Category Archives: Journal

One Resolution

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Woody Guthrie’s NEW YEARS RULIN’S, for 1942:

1. WORK MORE AND BETTER
2. WORK BY A SCHEDULE
3. WASH TEETH IF ANY
4. SHAVE
5. TAKE BATH
6. EAT GOOD – FRUIT – VEGETABLES – MILK
7. DRINK VERY SCANT IF ANY
8. WRITE A SONG A DAY
9. WEAR CLEAN CLOTHES – LOOK GOOD
10. SHINE SHOES
11. CHANGE SOCKS
12. CHANGE BED CLOTHES OFTEN
13. READ LOTS GOOD BOOKS
14. LISTEN TO RADIO A LOT
15. LEARN PEOPLE BETTER
16. KEEP RANCHO CLEAN
17. DON’T GET LONESOME
18. STAY GLAD
19. KEEP HOPING MACHINE RUNNING
20. DREAM GOOD
21. BANK ALL EXTRA MONEY
22. SAVE DOUGH
23. HAVE COMPANY BUT DON’T WASTE TIME
24. SEND MARY AND KIDS MONEY
25. PLAY AND SING GOOD
26. DANCE BETTER
27. HELP WIN WAR – BEAT FASCISM
28. LOVE MAMA
29. LOVE PAPA
30. LOVE PETE
31. LOVE EVERYBODY
32. MAKE UP YOUR MIND
33. WAKE UP AND FIGHT

Should old acquaintance be forgot? No, but 2011 should. Happy New Year. I’m so relieved the holidays are over. Can I have my life back now?

Unlike amitious troubadour Woody Guthrie, I have one resolution. Kick ass. Write! Honour it. That ability. I have so much writing to do.

I don’t have to remind myself to bathe, brush my teeth, wear clean clothes, look good, change socks and bed clothes often, but they are sound resolutions. I do need to work more efficiently. In fact, I must overcome paralysis. Isolation. Wake up and fight! Inertia. Embrace my process, engage in process. Process!

I will quit crap; viewing, reading and eating. Read lots good books. Play guitar dammit. Cultivate some discipline. I may be at my fighting weight but still need to get tough. Get fit. Get off Facebook. Work on my website. Have company but don’t waste time. Ditch those that drag me down. Love everybody. Oh, and since it’s nearly one minute to midnight in terms of finding my biological father, I must make efforts to solve that mystery. Learn people better. Especially thyself. Also, no more sadness, anger, grief. I will forgive, freeing myself in the process, and thus unburdened, unhindered, go so much farther. Onward and upward. The only way to go. Keep hoping machine running. In all ways, kick ass.

FIRST CAME MARY

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Enchanted morning swim, matrix of turquoise
lagoon. Silver palometas, yellow damselfish
caress my legs. Casa Ocio walls whitewashed
in cactus milk. Coconuts on the lawn.
Palm fronds bowing, rippling like sea anemones.
Heavy mahogany Hemingway digs.
Gecko chirps from behind a gilt frame.
Cool terrazzo marble pulls sand from toes.
Double rain showerhead. Full throttle bottle bar
under a palapa. I ponder the power
of local masonry to withstand hurricanes,
why it seems odd to name them after men.

Beneath an arbor of pink bougainvillea
sit my dubious nephew, delicate girlfriend,
doubts sinking slowly into the deep
purple cushions. We are going to town. To Playa.
Soft brown doves adorn neon.
Turtles bask on green tile mosaic. Red house
hosts a party tableau of orange Fanta, blue corn
flowers, flags of paper lace, chocolate pan de huevos.
We smell agave, chili, vanilla, coriander and anise,
hear mariachis blaze a mighty La Bamba. Gobble
pumpkin tamales, snow-white beach cooling our heels.
Mongrels expire at the feet of professional urchins
soliciting pesos. I will not cry, pick a white handkerchief
festooned with poinsettias embroidered by his mother.
No, I can’t buy them all. Though downcast he will not cry.
Our Lady of Guadalupe provides. Protects.

