Bait & Shift & Sift & tsk & Swish & Schist & List
The Calgary Launch of Shift & Switch happened last night at McNally Robinson. There were about 45 people in attendance, including our two lovely hosts Penn and Teller-- er derek beaulieu and Jason Christie, and readers Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jay Gamble, myself, Larissa Lai and Julia Williams. We read in alphabetical order, so I was the "hump" poet.
Ryan had a snappy little set, pulling out his cock
poems, apparently set free from the fear of parental disapproval (his parents refused to come out after JPF swore at the Post-Prairie launch a few weeks ago). No word on whether Julia's parents plan to attend a potty-mouth er poetry reading again. Ok, ok, I've teased Ryan, so now to the praise-- the poems were funny, full of faux-logical one-liners and non sequiturs. He very sweetly dedicated poems-- the first to his rarely-seen-sister Megan, who came out with his often-seen-sister Erin, and happy we were to have them there representing Ogden and all things Fitzpatrick. The next poem, something called, I think, "Why I Like Big Butts" was for Jordan Scott. I think we can all guess why. Then he read "My Penis Hurts When I Glue it to My Hand," for derek. No comment. His last poem, "A Life Less Originary" was dedicated to Jason. When Ryan has an appreciative audience, his deadpan delivery is interspersed with grins, although he tries to read the his poems as though, like a UPS guy, he's been charged with their delivery but is not responsible for the contents. Some lines are delivered as though he's showing us something he found on his shoe. It could be dog poop, or it could be dirt, or it could be some sort of magical mud pie that transforms into a time machine-- he's not sure, and so he doesn't judge. It's a very funny and effective style for his writing, which, after all, is culled, gleaned, collected, grown from found language. Google I think.
Jay Gamble was introduced by Jason. Jason promised that Jay would sing "Famous Blue Raincoat" at some point in the evening. (He was not wrong, and much much later, the Bear and Kilt was treated to a second performance from Jay with a little help from his friends.) Jay first read the inscription that Ryan had written in his copy of Shift & Switch, and I'll share that: "Jay-- how can I make a life out of poop?" Indeed. Jay then read a poem for Carmen, who was away with their son Lochlan. He read one of his very-long-sentence poems, the one about the french-kissing couple at the theatre with the torn screen from the toast thrown by the guy in his mother's dress who died while gardening... That was a paraphrase, or maybe a periphrase-- Jay's poem was much more dynamic as well as grammatically elegant. I love that poem. He also read some of the poems with no nouns, blaming Nicole Markotic for them- not really a dedication, more of... an injunction... (and by the way, all the really fun things happen after the readings in Calgary-- Jason and Jay told the story of how they met in Nicole Markotic's writing class, and Nicole was expressing how glad she was that she didn't have any students with the same name for once, and Jason whispered to Jay "but we're close" and how Jay put up his hand and said "We're close" and then felt like an ass. Oh, how we laughed! Hmm. Well, there were a lot of birthday shots going around.) Jay's poems enact his dissertation topic ("Nothing," "absence") in very creative ways. I'm really looking forward to seeing his MS in print.
Hump poet read next. That would be me. I dedicated some poems too, and not just cause it was the thing to do! I read some Booty poems for Brea, and a Booty/skating poem for Cara (...a fishwife a harridan a dirty nancy kerrigan...), "Deadman's Flats" for Paul, and a poem for angela:
wear your welcome
the word made flesh
the oldest profession a book
the language I use
is desire
did you expect me to talk about you
did you expect me to use language?
a thrush in the hand
sings in the bush
you kiss your mother with that trenchmouth?
We then had a break. Sometimes this doesn't work at McNally Robinson (though splitting the reading works perfectly and wonderfully at The New Gallery) because there often is an undercurrent of having to stick to a time-slot-- either there's a musical act coming on to play jazz for the non-reading-attendees, or even, as was the case with the Post-Prairie launch, another literary event following. But anyway, last night was somehow free of most of that tension, and the break was long enough to chat and circulate without being too long.
