Here on Bowen Island my feeder attracts red-eyed towhees, house finches, stellar jays, dark-eyed junkos and fox sparrows. Robins are here now and don’t seem to partake. A few hummingbirds have been buzzing by lately which surprises me because I didn’t think we had enough bright blossoms on our property. The jays are right on it of course, seem to wait for me to put the food out in the morning. I’ve been taking the feeder in when it gets dark to foil the local rat population. I hate rats. Why don’t my terriers get rid of them?

Birds and birdlife manifest in my poetry all the time. Here are two poems from my forthcoming book, “Window Seat.”

Habitat

We plan like architects to bring the outdoors
in, parrot like realtors the charms of a tree
house, for up on this hill, birdsong

is tangible. We always get
what we want, camouflaged in our mossy
cabin, high above the threshold

of discovery. Open sky. 360-degree view.
Proximity to water. Reliable food sources. Plenty
of nesting material. Gravel flies

from under the foot of a rabbit
fleeing a resident eagle. Ravens and stellar jays
battle over kibble, shit bomb the deck.

They want in. Past the windowpanes
that trick them. Frenzied. Talons flashing,
they enter through a door in the firmament.

I guide them outside, stunned at the feel
of wing bones. Banging hearts. A hummingbird
goes stillborn in the cup of my hands,

then, buzzers off, leaving a tang
in my throat, a ring of ruby dust
on my finger, incriminating as pollen.

Year of the Monkey

Full house. Madhouse. Ill-fated deejay,
jester fixed to his back, grinding out tunes
in celebration of our new digs, life,
in the forest, despite the clear-cutting
a hundred years ago. There is talk

of the I-Ching. This will be
an extremely progressive time predicts
a guest with faith enough to practice.
Monkeys are shrewd. Agile.
You will find great success in 2004.

Happy New Year! A toast. To the pileated
woodpeckers, heard more than seen. Cheers!
To the deer phantoms, droppings molding
in the front meadow. Where do they go
in the winter? Why don’t I know these things?

We make clumsy attempts at lighting a fire,
heating the house. Woodstove couched
and cold-shouldered as a guerilla soldier
brooding over such hatchet-challenged wimpiness.
We brave the Jacuzzi. January. Naked ape it

on the deck, body sculpting with our bare hands,
pale-faced moon playing peek-a-boo
with the ridgeline, a breeze stroking our backsides.
An owl hoots, hunting through lushness.
Red-eyed towhees flit through a labyrinth of sword

fern, mist the only smoke around here,
desires in the mirror, smudges of dread
surfacing on its beveled edges
whenever we’re not looking.

Twin cedar sentinels stand guard
against the cougar I saw mounting our pup.
When it began stalking the neighbour’s pony
I knew I would need a rifle.

I’m evolving. From a dinky urbanite on all fours,
to a big, eagle-eyed, straight-shooting, cause-
committed, river-of-life channeling, chainsaw-
hung, 4 by 4 pickup piloting Homo Erectus islander.

For more birds and bird-themed works in the blogosphere check out I and the Bird which Mike Bergin owns and publishes every two weeks. http://10000birds.com/iandthebird/

I hope! Booking a tour, not my forte, though through sheer grit and determination, I’m getting it done. Weird, frustrating day. Oh why do I worry so much? Worked all afternoon on the AURAL Heather tour, feel like I’m getting nowhere fast. We have the Canadian part of the back east tour booked, playing Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal but I’m running into obstacles and dead ends in the U.S. Kurt has put me in touch with some people in Chicago and I’m waiting to hear back. Sent emails to leads and clubs in New York and same thing, playing the waiting game now. I will run out of time soon as I have to apply for a P2 visa and they can take up to four months to process. This is the query I’ve been sending out.

