30 March 2008

Words on Water reading 4 April 2008

Heads up, everyone!

The 2008 Words on Water season starts on Friday, April 4 at Edgewater Gallery, 1737 Water Street, Miramichi, NB at 7 pm.

As part of the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick literary weekend and AGM, WoW will host their book launches and readings. There will be something for everyone's tastes.

So far on the lineup are:
Michelle Butler Hallet from NFLD. who will read a selection from her novel Double Blind
Marilyn Lerch: Witness and Resist
Joe Blades: Casemate Poems (Chaudiere Books) and UGLY: an instant spoken word chapbook anthology (Broken Jaw Press)
Laurence Hutchman: Reading the Water
Doug Underhill: River Poems
Lee Thompson: S., a novel in [xxx] dreams (Broken Jaw Press)
Carol Knepper: Clean and Simple Stones
Richard Doiron In the Spirit of Gibran

Seating will be limited so call to reserve a seat. You can respond by email or call me at 773-4733 or the Gallery at 773-3366

27 March 2008

Vote for the BARRY AWARDS 2008!

Hooray, it's that time of year again.
It's Time For The BARRY AWARDS!
It's time for CHSR 97.9 FM fans to have their voices heard.

You can now vote for your favourite shows on CHSR and the winners will gain a highly-coveted Barry Award.

There are four categories you can vote in:
1. Favourite Host
2. Favourite Music show
3. Favourite Spoken Word show (at least 80% spoken word)
4. Favourite Cultural show (either music or spoken word)

Please vote only once per category. Don't destroy democracy.

You can vote by:
1. Phone: call feedback line at 453-4985 and leave message
2. Email: chsr@unb.ca
3. Ballot box: located at the station in the SUB


T-Shirt: Pennsic XXXII
loc: Diplo Art Dept
temp: -2 C
sound: Depeche Mode Playing the Angel

25 March 2008

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 25 March 2008

Tonight's Ashes, Paper & Beans show was a BlackTop MotorCycle Gang takeover. Started with "Ring the Black Bell" by Sleepy Driver. John Heinstein read Andrew Titus poems. We all discussed the MWW 2007 & 2008 Read-a-Thons, Poetry Slams & BlackTop MotorCycle Gang "reading raids" to happen 27 & 29 March in Fredericton. Eric Gale performed several of his songs including "Dedication Rag" and "Close-Up View (The Tattoo Song)". Biff read from a story-on-progress. I read from my manuscript "The Book That Doesn't Close". Show ended with a recording of "My Skin" by J. Nichole Noël.

shirt: charcoal dress shirt
loc: near-sleep not near-art
temp: -5 C
sound: Nada Surf The Weight Is a Gift

23 March 2008

Found photo du jour

Photo found 9 am, ADT, Friday, 21 March 2008, face up, on the floor of room "D", Apartment 2, 623 Scully Street, Fredericton, NB, while doing last minute on-site furniture moves from set to off-set for shoot day 10/13 of Diplomatic Relations.

An apartment that hadn't been lived in for several years and when last used had been more like a rooming house with letters stuck on the doors of bedrooms each with an ancient bed and a student/work desk. I'd been in and out of that top floor room repeatedly hauling furniture, drapes, my hand truck and various tubs and containers of set dressing. I'm thinking the photo must have fallen out of a crack in one of the supposedly empty desks or tables; a postage stamp-sized photo print stuck in a crack where two pieces of wood abutted or were joined together.

The photo might be of Xangyan Xu who seemed to be a resident in the house according to a found hand-written note of Nov 4/03 from Gordon Turney stating that he "borrowed $40 from Xangyan Xu / will pay back on Thursday Nov 6." Or Xu Angyang . . . according to the label inside a Mario Alarie Pharmacien prescription bottle dated 01/06/13 from Verdun, QC that I found partially filled with small nails, screws, nuts and bolts after it had been moved from room "B" dressed to be the kid's bedroom for the film set.

shirt: CCM, long-sleeved
loc: setdectohomerestoration
temp: -11
sound: The Cure Wild Mood Swings

18 March 2008

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 18 March 2008

Non sequiture:
I didn’t get home to rest, or change clothes, eat or anything between work and a skeleton Art Department crew meeting with an employee of Executive Council wearing a different hat at the house on Scully to be location for the “Hide & Seek” story segment of the Diplomatic Relations film flashback scenes to be shot this Good Friday and Easter weekend Saturday. The famed Biff of biffmitchell.com cooked chicken pieces for supper. He called me on my secret cellphone as I was entering Head Hall en route to CHSR, starved, with a teabag in a cup in the bottom of my daypack waiting for hot water to be boiled in the kettle atop the counter top microwave at the station in the SUB. Today is my youngest sister’s 44th birthday.



Ashes, Paper & Beans started with the "Somewhere Suite" by Jack Gabel off his sent-to-me CD Dog Star.

Then the notorious cyberpunk Biff Mitchell of the BlackTop MotorCycle Gang roared into the station to talk potato: Potatoes and poetry slams. Pesticides and Robbie Burns. Presentations and film. Small press fairs and “reading raids” [right: Biff at the mic, 15 March 2008]. Maritime Writers Workshop and Read-a-Thons.

As some point, because there was BTMG quorum present, I read my recent poem:
school-free storm day

wednesday grey haze
ice pellets afternoon
day into something
else near springtime
farmers’ leaping clocks
but this is still winter
and i’m so thankful
to once again not be
on the icy trans canada
deadmundston to bagville
rear wheels spinning
near-empty cargo van
near-weightless artworks
strapped to the curved walls
or lying in movers’ blankets
and a real piece of work
gripping the steering wheel
with memories of being
upside down in a ditch
of snow across the road
on a downhill curve
whiteout outside st leonard
en route to the nord shore
and never making it
and never a word of concern
for my health or a possible
rescheduled school visit
nothing     nothing     nothing
i retreated downriver/homeward
Biff read his "The Road to the End of the World". We talked events happening soon. I then read my NB & PEI report for the League's March newsletter. How things change in two weeks!