Larissa Lai humped her way up to the mic and read the "Rachel" poems that are in Shift & Switch. I want to see more of her poetry-- I am mostly familiar with her (awesome) prose. I hope she publishes the "Rachel" stuff as a book of poetry soon. And also, she and Jason Christie should publish a chapbook together-- the robot poems and the cyborg poems-- well-- they talk to each other. Seriously. The page Larissa was reading from mecha-meched into a mouth and called out for Jason's notebook. Jason mentioned that Larissa's work is being featured in an upcoming issue of West Coast Line-- very exciting and I can't wait to see it...
Finally, Our Julia stepped up. derek introduced her as "Calgary's Best Smart Aleck" and he's right, although I think the term "Smarty-pants" is more commonly used to describe Julia. She was looking ravishing in a rose sweater and chunky glass necklace, her pants stylishly cropped to reveal her cunning bog-green urban hipster boots. I love Julia! She then dazzled us with her poems about-- I know I'll get the phobias wrong here-- an agoraphobic claustrophobic hypergraph. This set of poems is brilliant. I love poetry with characters and/or a narrative of some kind. It gives the poet a chance to flex her voice-adoption techniques-- er-- I guess what I mean is that Julia is a phenomenal story-writer, which may not be widely known outside Calgary, since her first book, The Sink House, is technically poetry. I'm torn-- I love Julia's poetry, but her smart-alecky-ness really shines through when she adopts a voice for a narrative. So this new project about the agoraphobic hypergraph is wonderful. I loved the poem about the a-h breathing letters into the frost on the windows all winter long-- afraid to go out, uncomfortable in, hovering at the window and so compulsively writing that her very breath writes.
The reading part of the evening wrapped up, and we slowly gathered ourselves to go to the nearby Bear and Kilt, or, as I like to call it, the Impotent Scotsman (Bear...and...Kilt...Barren...Kilt...) Calgary-style literary-fun ensued! Many people from the reading came out to the pub, although we lost the Julias and some of the shyer attendees. Leonard Cohen was sung, db birthday shots were drunk and so was I. I have in my bag a series of important things to remember written on the back of a Christmas Party advert ("CHRISTMAS IS UPON US AGAIN") which, at the time, seemed crucial to include on this post, so, to honour that impulse of my last-night-self, I close with this:
Erin Bodner: "Ralph Klein = Madonna."
Paul Kennett:" Jill, you're my Ralph Klein."
Ryan had a snappy little set, pulling out his cock
poems, apparently set free from the fear of parental disapproval (his parents refused to come out after JPF swore at the Post-Prairie launch a few weeks ago). No word on whether Julia's parents plan to attend a potty-mouth er poetry reading again. Ok, ok, I've teased Ryan, so now to the praise-- the poems were funny, full of faux-logical one-liners and non sequiturs. He very sweetly dedicated poems-- the first to his rarely-seen-sister Megan, who came out with his often-seen-sister Erin, and happy we were to have them there representing Ogden and all things Fitzpatrick. The next poem, something called, I think, "Why I Like Big Butts" was for Jordan Scott. I think we can all guess why. Then he read "My Penis Hurts When I Glue it to My Hand," for derek. No comment. His last poem, "A Life Less Originary" was dedicated to Jason. When Ryan has an appreciative audience, his deadpan delivery is interspersed with grins, although he tries to read the his poems as though, like a UPS guy, he's been charged with their delivery but is not responsible for the contents. Some lines are delivered as though he's showing us something he found on his shoe. It could be dog poop, or it could be dirt, or it could be some sort of magical mud pie that transforms into a time machine-- he's not sure, and so he doesn't judge. It's a very funny and effective style for his writing, which, after all, is culled, gleaned, collected, grown from found language. Google I think.
Jay Gamble was introduced by Jason. Jason promised that Jay would sing "Famous Blue Raincoat" at some point in the evening. (He was not wrong, and much much later, the Bear and Kilt was treated to a second performance from Jay with a little help from his friends.) Jay first read the inscription that Ryan had written in his copy of Shift & Switch, and I'll share that: "Jay-- how can I make a life out of poop?" Indeed. Jay then read a poem for Carmen, who was away with their son Lochlan. He read one of his very-long-sentence poems, the one about the french-kissing couple at the theatre with the torn screen from the toast thrown by the guy in his mother's dress who died while gardening... That was a paraphrase, or maybe a periphrase-- Jay's poem was much more dynamic as well as grammatically elegant. I love that poem. He also read some of the poems with no nouns, blaming Nicole Markotic for them- not really a dedication, more of... an injunction... (and by the way, all the really fun things happen after the readings in Calgary-- Jason and Jay told the story of how they met in Nicole Markotic's writing class, and Nicole was expressing how glad she was that she didn't have any students with the same name for once, and Jason whispered to Jay "but we're close" and how Jay put up his hand and said "We're close" and then felt like an ass. Oh, how we laughed! Hmm. Well, there were a lot of birthday shots going around.) Jay's poems enact his dissertation topic ("Nothing," "absence") in very creative ways. I'm really looking forward to seeing his MS in print.