Christmastime but it’s Mary I see. Everywhere. To the faithful
the forever virgin manifests in reefs, rays and schools
of gobies and fairy basslet. In the crystalline water
of a cenote near Merida. In the mynah’s cry.
They live in Mother Mary’s shadow, warm as her embrace.
Queen of the Americas imperial as the iguana
gnawing hibiscus, sunning atop Tulum’s serpentine stairways.
She is wing carved into rock, three pelicans soaring above.
Even Mary, standing on the moon, presiding over the jungle
in a cloak of stars, could not stop the calendar,
marauding anthropologists or games to the death.

On every altar she towers over the crucifix, candles,
iron crosses, golden grapes. She is under their skin,
her miraculous portrait inked onto their muscles.
Hammered in copper, in tin. On murals.
Santa Maria assures and comforts all
her Mexican children. Heals. Entirely and ever
Virgin Mary is the horizon, sea and sky colliding
in azure, cobalt blues. Sacred to all. Taxi drivers.
Marimba players. Deejays and charros. She waves
from the cruise ships, watches over fire dancing,
blesses the portrait of two young lovers lost
in a car crash. Her people feel the harbour of her arms
around them. Her mercy. Infinite. Close.
First comes Mary. Holy Mary. Mother of God.

AN ANTITHEIST CHRISTMAS

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Equinox Fitness Club-Nuns image

I’m more comfortable being pro-something, anything, but my conversion to antitheism was inevitable. For I am discerning, intelligent. Not that I was ever all that devout. I am a recovering Catholic, as they say, or Cathological, as my friend Tom Snyders puts it, though lucky enough to have escaped parochial school, unlike my mother. However, the sight of a nun still elicits an immediate and visceral reaction; my body stiffens, I cast my eyes to the ground. Thank god, such sightings are rare. There, you see, it’s practically in my DNA, though I have stopped capitalizing god. I also resort to “Christ” a lot and I’m as deeply infused with guilt and shame as my parents, taught that I was born tainted with original sin, for I didn’t escape Sunday school. Even as a child, a part of me knew it was all a crock, distrustful and dismissive of a fearsome and vengeful deity. Due to innate stubbornness, I never succumbed completely to indoctrination, attending church mainly to sing in the choir. I fled a home bereft of imagination, becoming the consummate bad girl, gleefully and with panache. Some would say I’m still at it, but I grow weary of good girl/bad girl talk and figure, who are you to judge?

I wasn’t rabidly anti-Christmas but if, or how to observe wasn’t an issue before I had a kid. My riot grrll self would do as many Jews do, go to a movie followed by Chinese food. But when I had my son, depriving him of the experience didn’t feel right. I had fond memories of a time of year when my folks were actually nice. They were drunk of course. I grappled with the hypocrisy of Advent calendars and tree trimming, even tried attending midnight Mass. Such rituals can be awfully moving, Catholic iconography beautiful, appealing to my sense of aesthetics. It didn’t work. We both squirmed. I did teach Junior who Christ was, his historical significance, and counseled, that as sound as Christ’s teachings are, he was a regular dude, not a god. The only Christmas perk I can see, one I am glad to partake of, is time off work, which affords friends and family a chance to get together.

I’m no pagan either but isn’t it interesting that Continue reading →

Sidetracked at the Railway & Working the Layton Centenary Railroad

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“Why are you looking at that tree?”

“To really see it.”

from the Kino Pictures film, POETRY, directed by Chang-dong Lee

So I wound up at the Railway Club on the wrong night, confused my Tuesdays, the last one with the upcoming. Flu fog, that’s my excuse. My buddy poet Pete (Trower) and I wound up having a lovely time chatting with Jenna and Stuart. A curious thing happens when I’m with Peter. Not the charming aforementioned, but *some* people appoint me his caretaker.  Though I’ve become his defacto agent and honoured to be his friend, Pete is not disabled, I point out, just old. 81 to be exact, and doing all right. Must have something to do with all that lumberjacking. Or carousing. Pete gripes sometimes, not without good reason, but I remind him it’s a privilege to grow old and that fortunately he is not afflicted with diabetes, Alzheimers or heart disease like many of his peers. If ever I’m fortunate enough to reach my golden years, I don’t want people patronizing me. Far as I can tell, there’s a fine line between respect and condescension.