Dear _________;

I am a poet referred to you by my good friend and associate ______. We are AURAL Heather, a duo from Vancouver, Canada performing spoken word songs and touring in support of the release of our new cd, “Princess Nut.” We are in Eastern Canada/US this summer and in your neighbourhood July 17, 18. Could you kindly take a look/listen and consider us for an event at your righteously cool venue?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

H
H

AURAL Heather may be heard at:

http://www.heatherhaley.com

http://www.reverbnation.com/auralheather

http://www.myspace.com/mediapoet

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Pam Southwell-RPW Records
604 463-8339
rpwrecords@hotmail.com
http://www.rpwrecords.com

P U N K * P O E T * P R I N C E S S

Vancouver, BC, April 6, 2008-Old School and proud of it, Heather Haley and RPW Records are gearing up for a spring release of her groundbreaking AURAL Heather cd of spoken word songs, “Princess Nut.”

AURAL Heather is Heather Haley, Roderick Shoolbraid and “a unique, sublime fusion of song and spoken word.” Shoolbraid is a dazzling guitarist, composer, sound designer and DJ. Haley is a maverick poet, singer, author and media artist often found pushing boundaries and always on the vanguard. “A Canadian national treasure,” Haley started writing verse in high school influenced by poets like bp Nichol, ee cummings and Susan Musgrave. Her life as a bona fide artist began on the stage of the infamous Smilin’ Buddha fronting the all-girl punk band the Zellots. She was a member of The 45s with Randy Rampage and Brad Kent of DOA and the Avengers. Later she formed HHZ-Heather Haley & the Zellots-praised by music critic Craig Lee as one of “Ten Great LA Bands”. She has made a commitment to honesty, feeling, craft and a sense of the absurd. “Supple and unusual”, her work asks all the questions a nice girl’s not supposed to ask.

Haley is a gutsy and compelling performer who enjoyed a stint as an official BC Transit busker and has appeared at the Vancouver International Writers Festival, Crush Champagne Lounge, the Lamplighter Pub, Rime, Thundering Word, the Art Bar in Toronto, Words & Music in Montreal, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, Red Sky Poetry Theatre in Seattle, Shakespeare & Sons in Prague, the Roar Lit Crawl with Edmonton’s Raving Poets band and on CBC and Book Television. In 2004, she teamed up with Roderick Shoolbraid to produce a series of live shows and their first cd, Surfing Season. As Haley returns to her roots, their sound has evolved into the spoken word songs of AURAL Heather . This is “brawny, uncompromising language from a voice that demands to be reckoned with” and there is nothing precious or flowery about the poetry on “Princess Nut.” It rocks, in more ways than one!

Praise for Surfing Season:
“Beautiful. A credit to the genre.”-Ian Ferrier, Wired on Words
“Great job! An auspicious disc. One of the best albums of its kind.” -Kurt Heintz, e-poets
“Important work.”-Poseybeat

Come celebrate at the official AURAL Heather, “Princess Nut” CD launch, Thursday, May 29 at the Media Club in Vancouver with Susan Cormier, Beth Southwell and her band, Kedrick James, AURAL Heather and emcee Kyle Hawke. Poet and publisher Warren Dean Fulton will be selling pooka press wares including one of Heather ’s poems featured as part of the photo booth broadside series.

Further information on AURAL Heather and Heather Haley is available through her website, http://www.heatherhaley.com as well as four tracks from “Princess Nut”

# # #

Spring fever? Can’t be, I’m still wearing my winter coat as much as I’d like to retire it for the season. I can’t focus, I’m running out of Kleenex and so tired and achey all I want to do is lie down. Tried to work on a poem this morning. Forget it. Will go and fine tune AURAL Heather stuff as everything is coming to a head, or fruition which sounds like the more positive take. Roderick is delivering the master later today. We have to nail down the order of the (spoken word) songs and I think we nearly have nearly reached consensus. We will probably be in this phase for a week, preparing the artwork and master before it goes to the manufacturer. I’m getting nervous as we near the date of the cd launch, May 29. A critical time, need to make sure I see the graphic layout before it gets printed. Final steps ahead, cannot go back.