Hump poet read next. That would be me. I dedicated some poems too, and not just cause it was the thing to do! I read some Booty poems for Brea, and a Booty/skating poem for Cara (...a fishwife a harridan a dirty nancy kerrigan...), "Deadman's Flats" for Paul, and a poem for angela:
wear your welcome
the word made flesh
the oldest profession a book
the language I use
is desire
did you expect me to talk about you
did you expect me to use language?
a thrush in the hand
sings in the bush
you kiss your mother with that trenchmouth?
We then had a break. Sometimes this doesn't work at McNally Robinson (though splitting the reading works perfectly and wonderfully at The New Gallery) because there often is an undercurrent of having to stick to a time-slot-- either there's a musical act coming on to play jazz for the non-reading-attendees, or even, as was the case with the Post-Prairie launch, another literary event following. But anyway, last night was somehow free of most of that tension, and the break was long enough to chat and circulate without being too long.
Larissa Lai humped her way up to the mic and read the "Rachel" poems that are in Shift & Switch. I want to see more of her poetry-- I am mostly familiar with her (awesome) prose. I hope she publishes the "Rachel" stuff as a book of poetry soon. And also, she and Jason Christie should publish a chapbook together-- the robot poems and the cyborg poems-- well-- they talk to each other. Seriously. The page Larissa was reading from mecha-meched into a mouth and called out for Jason's notebook. Jason mentioned that Larissa's work is being featured in an upcoming issue of West Coast Line-- very exciting and I can't wait to see it...
Finally, Our Julia stepped up. derek introduced her as "Calgary's Best Smart Aleck" and he's right, although I think the term "Smarty-pants" is more commonly used to describe Julia. She was looking ravishing in a rose sweater and chunky glass necklace, her pants stylishly cropped to reveal her cunning bog-green urban hipster boots. I love Julia! She then dazzled us with her poems about-- I know I'll get the phobias wrong here-- an agoraphobic claustrophobic hypergraph. This set of poems is brilliant. I love poetry with characters and/or a narrative of some kind. It gives the poet a chance to flex her voice-adoption techniques-- er-- I guess what I mean is that Julia is a phenomenal story-writer, which may not be widely known outside Calgary, since her first book, The Sink House, is technically poetry. I'm torn-- I love Julia's poetry, but her smart-alecky-ness really shines through when she adopts a voice for a narrative. So this new project about the agoraphobic hypergraph is wonderful. I loved the poem about the a-h breathing letters into the frost on the windows all winter long-- afraid to go out, uncomfortable in, hovering at the window and so compulsively writing that her very breath writes.
The reading part of the evening wrapped up, and we slowly gathered ourselves to go to the nearby Bear and Kilt, or, as I like to call it, the Impotent Scotsman (Bear...and...Kilt...Barren...Kilt...) Calgary-style literary-fun ensued! Many people from the reading came out to the pub, although we lost the Julias and some of the shyer attendees. Leonard Cohen was sung, db birthday shots were drunk and so was I. I have in my bag a series of important things to remember written on the back of a Christmas Party advert ("CHRISTMAS IS UPON US AGAIN") which, at the time, seemed crucial to include on this post, so, to honour that impulse of my last-night-self, I close with this:
Erin Bodner: "Ralph Klein = Madonna."
Paul Kennett:" Jill, you're my Ralph Klein."
posted by Jill at 11:17 AM
1 Comments:
thank you, jill! and thank you for the poem... you know how much i love those lines!!
i watched yr HOAP episode last night with conor. it's my favourite episode by far. i just beam the whole way through watching it. you exude love and loveliness!!!!!!!!!!!!! a treasure, to be sure.
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