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Heather Haley Videopoems
Heather is currently directing Purple Lipstick with Alexandra Oliver in the principal role. Shot on Bowen Island, the targeted completion date is July 15, right in time for the Zebra Poetry Award competition.
In 2004, Dying for the Pleasure screened at the Seattle Poetry Festival, the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC and at the National Poetry Therapy Association conference in Idaho. In August, "DFTP" was part of a poetry video workshop Heather facilitated at FUEL, artist-run centre in Kingston, Ontario, as part of the Red Schoolhouse Poetry Festival. She screened "DFTP" in Prague, a few weeks later, at Shakespeare & Sons and on Sept. 17, 2005 at "Illume: An Alchemy of Text and Image, at the Gene Siskal Film Centre/Chicago Art Institute. Heather served as a panelist and was interviewed on "Wordslingers," 88.7 fm WLUW by host Michael C. Watson.
On Oct. 1, 2005, "Dying for the Pleasure" will screen at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Kaliningrad, Russia. It can be viewed here and online at Microcinema
Crush
Heather's new group, BENT TAIL is busy writing and rehearsing in preparation for recording a new CD. They will be appearing at Crush Lounge in Vancouver, Thursday, April 28th with Mari-Lou Rowley and Heidi Greco as part of National Poetry Month celebrations.
See the voice
Visible Verse 2004 was well received and garnered several write-ups in the local media. Please see the Press Room. Tanya Evanson and Katrin Bowen's "Almost Forgot My Bones" won the People's Choice Award, and plans are underway for an even bigger and better in 2005. Videopoems will be accepted for submission year round with the deadline remaining Sept. 1.
Here is the announcement that was originally posted on this site:
Heather Haley is a well established presenter of poetry video in Vancouver. An instigator of poetry video production and appreciation in Canada, Haley and the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre convened the original Vancouver Videopoem Festival in 1999. That festival became critically regarded owing to its progressive regard for spoken word in cinema. The 2000 festival, for example, presented many poets both in performance and on the big screen at the Pacific Cinémathèque. One of their awards, the "Voice Award," honoured Best Peformance in the hybrid genre of videopoetry. The audience could see for themselves the merits and distinctions of verserendered in time in these two forms, stage versus screen.
The Vancouver Videopoem Festival then built upon that critical base, with widened explorations into poetry cinema across national frontiers. They presented significant new works from Europe and the Americas, and continued to offer Canadian audiences a remarkably broad selection of new videopoems from our own country. And owing to Vancouver's strength in the film and television production industries, Haley has been able to cultivate critical interest between filmmakers and poets, with positive consequences for both.
Artists will be notified of acceptance by 1 October, 2004.
National Poetry Month Reading
April 25th, 2004
- 2:00 pm, at Bowen Island Museum (porch & garden), 1014 Miller Road
- Heather Haley and Bernice Lever will read for National Poetry Month, sponsored by Bowen Island Arts Council
- Readings and songs have a focus on community values. Our Island community has much to praise and celebrate both for our heritage and our future.
- Do join in an open set before 3 pm by sharing your poems and songs.
Contact Bernice Lever: 604-947-0017
Double H Birthday Party
Saturday, March 13
Bowen Island, BC
Happy Birthday to She!
Heather Haley was born under the sign of Pisces, described by the Birthday Book of Good Fortune as a “non-conformist individual with a keen appreciation of literature and music. Scrupulously honest, your love is steadfast and your friendship lasting.”
Anvil Press and Talonbooks Seasonal Bash
December 6th, 2003
Anvil Press and Talonbooks invite you to join us in celebration of another season of new books and a collective 55 YEARS of local literary publishing activity! Bring your friends and we hope to see you there.
The festivities begin at 7:30pm and continue until 11:30pm.
Heather will be reading from her new book of poetry, Sideways , at this Talon/Anvil event.
We hope to see you there. . .
