February Poetry & Music Salon at Charlotte Hale Art Gallery

Our Poetry and Music Salon Sat Feb 27, 2016 at Charlotte Hale's gallery was beautiful! The gallery was packed. The poets and musicians superb. An amazing afternoon of the warmth and talent in the Toronto poetry and music communities in an exquisite gallery in Mirvish Village - what more could one ask? Feeling nothing but blessed. Thank you!

I would especially like to thank Charlotte Hale for her hospitality and sharing her gallery for an afternoon event. The features, Roger Greenwald, and Richie Weisdorf, truly a treat for the mind, ear, heart, spirit. Roger is a poet at his prime, and if you ever get a chance to see him read, go. Richie is an up and coming musician who sings jazz-inspired songs to a complexity of rhythms and chords. Keep him on your list. To my two Guest Features, Karen Shenfeld, wow, she is force of her own, terrific poetry, and Jim McCuaig, maestro on his guitar, many thanks. Open mic often brings energy to an event - all those who shared their poetry added immeasurably to a rich, fertile and beautiful afternoon. Thank you Stedmond Pardy, Anita Lerek, Stanley Fefferman, Sean McDermott, Catherine Raine, Susan Munro, John Oughton, Milel BC, and Saskia van Tetering! Much love to you all. xoxo

Here are the photos I took. For names, please go to the album on Google Photos.

                                                                                                                

Here is a video of the entire Salon:


direct link: Feb 2016 Poetry and Music Salon

In order of appearance, with the time that their introduction begins:

1. Stedmond Pardy 2:14
2. Anita Lerek 8:49
3. Stanley Fefferman 12:05
4. Sean McDermott 15:25
5. Susan Munro 20:31
6. John Oughton 23:14
7. Richie Weisdorf 26:37 (feature)
8. Jim McCuaig 37:05 (guest musician)
9. Mikel BC 47:51
10. Saskia van Tetering 50:18
11. Karen Shenfeld 52:57 (guest poet)
12. Roger Greenwald 1:05:46 (featured poet)
13. Richie Weisdorf 1:23:06 (featured musician)

Features:

ROGER GREENWALD attended The City College of New York and the Poetry Project workshop at St. Mark’s Church In­the­Bowery, then completed graduate degrees at the University of Toronto. His poetry has appeared in such journals as The World, ELQ (Exile: The Lierary Quarterly), Saturday Night, Prism International, Pequod, Pleiades, Poetry East, The Spirit That Moves Us, The Texas Observer, Great River Review, Leviathan Quarterly, and Copper Nickel. He has won two CBC Literary Awards (poetry and travel literature) and has published two books of poems: Connecting Flight (Toronto: Williams- Wallace) and Slow Mountain Train (Rochester, NY: Tiger Bark Press).

Toronto born pianist and poet RICHARD WEISDORF has been performing his original material infrequently for over 10 years. His music has been described as dramatic and musical theatre; a description he can’t entirely reject. Sometimes the music examines and critiques commonly held social ideals; other times it is just straight out personal fantasy. His poetry arises under the spell of short lived binges of nighttime inspiration and caffeine. They are his attempt to think originally, sometimes treating serious topics with humor and play, which produces a strange little romp into the nonsensical realm of his own subjective truth.

Special Guests:

KAREN SHEFFIELD has published three books with Guernica Editions: The Law of Return, which won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Poetry in 2001, The Fertile Crescent (2005), and My Father's Hands Spoke in Yiddish (2010). Her poetry has also appeared in well-known journals and anthologies published in Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Bangladesh, and she has given readings in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and England. She is currently completing the manuscript for her fourth book. Besides being a poet, Karen is also a journalist, editor, filmmaker, and traveller. Among her many journeys, she has hitch-hiked across the Congo and the Sahara desert. She is currently preparing for her new life as a Jewish Presbyterian Church Lady in Magnetawan, a village by a fast-flowing river in the near north of Ontario.

Ex roady, ex theatre tech, ex subway driver, JIM McCUAIG is now finding joy fingerpicking East Coast Blues and some originals.

Organized, hosted, photoed, video and video editing by Brenda Clews: http://brendaclews.com
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'Performance Poems' chapbook is out!

My new chapbook, Performance Poems, will be ready for my performance videopoem presentation at Mount Pleasant Library on Thurs evening. 'the Performance Poems' (Epopeia Press, 2016) is a limited edition of the poems that I do in performance and that I have made multi-media videos of, and will be available for sale at the event.

On the back cover:

In 2013, Brenda Clews began performing poems that a repertoire of imagery, drawings, paintings, masks, choreographies of creative movement, had accumulated around. She videoed these readings with a tripod and edited them with a newly-found creative freedom. The subjectivity of the poet performing the poem is central in a personal nexus of arts - poetry, painting, dance, video editing - each of which comprise a different access to the same topic yet all of which emerge from an inner drive to produce a composite approach to a theme. Her oeuvre draws on the multiple resonances of intersections of writing, painting and videopoetry. Poem fragments emerge in drawings. Or a painting evokes a poem that is later inscribed in it. She may recite a poem while dancing it wearing a mask that has emerged from a painting. The poem, mask, dance, painting, soundscape and art house video editing, however they appear in a single piece, arise out of the same creative process. Each multi-media project is a contract of elements, a unity of multiply intertwining energies. The videopoem, then, becomes the stage where the entire show can play.

