'Ravishing Light' performed @ LyricalMyrical Festival last night

direct link:Ravishing Light @ LyricalMyrical Festival.

My second 'clip-on mic' poetry and creative movement live performance, 'Ravishing Light,' @the LyricalMyrical Festival hosted by publisher, Luciano Iacobelli, @Q Space in Toronto. The 3-day festival of LyricalMyrical authors (over 30 featured) is the last event before it closes down in a few days. We all hope Luciano resurrects Q Space at another location at some point in the future. His cafe has been a warm, welcoming, accepting, nurturing and enjoyable space for poetry in Toronto and many of us will miss it greatly. Many thanks to my brother, Allan Clews, and my friend, Jacques Albert, who took video. I edited the clips the morning after.

All photos from the video: two as is; two photoshopped.

___

 

LyricalMyrical Festival this weekend!

Ok. 7-10 minute spot at the LyricalMyrical Festival tomorrow night, Aug 24th, slated for around 9pm, and I promised to bring people so .... ahem, yah! Check. Clip-on mic tested and working. I have a large black cloth to wear for the first short poem, and a gold prop I made this afternoon! I was glueing gold light down - well, not quite. But I am quite resourceful! you'll see (hope to convince someone or other to take video of it for you to see my antics) - and then, as requested, I'll be wearing the mask and that outfit in the photo below to perform my poem, 'A Floral Opera.' Timed at about 7.5 minutes tonight, but you think I can remember the lines. LOL. Already nervous! getting performance anxiety a good 24 hours ahead of schedule. Just joking! It'll be a fabulous evening! Tons of great readers - 33 poets with LyricalMyrical chapbooks over the whole weekend! A blast of a farewell to Q Space (382 College St, Toronto - the LyricalMyrical Festival will be the last event held there).

I did a phone in 'shout out' about it on Nik Beat's CIUT radio show, Howl, last Tuesday night from the park - the last 10-12 min of the show. The link is to the latest show, so listen before Wednesday if you have it in mind to listen.

Oh, and a link to my LyricalMyrical chapbook, 'the luminist poems,' published this year (there are only 5 copies left before we go into a 2nd print-run!). Come September I am going to try to do more promo for it, try, try, will, soon. Lol.

___

 

Split Mask

Working on a new mask.... the photos, a take on the cell handheld self-portrait.




___

 

Sketches of Poets and Musicians at Poetry Events in Toronto

So many things going on, I seem to have let my blog lapse a bit this Summer. Here are some of the sketches I've done at various poetry events. Below them is a slideshow with captions so you can see who's who if you wish.





___

 

Becoming a Performance Poet...

While I have been told I am an expressive reader, and that I am 'really a performance poet,' I think I entered the realm of Performance Poetry more completely than ever before last Thursday night.

A couple of stills from my feature at the fabulous and wicked The Beautiful and The Damned, a monthly poetry event in Toronto, currently at Q Space and hosted this month by Lizzie Violet. A great evening. Many talented, brilliant poets, and singers featured and on open mic. And really, I was totally scared to do this piece, masqued and all, but it went ok, and I didn't even flub the lines! Whew. Shhhh... don't tell anyone, but I had my eyes closed mostly throughout 'A Floral Opera' and so was able to recite my poem without the performance anxiety that usually makes me forget my hard-memorized lines.

Like I had 'ravishing light' memorized, but ran into the audience's eyes, and had to resort to the written version, and also with 'Palmistry, a Psalm,' same thing. At home on my own, I can recite from beginning to end without a hitch. So I guess I have performance anxiety. A friend suggested I wear a half mask for readings so I can keep my eyes closed without the audience knowing! Haha! No, I won't. Rather, I think I need to keep pushing my own envelope, keep trying, and eventually I'll break through to a comfort level where I can recite what I have worked so hard to memorize.



I worked on this one a bit in Photoshop for a potential profile photo (which I used on Facebook).
___

 

Drawing from TV Shows

Yeah, well, you know what show. I found too much realism creeping in, so left him raw and obscured her. There will be a turquoise sky and light grey under her and a poem or words written into this one.

Sketch (unfinished), 12" x 16", charcoal and pastels on Canson 98lb pastel paper, drawn while pausing the TV show, True Blood, for 10-15 min.

Orange is the New Black, Drawing #4, 2013, Brenda Clews, 12" x 16", charcoal and pastels on Canson 98lb pastel paper. I'm going to put this one out on the street.

Drawing from the TV continues, although it drives me a bit crazy so likely I'll try to resist it. Fiddling, not trying too hard. I like to do little not-too-look-alike sketches every week and now that I've pulled back on the simple sketches at poetry readings, I guess I'm looking for something else as easy. This drawing didn't take long, just a bit messy with the graphite, charcoal, pastels and ink (which is one thing you can do at home that you can't do at a cafe unless you want to carry a suitcase of art supplies). Lol! (I have re-sized it to a smaller size since I think that looks better - ie the line of shadow on her forehead is entirely made-up and doesn't even follow the curve of the head -more like something you'd do with a pair of scissors, shadow cut down the middle).

___

 

Blueberry Crumble Cake

A short story, 'micro fiction,' that, unfortunately, I can't share due to being ripped-off too many times in the past, an image here, half a line there, even the whole concept of a piece of my writing has been stylistically and/or thematically copied without credit. Nowadays I am one less stop for those people who rove the Internet for 'far more than' inspiration. The encryption is to keep the literary trolls out.

Blueberry Crumble Cake

Blueberry Crumble Cake -edits