Kevin Matthews and Ian Keteku took the stage for an inspiring workshop presentation on what spoken word is, what it does and how. There was a super amount of engagement, questions and statements from the audience.
Kevin guided discussion. Ian (who is current world spoken word champion, journalist, and former MC battler) talked about how in spoken word, it’s about expressing. FB updates are coming from the same impulse as poetry. Call if what you will, it’s about connection.
The event itself was an example of connection in itself. That magical flow that can occasionally happen with the stage and audience feeding each other good energies happened. That’s part of the strength of spoken word. The monologue becomes a dialogue by the culture of participating, by giving feedback, snapping, nodding, verbal feedback or whatever sounds. It was eye-opening to hear him do a piece I’ve heard him do three times before but what a shift when there’s that vibe in the room and people are giving good full energy. He talked about competition bringing up one’s games but an enthusiastic audience, that brings up the game too.
It was interesting to see how many the kids of primary school when asked to think of something they hate verbalized: Harper. His response to that was saying in poetry what you’re trying to do is use your voice and examine where you come from, what makes you hate something? What brings you to this place.
He performed his poem “Right Side Up” in a yoga position. It exists as an animation:

Ian said that’s the thing about poetry and about animation — you can use them to create new realities that didn’t exist before and make them into something real.
We have access to create in this era, whether animation, or videos on youtube, to spread communications between communities. Spoken word is taking off around Canada, and Ottawa. Spoken word can be an agent for changing in a comparable way that the Feminism wave of the 60s and the gay rights movement of the 60s had a cheap means of access to make video art their forum and form. In the case of Spoken word the consensus is about consensus, inclusion, racism, resolution, fears and love, and all the same subjects as Shakespeare used in a comparable physical set up of oral speaking using meter, rhyme, jokes, metaphor, all the usual poetic devices to speak to anyone. Ian related the Zimbabwe saying: “If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk you can sing.”
The barriers to entering dialogue are getting cheaper and lighter. All it takes is a few people coming forward and saying, let’s do this, bring poetry, bring discussion, bring issues forward, bring community into being.

Here’s a bit of today’s noon hour talk on spoken word (on vimeo).
You can see for yourself but it was interesting that he pointed out and enacted how part of the appeal of spoken word is the spark of in-person experience. It isn’t just word. It can use other cues of lighting, video, and music. Some people do spoken word as storytelling, some as rap, some in formal meter and some with songs interwoven. You need rhythm and a desire to say something about something but the barriers to entry are very low. There’s a sharing your story with a crowd who shares and supports. It’s a warm community.
There’s the linguistic level but you don’t necessarily need the linguistic context. He’s performed in countries where the language of the audience isn’t English but still communicated with the sounds of words, the body language, the emotional language and the audience feels something in response. We saw that at Versefest with people who spoke no Spanish crying as Pura López-Colomé read in Spanish –– something transmitted in intonation, intention, body and rhythms.

There was a seriously long line for this CD, and his autograph.
Keteku is also part of this Multi-artist, multi-media thingee tomorrow.

Tree brought in a total of $114 from the used books! Woo, not bad.
I brought home two for myself: Ken Norris’ collected and Harold Rheinisch’s, which brings my currently reading shelf to 46 books/chapbooks.

The remaining bazaar books left after the 2 weeks are being donated to a local library, so will continue to be useful.

Christine McNair‘s chapbook making workshop taught 3 styles this time. A Magic Book, a japanese binding and how to sew two signatures together while hiding the stitches from being seen on the closed book. (And I only poked myself with a needle twice. Look, ma, no blood!)
There are loads of books on making books –Japanese bookbinding, Book craft, [holp! I’ve fallen into Amazon and can’t get out!] folding, wrapping, pop books and found materials.
Reading is something. Illustrations help. DIY by yourself can be fun. But learning in a group, hands on, taking the time in person with someone who has experience, a sense of spatial of how to hold, and who can show and explain tools, like a Japanese punch tool, a bone Folder, or spools of linen threads makes it all more interesting and easy. Not to mention the laughter as we all learn together.
Afterwards, there were readers including Steve Artelle.

He has a series thinking around what would be the gods of the modern urban world? China has household gods to govern, like Zào Jūn, the stove master and the door gods. The Catholic church tries to update the Saints and what they would govern to make one in charge of computers, or patron saint of the unemployed. It’s a fertile sort of ground.

And David O’Meara read two poems. The video’s not up yet. He read a poem on the White Rose Movement at a previous reading. He announced that you can catch his play, Vicious, at the Extremely Short Play Festival May 3-12 at the Arts Court.
I couldn’t fit in a whole night, but the nice thing about events is catch what you can when you can. More poetry events come constantly. For example, on Friday there’s a workshop with Ian Keteku on spoken word as part of writers fest. Ian has done a workshop for Tree too although having him again would be good too.
If anyone has anyone they’d like to learn from or a skill you want a specialist brought in for as a 1-hour session with the Tree workshop, I’m scouting for people to facilitate learning aspects of poetry for this summer and this fall.
The next Tree Workshop will be on May 8th with Robin Macdonald on Hidden Language: Explore the tools of yoga as they connect to writing, cultivate the ability to listen with intuition, and refresh your creative process. Wear comfortable clothing and bring a journal.

sure as urge becomes purged
i.
what adze to the morning
ices the sun. cloud. he lights
the fuse in refused. foiled.
sure as a jigger’s sleeves slip
a bone will knit
with the usual waul.
this no cat song
no sex call.
once enough drugs have
thawed these elm limbs
they’ll helm wind for an
extended reach
a heavy weight crane
the hoistest with the
moistest in the rain
ii.
sure, happy to lend an eye
so long as I get my glance back
iii
crow-bard dawn
a revel without a caw
lax in the ax grip’s rip
of tender as quilt stitch, cloud
over cloud over moon.
iv.
sawn snore. the long claw of the awwww.
yawns. where can I say they flew?
calf-napped mo oo (hiccupping
into two). the updo is broken apart.
puff, fff, f overstocked. enough.
pat on a cast (honed to level,
topically) of how-sands. in grains
are mortar are structure are
safe and shone at a matte grit
over gore that felt as that
which the vet knew gnawed in
with an exotic moiling son-of-a.
v
who hikes over an acre of
hymen, imbibes equine
pee gin, and evicts fate?
a raj’s djin, lint on a glint
on a facet of love. a zig
and a cig and a zag and a
nah and they’re off,
vi
trailing out with a pout, they
who spat a spout of clowns.
careful with that carful of them
who give of zein selves
vii
the hot of the shower pops
(but not off) a crop of goosebumps
we are each other’s body language
smudged together sopping
comic pages.
viii
last wisdom, my son? never,
in prison call anyone a
goof. tantamount to
choke bait. now scoot.

Dan Weber in the after chats at the AB Series last night.

His extensive book and ephemera table.

Some posters being looked at.

And other ephemera including “ephemera for a better world” and “odes to common things for people with short attention spans” from ChapbookPublisher.com, lovely boxes of lines, one from the Lost Lines Project and Geof Huth‘s chapbook. I describe the night and his sestinas in more detail at Humanyms.