Toronto Urban Folk Salon
Thursday, February 25 at 6:00 pm
at the Mount Pleasant Library 599 Mount Pleasant Road (south of Eglington)
Featuring: Gannon Hamilton, Brenda Clews, Norman Cristofoli, Ann Elizabeth Carson,
Glen Hornblast, Kirk Felix and Jeff Orson

(Promise to hold a launch for this chapbook in the near future - and show a bunch of the performance videopoems - it's 40 pages, 7" x 10", and quite lovely.)

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Sketch of Musicians at Vino Rosso

Had a really great afternoon on Sat at Linda Stitt's Words and Music Salon at Vino Ross where I shared the microphone with some great folks, Bill Heffernan, Tom Hamilton, Bob Cohen, Frankie Hart, Philomene Hoffman, Glen Hornblast, Norman Cristofoli and Linda Stitt herself who read a poem.

Inspired by the world-wide groups of Urban Sketchers. A quick charcoal and watercolour I did of Tom Hamilton and Bill Heffernan, who played before I went on, using those stage jitters we all get before performing.
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Upcoming Reading at the Toronto Public Library

I have been asked to offer a presentation of some of my performance videopoems at Mount Pleasant Public Library on Thursday Feb 25th from 6-8pm. There's seating for 70 folks - so if you're in Toronto, do come out. I'll be one of 6 featured poets and musicians. Looking forward to a great evening!

Urban Folk Art Salon

6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. on recurring dates listed below

120 mins

Mount Pleasant Program Room

Mount Pleasant Library presents, Urban Folk Art Salon. With host Gannon Hamilton; featuring poets Ann Elizabeth Carson, Brenda Clews and Norm Cristofoli and singer/songwriters Glen Hornblast, Kirk Felix and Jeff Orson.

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January 2016 Poetry and Music Salon

We had a beautiful late afternoon/early evening Poetry and Music Soirée at Markham House - wow, I was blissed out for days. Many thanks to our features, Sharon Goodier and Norman Allan and our guest musicians, Amoeba Starfish (Jeff Howard & Phil Ogison Aegidiussen)! And to everyone who stepped up to Open Mic and shared: Alexi, Optimus, Stedmond Pardy, Andraya Ciel Smith, Sean Mc Dermott and Jim Hamilton. We had a full house. I keep thinking, these salons can't get any more wonderful, and then they do. Thank you to all those who read/performed and to our fantastic audience. And to the generosity of Markham House. Love you all! xoBrenda

Please go to the album on Picasa for the names and dates of everyone who has appeared in this series.

                                                             


I had considered stopping showing the Salon videos. While I like an archive, it takes too long to edit them and there are not many view counts. I think of them more as a teaching tool, but then I discovered that most of the poets and musicians in them won't watch themselves. So why do it? Because I have the footage? Not a good reason, really. So I decided if I could download the clips and fully edit the video -I let the camera run uninterrupted through the entire Salon and splice out the in betweens and the break later; I add effects that have seemed to make the videos more palatable to those in them (we all have a horror of ourselves in video, we do); and I do a stop motion of the entire salon and paste titles over it and some kind of ending (this one has all the photos at the end) - if I could all that in 3 hours or less, I would upload and publish to YouTube. Well, yes, I came in under 3 hours.

So here is a video of the entire salon, and it is in 4K, which, lemme tell ya, was a feat of rendering and saving out to an useable file (18 hrs), uploading (12 hrs) and waiting for YouTube to process it to the highest resolution - the latter taking most of the week, in fact. :)


direct link: January 2016 Poetry and Music Salon

In order of appearance, and if you go to YouTube and click on the time next to the person's name, the video should start at their reading or performance.

1. Alexi 1:09
2. Optimus Rhyme 14:34
3. Stedmond Pardy 26:26
4. Andraya Ciel Smith 31:20
5. Sharon Goodier (feature) 39:26
6. Sean McDermott 1:00:15
7. Brenda Clews 1:07:00
8. Tom Gannon Hamilton 1:10:48
9. Norman Allan (feature) 1:20:46
10. Amoeba Starfish (guest spot), Jeff Howard and Phil Ogison Aegidiussen, with Tim Hamilton joining in to jam on his violin. 1:48:03

Facebook Group Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/poetryandmusicsoiree
This Salon at Markham House: http://mirvish-village.com
Organized, hosted, photographed, videoed and video edited by Brenda Clews: http://brendaclews.com
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Motorcycle Poet Solves Murder

direct link: Motorcycle Poet Solves Murder

Brenda Clews interviews John Oughton on his new novel, Death By Triangulation.

