HOWL tomorrow night!

I'm trying to pick something to read tomorrow night on open mic at Nik Beat's fabulous poetry and music event at QSpace: HOWL. Nik's open mic is the best in the city - he gives readers and performers 5 minutes, instead of the usual minimal 3 minutes. Well worth going to if you are in TO or nearby! Great features - Alana Cook, Liz Worth and Meghan Morrison this month - and many very talented folks will step up to the open mic too. A tea or glass of wine or a beer, some dessert. The finest way to spend the last Sunday evening of every month!

https://www.facebook.com/events/416055368480423/

Howl at Q Space Series: Alana Cook, Liz Worth & Meghan Morrison

Sunday at 7:00pm

Q Space in Toronto, Ontario

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Invite Friends · You're going

Howl @ Q Space

WhenSun, February 24, 7:00pm – 9:30pm

WhereQ Space, 382 College St, Toronto ON M5T 1S8 (map)

DescriptionMedia Personality Nik Beat hosts another two hours of Howl at Q Space Reading and Music Series featuring: poet/host Alana Cook reading from her newest works; poet/author and performance artist Liz Worth; and music feature is singer songwriter Meghan Morrison (who is opening for Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo in May) will do a 35 minute set of her newest work! Free | Open Mic | Pass-the-hat for performers

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Photos from HOWL at Q Space last Sunday

The Nov 25th Howl at Q Space readings went very well. Here are a few pics taken by my beautiful niece, Tara Clews. We did set up a video camera, and I'll likely upload the clip.

The arduous task of memorizing what I was going to read seemed to work. I was lucky - my son, brother and niece came. And a couple of friends. We had a larger turn-out than expected on Grey Cup night.

Many thanks to Nik Beat for creating and hosting this series, 'Howl at Q Space,' and to Luciano Iacobelli for offering the space and serving us delicious coffees and other treats. My fellow readers and singers, Jennifer Hosein, Penelope J. Smith and Josh Smith, and Laura Rock and others, were terrific! A wonderful night, all in all.



I've never seen that look in my eyes before. ::smiles:: To the left, J.D. Kruger on his very smart Android superphone; the back of beautiful Tara Clews, and Nik Beat sitting to the right. Of course I pick a frame in the video where I don't look my age and aren't making weird expressions of grief and passion and tormented love and so on. Lol. Rather, the mad poet look. Surely that's it.

"...all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Ok, not quite Coleridge's Kubla Khan, but hey! Poetry in Toronto. It's HOT.

Come to the next 'Howl at Q Space' the last Sunday in January and see for yourself.




Sometimes I can't resist playing in Photoshop; it's one of the few ways I relax. Not sure what filters, or what order I did whatever to arrive at this point.




Nik Beat at Q Space Nov 25, 2012, hosting his poetry and music series, Howl at Q Space, held on the last Sunday of every month from 7-9pm in Toronto, Canada.




Jennifer Hosein reading at Q Space. It's quite an incredible shot. You can see so much in her eyes. So much passion, really from the centre out.



The beautiful Jennifer Hosein, a featured poet at Howl at Q Space Nov 2012.

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Performing Ink Ocean Sunday Night at Q Space

The poem that emerged from this drawing, Ink Ocean, is the one I will be performing Sunday night. Today, for the first time, slowly, halteringly, I recited it from end to end, so there's hope that I will be performing rather than reading it.

I attended Norman Cristofoli's chap book launch last weekend, The Fall from Eden, "a book about the transformation of humankind, the manifest destiny of our failure as a species to live in harmony with our environment, or even with ourselves." The Open Mic was called the “Apocalyptic Open Stage,” and he asked us to "bring a poem about the Apocalypse, the Mayan Calendar, The End of Days, Revelations, Nostradamus or any other end of this calamity of humanity."

On Open Mic, I performed the first section of Ink Ocean, on the Gulf oil spill, and reciting it from memory went over very well. So I was inspired to make the effort to memorize the whole poem, which will fill 8-10 minutes.

My son and niece, Tara, are coming, and I'll get him to babysit a video camera on a tripod, and Tara is a kick-ass photographer, so I've asked her to take photographs.

I'm one of four featured poets at HOWL at Q Space, 382 College Street, this Sunday evening, Nov 25th from 7-9pm. Q Space is a bookstore, cafe, and hosts literary readings and art shows. It's also the home of the publishers, Quattro Books and LyricalMyrical Press. Do come out, have a tea and a slice of cake, and enjoy some wonderful readings and songs by the features and on Open Mic.

 Google Maps: http://goo.gl/maps/oOl2a
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