Still around.... a poetry salon, and an article published in an on-line newspaper

Went to a fabulous poetry salon last night at Lou Lou's townhouse, 4-level, sunken living room, sunken garden. It was packed and the poetry and music performances were wonderful. I read 'Light Catches Diamonds,' from my chapbook, the luminist poems, and an older poem, 'Drumbeat,' from my CD Starfire. Unlike some of the poetry series where I do open mic, I always feel my work is welcome and my readings, be what they are, are enjoyed by the audience. These gatherings, and we have upwards of half a dozen or more poetry salons a year hosted by different people in the group, are always affirming. A good group of talented friends brought together by Nik Beat, who really is a centre of a small literary and music hub in Toronto.

On other notes, I got an article on the Victor&Rolf Dolls show in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum during the Luminata Festival in June published in an on-line newspaper, Dictated News. They changed one word in the article and added a few more paragraph breaks. And I will get paid for the article. I am chuffed, to say the least. But I should put up a separate post on the article.

___

 

Sinkholes and Floods

I've been living in a strange and precarious situation for about a week and keep meaning to write a post but more stuff keeps happening.

So I'm keeping a running commentary over at my Facebook page with public posts.

Eventually I will write one long blog post on it, but for now, if you'd like to catch up on the mess and the danger and the progress of the sinkholes that have appeared all along the side of the apartment building I live in, check out the Facebook posts: https://www.facebook.com/brenda.clews

Last Tuesday morning, July 9th, I did post a video, there was one from the previous day too. It's worse now, though.

direct link

Other holes appeared after that was filled, and a new still-tiny one in the past few hours very close to the walkway and my only door.

I'll come by and make a long post soon.

xo

___

 

Video: Two Poems by Linda Stitt from her, 'Acting My Age.'

Here are two poems from Linda Stitt's, 'Acting My Age,' and read by her at her poetry book launch at Portobello on April 13, 2013. At 81 years of age, she remains a beautiful woman and poet who I am honoured to know through her ongoing series, Portobello Saturdays, in Toronto.

In the first scene, Ann-Marie Boudreau plays an Oscar drum while Linda reads. Ann-Marie's music and voice is something I could rave about too.

Two astounding women artists!


direct link: Poems by Linda Stitt from 'Acting My Age.' (note: I'm now using another of my YouTube accounts to host my videos of poets, musicians and artists)

I'm a guest poet this afternoon at the lovely Portobello Saturdays that are hosted by Linda Stitt and Peter Solmes. Poetry, jazz, a lovely restaurant with good food, it's always such a pleasure to go to this event.

995 Bay St., north of Wellesley on the East side, from 1:30pm - 4:30pm.

Because of my feature this afternoon, I went searching through my video footage and thankfully found some I'd taken of Linda's launch last April. A little video I put together - it's just over 2 minutes.



___

 

Happy Canada Day!

Happy to say I think I have finally found music for a videopoem that I have been working on for nearly 2 years. Wow, what a gift on Canada Day is all I can say. My own private fireworks, I tell ya. And I started on an article I had hoped to write, too. Let's say it's been a productive evening. All day I felt an atmospheric pressure that was overwhelming, I can't explain it. I kept slipping past here and finding everything opening up, way beyond the roads and houses where I live. The universe was bearing down today. Do you have days like that too? But then this evening, finally, music that seems to grasp the imagery of the video without trivializing or dominating, and while I still have to work on the writing, I am close to bringing this project to fruition. When things on your list get done, it's like, halleluja.

___

 

Ink Sketch while reading Neil Gaiman's 'Ocean at the End of the Lane'

Ink Sketch while reading Neil Gaiman's 'Ocean at the End of the Lane,' Brenda Clews, 2013, 8" x 10", India ink, in a Premium C.D. Japanese Notebook (the paper is like silk).

There is a rough draft of a poem on the other page but I blurred it out.

___

 

Getting Away

encrypted

___

 

Decided on a PayPal Merchants Account for payment options

After researching my options, I went with PayPal. 

the luminist poems, by Brenda Clews, a romance, its dazzling and dangerous light, questions the paradoxes of who we are before the text blazes into visionary rapture.

"Brenda Clews offers us a pellucid voice that presents and interprets so clearly, it is almost as if light is shining through each one of the magnificent images in these mysterious poems." -John F. Walter

Cost: $20.00 CAD, each book is signed 
Size: 6" x 8"; 15.24cm x 20.32cm 
Hardcover: 39 pages
Publisher: LyricalMyrical Press
ISBN: 978-1-897275-84-9
Shipping costs:
        Canada..............$5.00
        US.....................$8.00
        International....$14.00

'luminist poems,' $20.00CAD, choose shipping from drop-down menu

Ship to US- $28.00 CAD Ship in Canada- $25.00 CAD Ship Internationally- $34.00 CAD

the luminist poems is a small hand-made chapbook produced by Luciano Iacobelli, who owns LyricalMyrical Press. They are hard cover, usually in bright primary colours; the poems are printed on fine paper. Each of his chapbooks is a jewel. With an initial print-run of 30 numbered copies, they are collector's items. I am honoured to be among the poets he has published.

A review of the luminist poems:

“Tell me the eternal form of you, in that burning star.” “We are solar explosions. What else could we be?” These two quotes from The Luminist Poems hint at the romance of the book (it’s a great love story – and I love the way the heroine dresses!) and at the central conflict of light and human experience as metaphors for each other, as primal energies that are subject to a thousand laws of time and place even as those laws are bent around the beating star and the pulsing heart. These are deeply thought-out and felt-through poems, as interconnected as planets of a solar system or the organs of a body, and yet they read with the seductive spontaneity of a diary. There is enormous erudition here, both in terms of science and philosophy (from Plato to Bergson) and of literary tradition (Henry Vaughan to Julia Kristeva), but the author wears her learning with the effort-concealing elegance of a dancer whose lead you trust. Her allusions are always at the service of the poet’s tale and the reader’s pleasure. (I’m reminded of Nabokov’s search for “the passion of science, the precision of poetry”.) Like the passage of light, this book can be experienced as both waves and particles: as irresistible forward movement in an unbroken line and an archipelago of individual thoughts. And what thoughts! Few modern poets are so generous, so companionable, so easy to commit to memory. Few writers are so able to combine turbulence and passion with serenity; and for this reader it’s the equilibrium between pain and peace that makes me feel that my own struggles have been seen from afar, recognized from up close, and given a shape that lets me face them, and, finally, bless them.

--Stephen Hatfield (one of Canada's pre-eminent choral composers)

___