Man, that was brutal! After much laborious and painstaking work previewing a record number of entries, I’ve completed this year’s Visible Verse Festival program. I always worry I won’t receive enough viable submissions. As I begin viewing must worry I have too many. As the program fills, I am forced to cut works I favour but that will not make the grade for various reasons. With only one night of screenings, length is always an issue and some poets don’t know when to quit. Quit while you’re ahead! They repeat themselves, each one of their brilliant ideas. Fortunately, the trend seems to be moving toward clarity and succinctness. My favorite videopoems are usually under five minutes. Short and sweet. Less is more.

Then I must cull a plethora of experimental films. I like experimental film but it ain’t what I’m looking for, part of the criteria. Read the submission guidelines. Please. Don’t waste your time, or mine. As for videopoetry, the level of sophistication has certainly risen, not surprisingly, considering the evolution of technology, the accessibility of poets to it. Heaps of nature themes. As J.D. Salinger said, “Poets are always taking the weather so personally.” And tons of death naturally. Are poets more aware of mortality? It’s always a challenge to find enough humorous pieces of high quality to mix in with all the angst, death and despair, no matter how beautiful the execution. I’ve noticed too that we poets favour time-lapse photography; rushing toward oblivion?

My process; first I catalogue, then select, time each piece and program, each step time intensive, exacting. Wish I could screen it all. As populist as I am, I often feel pressured to include things that are popular or hipster approved. I’m no arbiter but know what I like, understand my audience. Some work gives me goosebumps but I must bear in mind that the fiddle doesn’t affect everyone the way it affects me. I stage a mock screening in my office, windows draped. I am proud of my artists, selections. It’s not all about production values. I can be be a sucker for eye candy, certainly, and slick production values might blow me away but as I said at the Pandora Awards Gala, it all comes down to voice. Claiming. Cultivating. Projecting. Voice in all its guises. As gratifying as it is to provide a venue, facilitate other artists, I enjoy the great privilege of working with vital visionaries, authentic and powerful voices.

Ironically, I am finishing up this labour of love on Labour Day.

So, here it be. Kudos and congratulations! You may find more information about tickets and such at Pacific Cinematheque’s website.

VISIBLE VERSE 2012 PROGRAM

–Profile 2012 R.W. Perkins                        Fort Collins, CO

– The Lammas Hireling 2010  Paul Casey. Ian Duhig poem             Cork, Ireland

–Whoever You Are 2012            Machine Libertine            St. Petersburg, Russia

–Song for Elliott Jacques 2012            Tommy Becker            San Francisco, CA

– Portrait of a Listener 2012  Sonority Turner  London, UK

–Sky Canoe 2012                  Al Rempel, Phil Morrison, Steph St. Laurent, Jeremy Stewart    Prince George, BC

–Road Not Taken     2012 Swoon Bildo/Robert Frost poem             Mechelen, Belgium

– Inverting the Deer 2012            Gary Barwin                        Hamiliton, Ontario           

– Inner Shrine 2011             Jing Zhou                        Ocean, NJ

–Cioran     2012       Swoon Bildos              Mechelen, Belgium

– Right Side Up 2012   Ian Keteku            Toronto, ON

– Song for Disobedient Youth 2011   Tommy Becker   San Francisco, CA

– Mr. Lucky’s Jackpot 2012            Martha Mccollough                        Boston, MA

–Speleology 2011   Duriel Harris/Scott Rankin            Chicago, IL

–Dear Pluto 2012    Joanna Priestly/Taylor Mali                        Portland, OR

INTERMISSION

-Just Don’t Not Do it 2011             Machine Libertine/John Giorno             St. Petersburg, Russia

– Flowers 2011        Tim Cumming                                    Sydney, Australia           

– The Junicho Video Renku Series-#2             2011 Eve Luckring             San Francisco, CA

– Make Me A Doorway 2012                        Jesse Russell Brooks            Los Angeles, CA

– First Death in Nova Scotia 2012             John D. Scott/Elizabeth Bishop            Ithaca, NY

– Norandgsdalen              2010 Kristian Pedersen            Oslo, Norway

–Whore In The Eddy 2012      Visible Verse Productions            Vancouver, BC

– Saltwater 2011                        Glenn-emlyn Richards            Normandy, France

–Viva Zombatista    2010 Kristian Pedersen            Oslo, Norway

–Everywhere and Inside    2008 Mia Degner                         Copenhagen, Denmark

–Bonfire 2011    Daniel Mark Patterson            Vancouver, BC

Everybody 2012      Dennis E. Bolen            Vancouver, BC

–Pez Eduardo Romaguera,  Spain- selection from VideoBardo Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina

– little black strap 2012     Pam Bentley/George Bowering            Vancouver, BC

-Stazen Of The Lost 2012             Phillip A Jagger                        Edmonton, AB

–Omelet 2012       Fiona Tinwei Lam            Vancouver, BC

–Seldomly Transgender Anymore     2011 Josie Boyce (nee Joe Boyce Burgess)            Vancouver, BC

–Terrorsounds Jakob Kirchheim & Teresa Delgado-Germany, selection from VideoBardo Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina

–Evolution of Love 2012            Jeremy Loveday/Elliott Hearte                        Victoria, BC

–Colours of Bullshit 2000          Robert Priest                        Toronto, ON

