The final 'Beautiful and the Damned' was a warm, funny, poignant, talent-heavy evening and somehow a fitting way to say goodbye to a great poetry series. I was honoured to host it. May it find its way among the stars it created during its run.
With thanks to Philip Cairns, who has been part of The Beautiful and the Damned since its beginning 3 1/2 years ago and who organized the evening, and John Oughton for his great Edgar Allen Poe trivia questions and especially the squeaky black rat prize who continued to squeak with Jeff Cottrill's beckoning. My cat is currently dragging it around her lair.
Many thanks to everyone who came out! xoxoxoxo
(it was too dark to take photos without making the subject stay still and using a tripod, but I did my best and really, considering the low light, they're not too bad)
I am looking for suggestions! Working towards a final version of this performance piece, any input is valuable.
This video is the result of a too-quick transformation of my small apartment for a rehearsal of Split Mask yesterday morning. The only lighting was through the windows. The black fabric did not stretch nearly far enough for the camera and I cropped and so on. My dress - I kept pulling it down (note to self: stop it). While the reading was a tad emotional, I found if I did a quieter reading that I couldn't remember the lines. When I allowed myself to perform with emotion, the lines came easily.
I think visually this take almost works, but...
Slit Mask, the performance piece, began with 'an inner image' of a split mask. I carried it for months in the Spring of 2013 and finally went to the art store to see what might work for a base. Was I delighted to find a paper mâché mask that was perfect as it was! I did the shredding and tearing at home and secured it with masking tape and cotton wading and later paper mâchéd it with a fairly heavy-weight wrapping tissue and white glue mixed with water- so it is very strong. I began working on the poem in the Summer of 2013 and finished it in the Summer of 2014. When I was preparing my POEMPAINTINGS show at Urban Gallery late in 2013, another 'inner image' that I had for a large canvas, the shock of gold on a diagonal, became realized in paint, graphite, ink and metal leaf. The mask became the central part of the painting. The whole composition, mask, poem and painting, were always meant to components of a performance piece.
An odd thing about this poem is that men, on the whole, do not like the political references, and I have noticed this reaction beginning with the first version in the Summer of 2013 through to this final draft, which I performed on open mic yesterday evening at Banoo Zan's 'Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) XX.' It seems they would prefer to keep the woman in the mask performing a poem that fits their ideas of the mask (that I created) rather than the fissure it is for me. I don't find women mind the political aspect at all, and in fact, like the force of it. We don't always have 'to be beautiful' surely. Sometimes we can yell over terror and torture. The world is a difficult place and our hearts are so often torn for those who are living through nightmares of violence and war.
The thing is, when I begin to memorize a longer poem for a performance piece, I keep fiddling with it and doing small bits of re-writes - little things, a changed word here or there, deleting lines, modifiers, prepositions, tightening things up. Which makes it harder to remember! It might take a whole week because every day I make changes and then have to start memorizing all over. Yes, eventually the poem does get to the point where I'm satisfied and then I rarely change a word again.
I'm a guest poet at Portobello Saturdays this coming Saturday and I will perform the poem I am working on memorizing (promise). 995 Bay St (at Wellesley), 1:30-4:30p.