In any case, Pete thoroughly enjoyed being feted and fawned over, interviewed really, about the history of the Railway, his old stomping grounds, and the city, his description a far cry from the travel brochures. I used to hang out at the Railway during our punk rock heyday but Pete had better stories. The place used to be teeming with drug dealers, pimps and hookers, who took clients across the street to what is now the St. Regis Hotel. That particular sort of vice has been driven further underground or afield but certainly, there is no dearth of action and it’s still a great live music venue.

I’m making progress on the upcoming Irving Layton Centenary, working in tandem with Rob Taylor and Diane Tucker in Vancouver to promote both our events. I will host a shindig here on the island on Saturday, March 10, and they will present a celebration the next day as part of the Dead Poets Reading Series. I hope to web cast and will definitely videotape/document the readings. Here’s Max Layton’s blurb:

“Canadians coast to coast are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest poets, Irving Layton, who was born on March 12, 1912. Perhaps never before in history has an entire country united to remember—of all things!—one of its poets. Celebrations are scheduled in every province and this page serves as our communication HUB for such Events. If you would like to organize an Event in your own community please contact Max Layton at maxlayton@rogers.com.”

Oh, and I forgot to announce that Charles Butler of Winnipeg, Manitoba won the draw for my blog contest a few weeks back. Congratulations Charles! My books and CDs are on their way, just in time for Christmas. Woo hoo! HO HO HO

Wish List-Books for Xmas-Laytons for my birthday . . .

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. . . and a pot of chicken soup. I start battling the flu the moment the clocks turn back. Every godamn winter; I wish I could make like a snowbird and fly south, to an abode in the desert. I’ll put it on the list.

My buddy Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio invited me to contribute to his delightful Advent Book Blog. Despite the aforementioned bug and a dearth of time for fiction, here is my recommendation.

I’ve long been a fan of Dennis E. Bolen’s uncanny dialogue and unadulterated prose, the economy of which adapts well to the short story genre and his new collection, Anticipated Results. Though Bolen skillfully renders male Boomer ennui entertaining, not every tale wags in Loser Ville. As affecting as his unflinching portrayals of disaffected, middle-aged lost boys may be, I was moved by other premises: the emotional intensity of a child fleeing a bizarre outburst of patriarchal rage, the twisted, lustful hilarity of Kitty, the genuine poignancy of Lena, an account of driving with offspring as fraught with a father’s palpable longing, regret and resignation as his daughter’s intractable anxiety, seething and clumsily concealed reproach. The result? A thoroughly engaging read. Check out the book trailer, which we just screened at Visible Verse Festival.

Another friend, Max Layton, son of Irving Layton, has asked me to participate in a nation wide Layton centenary celebration in March. I said I’d be happy to and have started planning an event here on the island. It will provide an opportunity to celebrate my birthday as well. If it’s half as wild as 2011’s, we’re in store for a memorable occasion.

And oh, other books I’d happily recommend; and also sharks by Jessica Westhead, Jenn Farrell’s The Devil You Know, Michael Crummy’s The Wreckage and The Spoken Word Workbook, edited by Sheri-D Wilson, with “inspiration from poets who teach, 27 of the most influential Poets, Griots & Bards working in jazz, hip hop, dub, slam, storytelling and sound from across North America,” moi included.

Call me CRAZY or call me BITCH, Just Don’t Call Me Late for SUPPER

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I just read an article in the Huffington Post by Yashar Ali called A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not “Crazy” which posits, “It’s a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. We continue to burden women because they don’t refuse our burdens easily. It’s the ultimate cowardice.”

