Luna Allison (Ottawa, Montreal), and Adeena Karasick (NYC) part of Vox Femina at Voices of Venus, Umi Cafe Ottawa, Sept. 23
Catch them next at the Kingston Writers Fest, one tonight, last event Page vs. Stage on the 25th.
catch them next at the Kingston Writers Fest: Sandra Alland (Edinburgh, Toronto) and Jill Battson (New Mexico, Toronto) part of Vox Femina
Amazon Syren hosting the Voices of Venus and this amazing set of accomplished ladies. They collectively do music, spoken word, opera.
Jill Battson, part of “Liminal Sisters”, poet’s refuge, past poetry editor for Insomniac Press, read from new and older work, already pressed to page or CD. Part that struck me was “truth smacks you like a romance novel […then…] the shift that makes it more real, more vulnerable”. Poems about all the things she lost when she lost a storage locker and a tribute to a jazz singer — “When Frank says, all I want to do is rehearse my craft, I understand selfishness”.
Adeena Karasick reading from a couple of her 7 poetry books and getting a laugh with her twisty sounds and performance including a poem for remixing the material of shopping channel to buy a writer’s block buster. She’s a fun reader. Another poem was using blogging and food to smooth you over to this fabulous “blog bourguignon”, and its “debauched syn-tax”.
Luna Allison has been performing spoken word since 2001 with her first album out in 2006. She’s a curator of poetry for Westfest and Ladyfest. She drops some wonderful turns of images and phrases such as, “the questions filled the white of your eye — you walk away” and a story of what it is to live in fear of the next attack by walking with a girl as the dandelion between her finger and thumb goes “twirl, twirl, like a private parasol” and “her slingshot heart drawn tight so her chest is tight”. She’s very good at spreading compassion and stepping into people’s shoes. Her next project is with Coco Riot.
The night closed with Sandra Alland who has done videos, plays, CDs, books, including Blissful Times (which is a homophonic translation) and Proof of a Tongue which also gets into the pool of language, comparing constraints of how you can say something in Bulgarian vs. English. She slips thru surreal as ably as thru languages. Great to finally hear her in person after years of page and report only.
The next reading in the series will be Thanksgiving Day, Oct 11th back at Umi Cafe with the Lanark Country Slam team.