Videopoem Matinee at Gabriola Island Writers Festival
Nov 20-22, 2003
Hosted by author, media poet, producer and curator, Heather Haley
Poetry Reading: Heather will read from "Sideways," her recent collection of verse published by Anvil Press.
Screening of Heather's videopoem, "Dying For the Pleasure" (10 mins)
Dying For the Pleasure is the result of a poem-as-script strategy. It is a darkly humorous, kaleidoscopic trip down Memory Lane, the audience witness to a woman's anxiety surrounding the loss of our humanity after we "crawl inside," to become enveloped, shielded, and cut off from others by a body of steel.
The car is a metaphor for power and an extension of desire. The narrator doesn't talk horsepower or anthropomorphosize her vehicle as much as feed off its vigour like a parasite, fueling her flight from banality, her lust for the open road. Once behind the wheel, she is transformed, a cyborg - a car/woman driven close to deliverance.
The theme is timely with Vancouver's streets terrorized by young racers crashing their fancy fast cars at incredibly high speeds, but automobile accidents have long been the single greatest cause of death to people aged 16-24.
Set at the intersection of flesh and metal, beyond road rage and autoeroticism, Dying For The Pleasure explores a woman's dread of, and terrible infatuation with, the car and car culture.
Screening of a selection of works by: Kirk Miles, Ian Ferrier, Bud Osborn, Sheri-D Wilson, Arias & Aragon, Doug Knott and Mike Hoolboom
Q & A Period
Screening: For the die-hards, stick around to view the first Vancouver Videopoem Festival touring reel:
- Zaffi Gousopoulos - Bubblegum Alley
- Alyson Vinshnovska and Annabelle Chvostek - The Carrying
- Tom Konyves - Sign Language, Percussion, Hopscotch
- Christopher Reiner - Wedding Song
- Doug Knott - In the Hebrew Cemetary, I Become Surreal At An Art Opening
- Quraysh Ali Lansana - Passage (Kurt Heintz, Producer)
- Verbomotorhead - What If A Much Of A Which Of A Wind by ee cummings (Kedrick James, Producer)
- bill bissett - dew what u want (Anne Ahmad and Thomas Michalak, Producers)
- Adeena Karasick - Alphabet City
- Patricia Smith - Chinese Cucumbers (Kurt Heintz, Producer)
- Laurel Ann Bogen - Wings: That Which Takes Flight (Doug Knott, Producer)
"Sideways" to Appear On The Bus
September 28, 2003 @ 2pm.
From: "Anvil Press" Hi Heather, An excerpt from your poem "Europa" has been selected for the Poetry In Transit program. Hurrah! Not only is bus-rider fame now yours, but you have an opportunity to read at The Word On The Street festival. Would you be interested? I'll be getting all the necessary forms in a day or two and then I'll get the ball rolling. I'll keep you posted. Congratulations! Jenn Poetry in Transit is the extremely popular project that brings poetry to the transit systems in British Columbia. In partnership with TransLink, the ABPBC produces sixteen new poetry cards each year to be displayed on our province's buses and SkyTrains. A committee made up of TransLink staff selects the poems, BC poets and ABPBC staff and the cards are launched in September with a display and readings at The Word On The Street . Each year, the selected poets are invited to read on a TransLink bus at to celebrate the new cards. In order to be eligible for the Poetry in Transit program, the poetry must have been published. The publisher makes poetry submissions for this program. Selections are made by the Poetry in Transit committee and the cards are produced for display on the transit system in September. Although the poetry can have been published anywhere, the poets must be from BC. Each year, the selected poets are invited to read on a TransLink bus parked close to the Vancouver Public Library at The Word On The Street to celebrate the new cards. This year's participating poets are Mark Cochrane, Jason Dewinetz, Heidi Greco, Heather Haley, Nancy Holmes, Aislinn Hunter, Daphne Marlatt, Susan McCaslin, and Miranda Pearson. Catch them reading on the bus Sunday, Sept. 28th from 11:00-3:30 pm. Heather goes on at 2 PM |
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