Rubies in Crystal

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Beautiful Fundraiser Today for Doctors Without Borders

So far, in total, we have raised $920. for Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). We raised $470 at a fantastically beautiful Poetry and Music Salon this afternoon, plus the on-line donations are $450. Not bad for a bunch of poets and Indie musicians wouldn't ya say?! We are a strong community of talented, caring people. I am so proud of everyone.

You can donate to the Poetry and Music Fundraiser on-line here: May 2017 Poetry & Music Salon Fundraiser.

Thank you to all the features, who gave us everything, from their hearts, Anna Gutmanis, Janina La Papita, Neil Traynor, Stanley Fefferman, Tricia Postle, Michael Marian, Jennifer Hosein, Jim McCuaig, Karen Shenfeld, Heather Babcock and Isabel Fryszberg, and to all those who came out to watch, enjoy, and to support a good cause. Many thanks to Palmerston Library and to Bobby, our sound man.

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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

An Hour Performance from Tidal Fury

direct link: An Hour Performance from Tidal Fury

I can recite from Tidal Fury for about an hour. Why have I undertaken to memorize my poetry? Originally, I had intended to memorize the whole book to have full access for any readings or open mics, but haven't gotten there yet. Memorizing is a good exercise for an aging mind. Being able to perform poems lets me connect to the audience. I have no acting experience and have never studied acting and so I wing it. I have no idea if these performances work for people or not.

Memorizing remains hard work, especially as the poems have to be duplicated exactly in the mind and retrieved in their all their convoluted syntaxes and words. Being untrained, when my mind collides a little, and I can't get the line, I simply stop and wait for the words to click in and then I continue. This doesn't bother me a bit - it's part of the process of a live enactment. About the only impediment I've found is when I am nervous I might skip a line. I also switch words with synonyms occasionally, and these are unconscious replacements. I only know due to videoing my readings and find this an interesting quirk of the way the mind retains a list of synonyms to use if the exact word is not recalled quickly enough.

I love hearing poets read their writing and have always enjoyed going to poetry readings - in fact, I've run a poetry series for 3½ years. In my community, there are some poets who memorize and perform their poetry - they are not slam poets, which is a different genre and the poems have rhyme and tend follow a format with a set rhythm to the spoken word which makes it quite different to a literary poet performing a piece. The literary poets I know who perform are marvellous, and I find I 'hear' their poetry with perhaps more texture and depth when they offer it directly to us, but they either have acting backgrounds or studied acting in university.

Sometimes I'm not sure what I'm doing. Without the feedback loop a director or teacher would give, I send what I do out into the darkened fields of the audience. I like to dress the part too - mask, snaky wig, gauze sack, kimono, jingly belly dancing belt. It may be that performance gives me a way to inhabit the writing, to hide in it. As an introvert, performing forces me into my opposite. The next day I am exhausted - the act of performing publicly is one of the hardest things I have ever done.

And yet I keep exploring it and pushing myself to go deeper, to enter the writing, to give to those listening from fragile and open and honest places within. I feel that exploring memorization and performance is a fruitful endeavour and I will continue to expand my comfort zones in this regard.

A collusion of forces left me in a private place of extreme worry and tiredness the day that I did this feature and yet I strove to put aside my life, to step onto the stage as if it were a blank canvas, and create a poetry that carried itself through the air into the theatre and here, on the screen.

I hope I have done Tidal Fury justice. With the high quality video (see note below), I am happy with this recording.

Here is a webpage that has descriptions of Tidal Fury, and links to reviews and on-line booksellers: http://brendaclews.com/books/tidal-fury
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I would like to thank Tom Gannon Hamilton who came and played his violin with sensitivity and beauty while I enacted the poems. He enters the poetry, its dramatic expression. His masterful playing becomes a collaborative dance of music that enters the words, uplifts them as the spirit that inhabits Tidal Fury is expressed.

Jeff Howard, as a thank you for all the videoing of everyone I've done at my Salons through the years, brought a professional camera from the television studio where he is a Technical Director. They were testing the Panasonic 4k camera that he brought. Matching the clips between my prosumer Sony and the professional Panasonic was challenging and I hope I've managed it somewhat. Mostly, I used his clips - he zoomed in and followed the performance with the camera, and the detail is excruciatingly amazing. Thank you, Jeff!

