Crave Wine Bar in Regina was the venue for Vertigo. It got a good boost by being Pick of the Day at Prairie Dog.
Cassidy McFadzean read from her Jack Pine chapbook, Farwell of 2012. The die-cut through the dark green iridescent cover shows the title page into the ” illustrations inspired by the zoetrope, a spinning object that gives pictures the illusion of motion. The book explores the environment of Revelstoke (formerly known as Farwell), by evoking creatures and ghosts from the canon of childhood imagination.”
She’s also read new poems. Her new material included some ekphrastic such as a poem on a 350 BCE chariot driver poised with reins but horses gone for centuries. She’s heading into her MFA. In the current issue of Maple Tree Literary Supplement are some of her new poems.
She was the first reader up after Tyler Gilbert who opened the first and second set with his guitar songs. He was in the first leg of a nearly 2 dozen concert run taking him to September.
His next album, OK Murphy releases in a few days then he’s on his way touring across the continent to Nashville along with all his swag of CDs, t-shirts, and hoodies.
Some of my own table out of Chaudiere, phafours and above/ground goodnesses. Thanks to everyone who listened and gave an encouraging word, and bought some books to offset the cost. Thanks to the League of Canadian poets for covering some of the travel costs.
When I’m at the mic…some audience to the left, who were less blurry in real life as you might imagine.
And some of the audience to the right including the always lovely organizer on the Regina scene, Bernadette Wagner and some of the highly skilled, enthusiastic fellow readers. Regina’s in good hands.
Evie Ruddy is a dynamo of energy and a journalist. She read a prose autobiography of her relationship with her mother, and the third character in the partnership which was her mother’s preoccupation with her own appearance and weight. It included sub-stories of her first puppy love with the dance instructor and the travails of school teasing. Her mother told her “Kids under 12 can get plastic surgery for free. My ears were not the cause of my anxiety, but you could not get funding to surgically alter Andrew Morehead.”
This year the Regina Poetry Slam team #1 spot went to Shayna Stock.One of her pieces was about a fading relationship. She exhorted “fill those bubbles between your words with something real” but you “brush off my flirty fingers like fluff.”
Regina Slam team member, Micaella Joy related how her father taught her storytelling and to tell a story that you can behind. (Then my notes fall illegible.)
Regina Slam Team member, Cat Abenstein did two pieces, one a call for speaking out and a united front among sister of violence. The problem is “generational silence”. A mother can teach her daughter silence, to not oppose, to take old givens as the only option. It’s “like a Midas touch but you’re left with shit” instead. Let us speak to one another and “protect from senseless suffocation.”
Her and the night’s closing poem was a comic piece about trespassing on a trampoline and getting caught by the police. A beautiful energy.
Host Tara Dawn Solheim and her extended family who support the series with attendance, photos, doing the book table make for a wonderful warm atmosphere. She sang us out with a lullaby. Amazing vocal range she has.
Draw for one of the three mystery book pack raffle prizes.
We have a winner!
Vertigo is off on summer hiatus and will return in September.
You can see more of the team in the Montreal slam tournament and probably at the Cultural Days 7:30 pm Friday, September 27, at The Mercury Cafe & Grill, Regina or at Word Up Wednedays at the Creative Centre. Tonight Ottawa’s Brad Morden is there