I was wearing my videopoem director hat for two days preparing a proposal:

How To Remain In The Saddle
Free riding lessons for starving transients

How To Remain

How to remain
thin. Abstain. Abstain from eating
food. Calories kill
the fat rats first. If she could say No
and balance Belgian truffles
on her tongue briefly before spitting
them out, she might remain. Live
long. Enjoy fruition. By shunning urges,
she could linger—dainty as a colt’s
foot—deploying her charms raw,
dogtrotting a straddled chocolate Arabian
through mazes of lane. She could retire
to her body.

Alas, ankles thicken, braids recede,
the old mare conjured whenever she dare
to look. Fight back. She may be forced to
cover the grey, yellow, but refuses to swallow
diet pills. Amphetamines in the olden days.

Still, dinner in the garbage rouses niggles
of guilt. She snuffles it out before Buddy can,
barfing rather than blowing
calories on fusty pizza
or molding, olive oil-sopped arugula.

It is my goal to adapt this poem from my forthcoming book, Window Seat, to create a videopoem . The audience is along for a wild ride in How To Remain In The Saddle with an infatuated compulsive, an obsessed protagonist resolutely heading toward an elusive goal of perfection, perpetually struggling to stay on, to stay thin. She fails but ultimately, and in a fluky manner, finds transcendence. A maiden no more, she is a hapless Calamity Jane who persists nonetheless in getting back in the saddle, despite an unruly horse—an Arabian stallion in the beginning—until ultimately finding her destiny and achieving grace upon a winged Clydesdale.

How to remain in control is at the heart of anorexia and bulimia. Ubiquitous images of the ideal woman provide pressure and anxiety. In How To Remain In The Saddle, instead of her body disintegrating, her beloved horse slowly withers away, imperceptibly at first. Its ribs start to protrude as it becomes increasingly emaciated until finally disappearing. *poof* She falls to the ground. (I want to do a live action piece but this part will likely require either animation or CGI.) After more shenanigans and misguided side-trips, our heroine survives to land on the back of a solid, stable mount.

Though eating disorders are serious subject matter, this story is really about facing our all-too-human mortality. They are a red herring, if you will. How to remain is our secret desire. I plan to render the story as farce for it is folly to attempt to halt the inexorable march of time. I will employ a whimsical style, adopt a comic Keystone posture to emphasize the absurdity of her futile pursuit. How To Remain In The Saddle will spoof on classic myth as in the adventurous hero Bellerophon arrogant enough to believe that he, a mortal, can reach Mount Olympus. If you will recall, an outraged Zeus causes Pegasus to rear up, throwing Bellerophon back down to Earth. Just such ambition fuels our heroine’s quest for power, eternal youth and beauty, i.e., immortality. She is in a race. A horse race. A rat race? Or a labyrinth, her body goddess-perfect and everlasting at journey’s end. Along the way she is frequently tossed off and pulled back to reality by gravity. Reel time will accelerate as it does in real life, an allusion to “amphetamines” and the way time seems to fly by with advancing years as we move toward the time of our inevitable departure. Of course how we live and how we depart are both crucial parts of the story, not just the middle and the end.

I strive to be visually inventive. I start with a shot list, then a storyboard, as in a conventional film, but like to improvise during shooting and incorporate the element of chance. Working with a talented director of photography, we will have the opportunity to experiment with the medium and in post-production as well, with a good editor. I don’t have to shoot in video but I have in the past because of its affordability. I like its history of experimentation, a fundamental aspect of the medium. Video lends itself to hybridization. I haven’t felt like I was compromising quality by using digital video.

Whether an audio or video project, my collaborator, musician/sound designer Roderick Shoolbraid and I, are meticulous about voice production, carefully weighing inflections through the lines of the poem, graphing the centre of pitch to avoid linear monotony. We strive to create terrain, a sense of place in the sound. In any case, Roderick Shoolbraid has composed original music for this piece. In addition, I am doing research, scouting locations and crew members and have started work on a shot list and storyboard.