This feature was part of my Poetry and Music Salon series and took place at Palmerston Library Theatre on Saturday afternoon, April 29, 2017.
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Monday, May 15, 2017

May 27th Poetry & Music Salon Fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders

My next Poetry and Music Salon is a fundraiser. I chose Doctors Without Borders this year. You can donate on-line here. I set our contribution at $400., but maybe we can better that.* For any donations above $10. you get a tax credit. The list of features for this Salon is awesome: Isabel Fryszberg, Heather Babcock, Karen Shenfeld, Jim McCuaig, Jennifer Hosein, Michael Marian, Tricia Postle, Tom Hamilton, Stanley Fefferman, Neil Traynor, James Dewar and Anna Gutmanis! Put Saturday afternoon May 27th, 1:45-4pm, at Palmerston Library Theatre on your calendars. It'll be a GREAT show! Our donation will go to one massive emergency relief fund that is used where the need is most urgent in the world. Let's give whatever we can - no amount is too small.
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*Last year we raised $405. for the Ft McMurray Fire Relief Fund, and the government doubled the contribution. Not bad for a bunch of poets and Indie musicians!

Dale Winslow of NeoPoeisis Press (beautiful publisher of poetry, fiction and non-fiction) has contributed to Poetry and Music Salons' Fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders! Thank you, Dale!

She wrote: "I am familiar with Doctors without Borders and I think it is wonderful that you are doing this event to help raise funds. It is always heartening to see artists using their gifts to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes. I hope this will bring you more donors 🙂 I will also share your event on the press facebook page - every bit of exposure can help! All my best to you 🙂 Dale ❤"
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Sunday, May 14, 2017

Happy Mother's Day!

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Monday, May 01, 2017

Dashing by to say, lovely Salon on Sat & some upcoming poetry readings

The Poetry and Music Salon last Saturday was wonderful, with Tricia Postle, Ian Burgham, Sean McDermott and Wolfgang Dios. Josef Hochleitner unexpectedly showed up and took photographs, I am so grateful. Jeff Howard videoed my performance, and Tricia's, with a professional 4K camera, and, again, I am so grateful. So... photos and video to come, though I have no idea when, I am so busy.

Here's a screen grab of my website with a photo Josef took on Saturday and a calendar listing of my upcoming readings. Sorry - just no time to double do the posts. Lol!

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Thursday, April 20, 2017

April 29th, 2-4pm, Poetry & Music Salon @Palmerston Library Theatre!

So happy that Tricia Postle is our featured musician! And Ian Burgham our Guest Poet! It'll be an amazing afternoon. Hosted by Luciano Iacobelli. I'll be doing a longer performance from Tidal Fury accompanied by the maestro violinist, Tom Gannon Hamilton. Sat aft April 29th, 2-4pm, Palmerston Library, 560 Palmerston Ave. Light refreshments served.

Here is my Event Listing on the Home page of my new website. It'll be up until April 29th.

Click here for the Facebook Event Page
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Monday, April 17, 2017

Finally, a website in the making...

Last summer I began the attempt to create a new website for my art and writing. Wordpress proved daunting as I purchased a portfolio template that I was not able to master. The months ticked by. At last, I somehow hit on the right search terms, and Google delivered a list of sites that offer website software that you can buy quite reasonably and download, as opposed to on-line sites, like Wix, Weebly or Squarespace, that charge (much higher) monthly fees for hosting and a domain name with a website. I already had a hosting company, 4goodhosting.com, located in Vancouver, with very reasonable rates, and I have a domain name through Google (US$10/yr). I was looking for a way to build my own site, but also integrate this blog of 14 years.

And I found everything with RapidWeaver, and the purchase of a few plug-ins! I am super excited. I have a lot of work ahead building this site, but it is begun, viable and live! After the struggle of trying to figure out how to do this and the endless searches, I feel like one lucky artiste.

It's here: http://brendaclews.com/. Go check it out.

Like wow, yowza!

And my blog page on my website instantly updated when I posted this blog post!!! Believe me when I say no platforms are much interested in Blogger these days and an integration like this is hard to find. Brilliantismo, YourHead Software, who made the RapidBlog plug-in and who offer it as a free download.

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