'Motorcycle-riding poet Aaron Miles makes some of his daily bread as a cultural investigator.  He likes nice little cases with an element of art or literature, and no violence, thank you very much. But a wealthy Toronto family hires him to wrap up the affairs of their recently deceased black sheep uncle, a notorious anti-Papist and man of letters.  In particular, they want him to erase any traces of a past conspiracy the uncle had alluded to. Rich families hate scandal. Against his will, Miles uncovers a plot, both large in scope and decades old, to keep the lid on the truth about a major mystery of the 20th century. Set mainly in Prince Edward County, the story accelerates to Toronto, upstate New York, and the Dominican Republic as Miles tries to stay ahead of the secret's shadowy enforcers.'

Bio: John Oughton is Professor of Learning and Teaching at Centennial College in Toronto, and the author of five books of poetry (most recently, Time Slip from Guernica Editions), the mystery novel Death by Triangulation, and over 400 pieces of literary journalism. He is also a photographer and amateur musician.

John Oughton's website: http://joughton.wix.com/author
Death by Triangulation at NeoPoesis Press: http://www.neopoiesispress.com/12401/127994.html
where you can purchase it. It is also available at all major booksellers.

The interview, video and video-editing by Brenda Clews
http://brendaclews.com

In the interview, I propose, though a novel that follows normative variations on a prescriptive plot trajectory with a cast of individualized yet expected characters, which the author mines to add humour to the novel, that the way scenes are structured through the imagery Oughton uses makes the detecting work, the crime fiction itself, the solving of a murder, a maze of a poem.

The interview took place on a warm evening in early November 2015 at John's apartment, and I used what turned out to be an impossible-to-key-out-green-screen fabric backdrop, which presented numerous challenges not only in FCPX's keyers, but a keyer I purchased from FXfactory. Because I had a small clip with this fabric of my cat shot in 2013 and discovered iMovie '11 could instantly key most of the olive and pale greens out but leaving an interesting mottled effect, I assumed it could be done with any newer keyer. Not so. Eventually, I remembered the old iMovie, and that I had bought it as a CD. It was a bit sticky, but I was able to install it on my Mac in a separate folder in Applications. It doesn't do a refined job of keying, but I was looking for more of an artistic effect.

Because 'talking head' videos can be bland, I asked John to video a motorcycle ride that I might put in the background. He duck taped his iPhone 4 to his helmet and nearly lost it in the ride! He also sent me some of his nature photographs. That clip is in the interview, and some of the photos are obscurely layered in circling effects. Then I shot some slomo video with my iPhone6s+ while traipsing about empty roads in Ontario in January 2016. Using the iMovie '11 keyed clip, and a number of effects in Final Cut Pro X, I produced a moving roadtrip background that, I hope, will be just a bit strange and keep the eye visually entranced for the 18 minutes of the interview. The keying is what it is and took days to figure out and I decided that the buzzing pixellation in John's hair and the noisy cloud next to him only add to the slightly surreal presentation of what is a talking head interview.

It is a good interview with a conversation of some depth on the novel itself.
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Books to Come

Good news. I received a contract from Quattro Books to publish my novella in the Spring of 2017 (my poetry book with Guernica Editions is coming out this Fall). Another publisher sent a response that made me feel that rare thing, understood as an author, and I consider it my first review: "We found your formal experimentation with "S*'s" characterization highly appealing, in the way it plays at the boundaries of poetry to reflect the sensuousness of experience. Overall, we felt it was an accomplished work."

My book has found the right home. Lovely to join the Quattro family!!!
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Digital Drawing of Split Mask

Still working on my performance videopoem, Split Mask. It's subtly complex visually and the editing program is on overdrive. I kind of like this drawing/crop I did in Photoshop - it took hours to figure out, with lots of trial and error and starting over and over, drawing with a stylus, and so it is a digital drawing more than anything.
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Burning Mask

This is kind of a cool nanosecond in my upcoming performance videopoem, Split Mask.

The line:
"The mask,
a paper image
burning."

[Aftereffect: Ten minutes later, finding it too bright,  I went in and keyframed the opacity of the flames, and so the moment as it appears here no longer exists in the videopoem.]
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Ganged Up On By My Muse, I Am!

Another 2 second image from my forthcoming performance videopoem, Split Mask.

I've performed this poem a number of times around the city in features and on open mic in the mask, which I made in the Spring of 2013, and which insisted on a political poem, that was begun in the Summer of 2013 and completed in the Summer of 2014, and then they insisted on a 5' square painting, which I painted in a mad frenzy over 3 days at the very end of 2013 for a solo show at Urban Gallery in January and February of 2014, and now the mask, the poem, the painting are insisting I finish a videopoem, begun in the Fall of 2014, and not yet complete.

If I get the performance videopoem done this year, if, it will be a 3 year project! From 2013-2016. All begun with a little image in my consciousness that wouldn't go away and which I had to make: the split mask.

Oy ya, what's a gal supposed to do? Ganged up on by my muse, I am.

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A photo in my upcoming videopoem, Split Mask.

A photo in my upcoming videopoem, Split Mask. This has 3-5 seconds on screen, a mere blink. The line is: "Focus
 on where
 we are falling apart."
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