I call the practice crazy making and portray it in my novel but this guy calls it gaslighting, after the film Gaslight. Remember how Ingrid Bergman’s husband tries to drive her nuts by deliberately setting the gaslights to flicker, convincing her she’s just seeing things. Ali makes an apt analogy. “You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already! Sound familiar? If you’re a woman, it probably does. Do you ever hear any of these comments from your spouse, partner, boss, friends, colleagues, or relatives after you have expressed frustration, sadness, or anger about something they have done or said? When someone says these things to you, it’s not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling — that’s inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, “Calm down, you’re overreacting,” after you just addressed someone else’s bad behavior, is emotional manipulation, pure and simple. And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It’s patently false and unfair.”

And sad but true! So true. I suspect some men engage in such tactics in order to feel superior, in control. My gal pal Mahara pointed out they do it because it works. Certainly, it has shut me down on far too many occasions. We aim to please, we women, though I have always spoken the truth, damn the consequences. Been true to myself, despite the constant pressure to be a nice girl. A good girl. Behave. Here’s hoping Mr. Ali’s column can help spread awareness of the problem. Women are tired of being on the defensive. Another friend complained the message has more impact coming from a man. It isn’t the least bit fashionable to be a feminist these days, but at least we’ve got one in our corner, a useful male engine.

The long goodbye . . . I am slowly saying goodbye to this place that I love, a little bit more each day. Times are tough all over and we may be forced to Continue reading →

FOUR Years of ONE LIFE Celebration. Win my oeuvre!

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Hunkering down, wishing I was a bear, could hibernate winter away, but being only human, I am driven. Damn this search for truth. Meaning. I should never read about writing! Or put myself inside characters’ heads, though they see far more clearly our predicament. Morality, especially others’, usually in the guise of religion, is what keeps us caged. False virtue. What is the right thing to do? I no longer ask. I know, here on my crusade against hypocrisy. At the very least, I live life on my terms, according to a hard learned code. I do ask, who wants to be normal? Nice. I have my own definition of normal, and a righteous goal. To kick ass.

Few of us get to win anymore, said a friend defending the rise of the anti-hero. Though I’ve come a long way-and out into the open-I struggle to reconcile the past. “Anger is a powerful engine, and so much better than despair.” I must return to the intrepid riot grrll, the girl who didn’t give a rat’s ass, the girl intent on escaping Puritanism. Smallness. Fear. My task, my journey. Ah, we are such fragile vessels. I have no answers and cannot avenge, but I can live. Love.

Lately I find this Einstein quote resonating: “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”-quoted in H. Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).

Enough naval gazing, let’s play. I’m celebrating! A la vida! To my blog, One Life, four years old this month. I’m giving away books and CDs to one lucky winner. Please *follow* One Life through Networked Blogs at Facebook and you will be entered to win my books, Sideways (Anvil Press), Three Blocks West of Wonderland (Exstasis Editions) and my AURAL Heather CDS, Surfing Season and Princess Nut. My oeuvre! Or part of it. I will randomly select the winner. Woo hoo! It could be you. Yeah, I feel silly, but what the hell, you only live once.

Remembering Riflemen Whilst Bushwhacking

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Good trick, eh? 11 • 11• 11. Felt like any other, though good news arrived to brighten the short, dark, cold November days. My videopoem Bushwhack is an official selection of the International Literary Film Festival, Director Lee Bob Black, “excited to be screening it along with many other brilliant films.”

I still have not had an opportunity to write an account of our recent Visible Verse Festival, swamped with novel queries, hustling, but did take time to honour our war dead on Rememberance Day. My maternal grandfather Rifleman Reginald Haley of Matapédia, Quebec was a member of the Royal Rifles taken prisoner by the Japanese Christmas Eve 1941, dying of dysentery a few awful years later. My friend author Dennis E. Bolen said it was a damn shame how the outfit had been abandoned by Churchill, tortured for years by the Imperial Japanese. Though we both have many dear Japanese friends, agree that their government’s refusal to apologize is deplorable. He recommended a book on the subject, War Without Mercy, which “attempts to explain the racism wherein the Japs considered North American Caucasians to be effete and we considered Asians to be sub-human. Bad combination.”Indeed. I recently read Michael Crummy’s The Wreckage, which vividly depicted the brutality of a Japanese POW camp and some people, usually Americans, claim that the Kamikaze ideology is what got them nuked. And there’s my hapless big Mick grandfather Reggie caught in the crossfire. Sadly the soldiers that survived received no hero’s welcome either. I regret never having had the privilege of knowing him, sounds like we would have got on. Hell, my mother could barely remember him, only eight years old when he died, leaving her, my grandmother Genora and four brothers and sisters bereft and impoverished. I can honestly say the tremendous loss of my grandfather has impacted our family to this day.

