning" poem, then my thoughts.

at the pizzeria : 100% real juice

( to J. Barlow’s once poetics )

cut loose th’ guywires

dull grey-braided

& steel’d

lily put grave

pompous scalpel voice :

de- / viners / finers / viders

( lovers plead tears )

pass the salt, shaker / no, it’s not on the menu

act - u - ally

yr bald head look leads

to a dependence on barber - tuates

jus’ saying

screw the fili-greed

micro sculpted

virile evanescent

puzzling wonders –

OK?!

weal me not

into redemption

&

devour us our pizza

© Roland Prevost

"[The winning poem] makes its references deft and plays in language in a kind of delight, without completing thoughts on behalf of the reader or steering the reader or telling the reader what to think... which leaves space for the reader to be delighted too. Tis a poem that is fully realized: intention and execution coincide." – Erin Mouré, Judge

I am absolutely astounded at the decision to award Ronald Prevost with the 2006 Newlove award. While I have not read any of the other entries, I find little reason in why exactly the aforementioned poem should have received and praise The judge, Erin Mouré (an apparently well-established Canadian poet and translator), provided irrefutably insufficient evidence as to why she chose such a non-poem to receive an award previously given to excellent writers such as Mellissa Upfold. Have we become so jaded as to forget poetry – and art for that matter – is?

I would like to address the judge’s first criteria of excellence, that of delightful wordplay. While I do understand the importance of challenging notions of authority in terms of language and proper spelling, one cannot underestimate the value of actual words. The piece contains almost as many dissections of words as it does actual ones. How can one discern meaning from a work if one cannot make out the words themselves?

Secondly, how can one attribute merit to a piece on the grounds that it does not complete thoughts? Virgina Woolf cannot even be invoked in defense here. Mrs. Dalloway, despite being of the innovative stream of consciousness style, actually contained mostly complete thoughts. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that there are fewer ellipsised thoughts than complete ones. Though we do live in an attention-deficit-disorder age there is no reason why we should laud poetry as unfocused and manic as Prevost’s. It would be much like commending a painter for only partially completing a painting so as to allow the viewer to mentally fill in the white. Is not one of the fundamental principles of art to show one’s audience the world as the one sees it? This piece does not even paint a half-picture so as to allow for a broader interpretation – it has demonstrated the author’s inability to show anything other than holes. The reader should not be left delighted (as I, a reader, most certainly was not); rather there should be a bitter sentiment of being ripped-off: Prevost has not in any way finished anything nor has he really shown us anything than a muddle of pizza and bald heads.

I would like to conclude that this poem has not been realised nor executed, unless Prevost’s intention was for nobody to understand anything and for nothing to happen or be seen. Quite simply, this is as far from a work of art as possible and should be used as kindling or Kleenex.

Reading tonight

Quick blurb on the reading tonight. Issue 6.2 of In/Words was released today and it looks fantastic! A whopping 36 pages - our largest issue ever! Featuring writers like Sarah Sheffe, Eric Marsh, Donna Sturmanis, Peter Gibbon, Cameron Anstee and so much more. I encourage everyone to get a copy of this issue and come out to the Open mic tonight at the Avant-Garde Bar, at 133 and 1/2 Besserer St, across from Les Suites Hotel in downtown Ottawa. The show gets underway at 8.

RIP

Just got word of a death in the Ottawa literary community. Poet/small press advocate Riley Tench died yesterday of a heart attack. I'd never heard of him until this morning, but seeing as he's from Peterborough (my hometown) and contributed to the Ottawa lit community (as well as being a human being) my thoughts go out to the family. I'd love to read some of his poetry (and if anyone actually reads this blog could they direct me to some?). RIP Riley.

Couplets regarding the end of the world

An old poem I've been coming back to lately and edited tonight (thanks to a bottle of wine):

I was asked once what I would do
should all life end tomorrow.
I considered all the drugs,
the skydives, the obvious
pleasantries one needs an excuse to do
and blew them all away as
candles wavering at the impatient
souffle from the birthday girl.

Instead I did my best
to compose

couplets regarding the
end of the world

smeared on white pages
with messy black ink

for the birthday girl to read
as the light clicks out.

Mentors

I was thinking earlier today about the importance of mentors in life. So far, in terms of writing, I've had two - my high-school writer's craft teacher, Joe Webster, and the editor-in-chief of In/Words slash canadian lit prof Collett Tracey. Joe always pushed and encouraged (such is the mandate of the teacher, n'est ce pas?); the support was always reassuring and in conjunction with the subject matter in that course was responsible for swaying me from the field of engineering. Collett has brought to light the invaluable yet overlooked niche of canadian literature and the dire need to not let the literary past be forgotten; too many valuable texts are going out of print and too many people are doing nothing about it. Authors are being forgotten; some who should be known will never be appreciated. An unfortunately small number of people will never get the joy of reading Dudek or Souster, though millions will have read the literary atrocity that is Dan Brown. The onus is on us to preserve canadian literature and celebrate it, not let it dwindle into canonical insignificance.