– Chanson d’automme 2011      Rachel Laine/ Paul Verlaine poem            Vancouver, BC           

– My Daddy Loves Me 2012             Habib Asfar/Julien Phillipe            Islamabad, Pakistan

– Odds and Ends 2012            Swoon Bildos               Mechelen, Belgium

Get out. I have to get out! If it isn’t here, I can’t come back. No one will ever know. They’ll think the arsonists did it. War zone after all. I’ll set a fire under his ass. For the last time! The riots, catalyst to freedom. What a great cover. She’d take the car. Then he can’t come after me. The videotapes. The Polaroids. Fiona retrieved them from his hiding spot along with the Rolex and a fistful of gold coins. She returned upstairs to find Caleb asleep, listened to his breathing as she tugged the wallet out of his jeans, removed all the bills. She’d need to hit a bank machine right away, before he had a chance to call Visa and shut down her account. It would be all the money she’d have to live on for a while. At least the tank was full, enough fuel to get her well out of the city. She loaded the car with clothes, toiletries, camera, photos, guitar, amplifier, a few books and Virgin Marys. She grabbed her microphone and one of his precious Neumanns, planning to pawn it when the time came. She couldn’t find Evinrude, calling softly, frantically as she packed. Finally, she heard a piteous mewl emanating from beneath the far corner of the couch. She managed to coax him out and put him in his cat carrier.

“He likes his cage. It makes him feel secure. Like me?” Gawd. I’m talking to myself. “And if Caleb wakes up, I’ll kill him!”

Fiona tiptoed back to the bedroom to check once more, watched her husband’s chest rising and falling. Asshole. Sleeps through earthquakes, and Hole, after all.

She put Evinrude’s carrier in the car and returned to the basement. So, if those thugs had come along and set the place on fire, how would things appear? They’re using Molotov cocktails, judging by the news. Fiona wondered if they were breaking into the buildings or torching them from the outside. The news choppers hadn’t gotten close enough to reveal those kinds of details. Both, probably. Keep moving. Fiona found kerosene, walked through the studio to the front of the building, poked her head out, relieved to find the street deserted.

“Do it. Do it. Do it.”

She constructed a pyre of newspapers, wood chip mulch and dried lawn clippings. Fire by design. Fire by Fiona. She hesitated, stared down at her shaking hands. This place is killing me! She looked around. Dumped the kerosene. It glugged out, splooshing all over her shoes, intoxicating fumes overwhelming her lungs. She pulled out a box of REDBIRD Strike Anywhere Wooden Matches. Anywhere? 250 Wooden Matches Caution: Handle With Care. Fiona struck a match, held the match, an eternity passing. Ouch! She lit another, breathing in the pungent fetor of dead wood and sulfur.

“Dead meat. I’ll be dead meat.” Not anymore. Fiona dropped the match, heard the gasp of its conflagration taking in oxygen.

*WHOMPF*

Wow. All that bushwhacking with the old man finally pays off. A pulsating pillar of flame roared up, pausing as though to pose, flaunt its terrible splendor before heaving itself against the building. Fire # 2,508.

“Oh my God!”

Fiona loped to the car, jumped in, booted it. Adios motherfucker! Do not look back. Can’t! Gotta keep an eye out for gangstas. Into the fire, horizon crimson. Like a war movie. The future. My future. There. On fire!

It was past curfew, and though the studio was only a block from the 101 Freeway, Fiona realized it might be closed. Maybe I can get on it somehow. She raced down. Continue reading →

No matter how many times they moved, Bill and Jeanette managed to find another shack, the latest a long, low rancher in Langley. Jeanette was homesick, longing to return to Quebec, despite how wretched life there had been. Would she ever be free of the past, the fear that Sister AnnMarie might come along and yank her pigtails or rap her on the knuckles with a wooden ruler?

Fiona didn’t find too many empties but worried her mother might hurt herself again, relieved she’d had taken up crochet, though all the crappy old furniture was covered in ugly, acrylic afghans. Why can’t she use real wool? Bill had gotten her a pet, a little wiener dog she dubbed Schultz, after the character in Hogan’s Heroes.

“Why couldn’t you get a real dog?”

“He’s a Daschund. He’s a tough little bugger! Full of piss and vinegar. Just watch him.”

The little bugger dragged in a giant field rat. Jeanette cheerfully tossed the carcass into the garbage, explaining the godamned things liked to chew through her telephone cables. She mopped up the blood as Fiona watched Schultz chase down more vermin, sturdy little body parting a sea of tall grass.

“They were bred to go down badger holes.” Jeanette deftly shuffled cards, machine-rolled cigarette dangling from her lips. “You know how mean a badger is?” She dealt out a hand of Solitaire, Fiona relieved she wasn’t badgering her into Gin Rummy. “Shultz doesn’t know how little he is.” Jeanette gloated. “He takes on any dog that crosses his path. He wriggles under, goes right for the jugular.”

“Well, they say pets resemble their owners. Or is it the owners that resemble their pets?”

Jeanette laughed. “Yeah, we’re tough.”

Fiona once watched her mother evict a drunk twice her size and half her age by the seat of his pants. She was currently earning a reduction in rent for lifting bales of hay, feeding and watering the landlord’s horses.

Jeanette admired the animals through the slats of a wooden fence as Fiona perched on the top rail. She could feel the Continue reading →