Rest in peace Reginald.

Post fest!

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And boy, are my brains tired! Recovering from Visible Verse Festival 2011, will return soon with an account. All reports so far state this was the best program yet. We did receive twice as many submissions so the (visible) word is slowly getting out, which benefits both artists and audiences.

In the meantime, check out my latest videopoem, Where Sins Are More Sinful, if you like, a serendipitous collaboration with the remarkable Belgian media artist Swoon Bildos, AKA Marc Neys, who submitted a swack of works. We selected four; On Edward Hopper’s Automat, What do animals dream?, Stockholm Syndrome and Sleepdancing (Giddoo). You can check also out the Moving Poems site while you’re there. Dave Bonta is a big booster of the genre and the festival. “Moving Poems is an on-going anthology of the best poetry videos from around the web, appearing at a rate of one every weekday most weeks.”

Visible Verse Festival 2011 • Art or Entertainment; do I really have to choose?

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Well, you can’t please them all. I’ve heard the festival criticized for being arty, while others complain its emphasis is entertainment. My challenge of course is to showcase works from the vanguard while drawing people in; people, as in audience. Populist by nature, I don’t view myself as an arbiter. I’m a exhibitor, and while discerning, feel strongly it’s vital to be democratic, as inclusive as possible, which is not to say my criteria are not exacting. Neither are they elitist. I seek innovation, my main criterion artistic merit.

Videopoetry or poetry video. Film or video? And then there is cinema to consider. I find semantics tedious. My reaction to the insistence there be a formal definition of the genre, is, why? Don’t we have enough divides? We live in the age of the mashup. Isn’t that merging? Fusion? Transformation? In any case, I have faith in the poet’s ability to render his or her poem. It would be awfully tedious if everyone made videopoems according to a formula. Via video or film, a poet will explore, push the boundaries of image, language and sound. Whether it’s illustrative or conceptual, I trust the poet to make choices, to create a work according to his individual style and sensibilities. Vision. While I can’t abide cliché or literal translations, surely there’s room for both narrative and non-narrative treatments. One man’s execution is another man’s experiment. One man’s amusement is another man’s pith.

As an artist, I don’t make a huge distinction between film and video, think more in terms of moving images. I do favor the term videopoem because fusion of verse and medium is my goal, and video is accessible and affordable, vital considerations for this poet. Also, video lends itself to hybridization, its history of experimentation a fundamental aspect of the medium. At last year’s festival, our tenth, a panel discussion called Seeing the Voice: the Evolution of Videopoetry from Cocteau to YouTube, became bogged down at one point in definition. “What is a videopoem?” I know one when I see one. Always. And they’re rare. In 1999, as one of the founders of the Vancouver Videopoem Festival, I ventured, it’s is a wedding of word and image. For me, voice is the critical element, beyond text, medium. But that’s just me. My aesthetic choice.

I hope you will come to see, hear and decide for yourself. This year my Pacific Cinémathèque colleagues and I proudly present two days of poetry On Screen and On Stage. Friday, Nov 4, the night’s program is a wild ride of more than 35 short films and videos from Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Asia

Saturday, Nov 5, 4 pm,  we facilitate an Artist Talk with visionary videopoet Tom Konyves, who has just penned Videopoety: A Manifesto and will have signed hard copies available. Immediately following I am happy to host a Visiting Poets reading with Alexander Jorgensen from Pennsylvania and Rich Ferguson from California. Other artists in attendance at the festival this year include Kath MacLean, Britt Hobart, Joe Boyce Burgess, Dennis E. Bolen and Michael Rouse. Find details here, and here is this year’s program. Continue reading →