Expect more BlackTop MotorCycle Gang members on APB next Tuesday!

T: CHSR Highland Radio 2002
loc: onmylongweekendnow
temp: 0° C
sound: NOFX Wolves in Wolves' Clothing

13 March 2008

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 11 mars 2008

11 March, 7–8 pm. My first live hosted episode of Ashes, Paper & Beans since 22 January.

Dramatic Filmmakers Panel (Silver Wave 2007) w/ Joel Thompson, Steve Doiron, Danny Thebeau, Dawn Boyd, Michael Aronson.

Fredericton arts & readings news, compiled & read by Joe Blades.

Poems from Guantánamo introduced and read by Joan Kjaer & David Hamilton.

T: burgandy Henley
loc: posttestscreening
temp: -9 (chill feels -14)
sound: Nirvana Gold

05 March 2008

Casemate Poems (Collected)

Good news on the poetry front:

Yesterday, I received the Spring 2008 catalogue from Chaudiere Books in Ottawa. Not only is my work to be included in their Collected Sex and Decalogue 3: ten Concrete/Visual poets anthologies but my fifth poetry book Casemate Poems (Collected) [ISBN 978-0-9783428-1-4] is featured with an excerpt from Dubravka Ðurić’s translator note in Pesme iz kazamata (Beograd: Rad, 2005). Very nice to see.

It's a "collected" volume because is includes not only the work in the 2004 Casemate Poems (Widows & Orphans) publication but also a "reprise" written in summer 2005, while the translations of Pesme iz kazamata and Recna Svita were being edited and proofread, and a "coda" written in the days before I flew east over the Atlantic for their book launches in Niš and Beograde.

I want to be reading far and wide from this new book. Know that Fredericton, Ottawa, even St John's, NL, should be easy but my challenge will be scheduling all the other readings we'd like to see happen . . .

02 March 2008

fredericton small press fair

Gallery Connexion is hosting a FREDERICTON SMALL PRESS FAIR. On MARCH 15 from 12 to 5pm various local and regional artists, galleries, and publishers will have their products on display and for sale. Items include artist multiples, artist books, comics, postcards, zines, books, lit mags, chapbooks, micro and small press books of poetry, prose, art, and much more. The general public is invited to attend this free event.

Participants from Fredericton include:

Knowledge is Power Collective (KIP): In order to fill the void left by the monopoly of the corporate, profit-driven media, and to supplement the conventional school system, KIP is dedicated to the distribution of radical information through all forms of media including books, zines, workshops, and skillshares events.

revue ellipse mag: Canada’s only literary magazine entirely dedicated to the translation of poetry. Published since 1969, ellipse moved to Fredericton in 2001. Since then, ellipse has published annual issues on the Governor General’s Literary Award-winning poets and special issues on the Northrop Frye Festival, Argentina-Canada, and First Nations Writing as well as French- and English-Canadian poetry with translations in side-by-side format. For information, contact Jo-Anne Elder (director) at ellipsemag@gmail.com.

AB Collector Publishing: There are two books in process at ABcp, Ceramics, a collaborative ABcp/NBM cultural event, and Aschi, a human interest story. Astrid Brunner has proposed to read excerpts from these works in progress as well as from the book Malcolm. On display will be a cross-section of ABcp books, with archival posters, invitations, and events, ranging from Atlantic Canada to Banff, to the Stratford Festival to European collaborations and events.

Dawn-Aeron Wason’s Sublime Creatures: An independent art-craft-small press-music entity, will offer a variety of her handmade objects, including: photography, poem + photo chapbooks, painting and collage/crafted pieces, zines, spoken-word poetry CDs, cards, and more.

Hugh Thomas / Book Thug: Hugh will be selling copies of his chapbook Mutations, published by BookThug (Toronto) in 2004, copies of a more recent self-published chapbook, and extra copies small press periodicals where his work has appeared, including the last two issues of dig (wayward armadillo press, Toronto).

Broken Jaw Press has been publishing independently since 1985. A range of recent and long-running books, chapbooks, artist books, objet d’art and the irregular New Muse of Contempt—mostly written by Canadian authors—will be available. Expect a brief launch reading by Moncton author-editor Lee Thompson for his book S. a novel in {xxx] dreams.

Other exhibitors include The Fiddlehead, Random Paper and Fabric, Goose Lane Editions, Guernica, and QWERTY magazine.

Participants from Halifax include Eye Level Gallery, an artist-run center; Anchor Archives; and S.A.G.S.R.I. (Suitcase Art Gallery Space Research Institute).

The Small Press Fair will be immediately followed at 5 pm by the 8th International Multicultural-Multilingual Poetry Reading and Poster Poem Exhibition, organized and founded by Fredericton poet Nela Rio. Poems in a wide range of languages will be displayed around the gallery and read by the poets and audience members.

Gallery Connexion is located at 453 Queen Street, corner of York and Queen Street, around back of the Justice Building, through the green door. Regular operating hours are Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 5pm. Mailing address: PO Box 696, Fredericton NB, E3B 5B4. Contact: 506.454.1433 connex@nbnet.nb.ca www.galleryconnexion.ca



T: RCMP
loc: sundayafter12werkdesk
temp: -2
sound: The Flaming Lips Transmissions from the Satellite Heart