Event Recap: Resonance Reading Series Finale

Recap by Rosie Long Decter. Photos by Brian Campbell.

There was a special on gin cocktails at Resonance Cafe on August 7, in honour of the final instalment in the Resonance Reading Series. The cocktails were, appropriately, bittersweet.

Speaking to a packed house, host and curator Klara du Plessis began the night by telling the story of the Reading Series’ inception, how she started it six years ago while working there and how it grew to become one of the most established literary events in Montreal. This, she admitted, was part of her reasoning for closing it down: Resonance became “an authority.” Du Plessis doesn’t have the resources to curate the Series in the way she feels this authority would need, so she’s letting it reach its end naturally and going out on top.

Rebecca Salazar Leon

The night was definitely a testament to the strength of the series du Plessis has built, beginning with the first reader, Rebecca Salazar Leon. Salazar Leon began with a warning that her poems would feature a considerable amount of gore and bad puns. She wasn’t lying, but the gore was soft and unsettling, not overwhelming, and even the bad puns were effective and affecting. “Are rooms so interchangeable with entrails to you,” she asked in the first piece she read, a trilingual poem examining sex, dating, and desire from the perspective of a young woman in Catholic school. She went on to read a couple of pieces that addressed the damage inflicted on her childhood home in Northern Ontario by mining companies, followed by several others examining misogyny and magic. In “Pain Management,” Salazar Leon probed intergenerational trauma, searching for a means of coping, if not healing. “My pain and I lay side by side,” she read, her voice resigned, like the act of accepting pain is as radical as overcoming it.

Eric Schmaltz

After Salazar Leon was Eric Schmaltz, a multimedia artist whose book Surfaces came out earlier this year via Invisible Publishing. Schmaltz read excerpts from the book, an interrogation of “what of us gets lost or erased in digital communications.” Schmaltz, realizing that the text itself contained few words, paired his reading with a visual display in which various geometric shapes and formulations rearranged themselves on a purple background. The poems were definitely sparse, consisting mostly of surreal phrases (“material information bleed”) that juxtaposed digital and mechanical processes with bodies and nature. With his even voice, Schmaltz’s recitations themselves felt almost mechanical, further blurring the line between screen and self.

Dani Couture

Following a short break, Dani Couture took the stage. Couture has published three collections of poetry and one novel, Algoma, via Invisible Publishing. Her cool voice drifted across the room as she recited a poem that looked at life as a process of recycling and reorganizing: “here on earth, everything stands for one thing or what it used to be,” she read. “How did you keep splitting to only become one thing?” Her poems dealt carefully and quietly in connections and absences; a piece titled “Contact” asked plainly: “when does knowing a person begin?” Given Couture’s subdued presence, her reading felt a bit like floating through a hazy day, providing the lovely calm of not needing to arrive anywhere in particular.

Shannon Maguire

Closing out the night – and the whole series – was Shannon Maguire. Maguire began with a piece about a wolf interpreted from Old English; the piece had intrigued them because it sat somewhere between a riddle and an elegy. Maguire enunciated each word with energy and enthusiasm, their diction adding new dimensions to the already vivid words. Another piece, “Pleasure,” from their book Myrmurs, chronicled a series adventures with a partner or lover, set in Maguire’s hometown of Sault Ste. Marie. With lines like “we stuck our index finger into our lower jaw” and “you were boy and girl and rabbit and hawk moth,” the piece was overwhelming in the best possible sense, flooded with life.

Du Plessis came back to the stage to wrap everything up. She remarked on how the readers had connected with one another over the course of the evening: Couture decided to read a piece about a phantom limb because she was inspired by one of Salazar Leon’s poems; Maguire mentioned that Sault Ste. Marie was not far from Salazar Leon’s hometown of Sudbury. This is one of the best parts of Resonance, du Plessis explained – allowing readers to influence each other, to form a community. Though the Resonance Reading Series may be finished for now, that sense of community carries on.

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Read our review of Dani Couture’s Yaw, originally published in Vallum 11:2, here.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

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Vallum Poem of the Week: “the consolation of trees” by Su Croll

“the consolation of trees”

with much taken away    it is a small mercy
dementia patients have trees   their remaining
presence ceaselessly focusing the horizon

a horizon offering nothing that isn’t
in the present tense but with much
already lost    maybe it is luck to have trees

opulent    flooding the sky

in dementia   the mind is held in thrall
to trees   the late summer soothing
movement the wind makes of them

that hypnotic amazement and with much already
stolen   already forgotten   there is the consolation
of trees filling the mind   the sky ceaselessly

remade into a gift

 

“the consolation of trees” is from a manuscript of commemorative poems for Su Croll’s  father called Someday which is currently seeking publication. Recently, another poem from this manuscript, “side track”, was short-listed for Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year Award. In 2015, a short sequence from Someday was long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize. Su Croll has published two other collections: Worlda Mirth and Blood Mother, and completed a novel, Image Hungry, which is also seeking publication. To find out more, visit sucroll.wordpress.com.

 

To view other poems published in this issue please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “Devil’s Punchbowl, Manitoba” by Megan Alford

 

Devil’s Punchbowl, Manitoba

visitors mind their cigarettes,
cigars, and pipe ashes
all is crushed before discarding

beside a depression in the
earth holding water from
somewhere so deep

it knows the language of
the hognose snakes,
and prairie skinks

with whom it can talk about
dying, musings roll of a
forked tongue, embedded
in an orange jaw

 

Winner of the Lily’s Pond Poetry Prize, Megan Alford’s first poetry chapbook, Piggyfish, is now available from Island Verse Editions. She grew up in Prince Edward Island and graduated from Concordia University’s Creative Writing Program where she was shortlisted for the Irving Layton Award in both poetry and fiction. Other publications include Cirque Literary Journal, Encore Literary Magazine, Dying Dahlia Review, Matrix Magazine, Poetry Breakfast, Soliloquies Anthology, Room, and Vallum. A musician and songwriter, she is currently recording her first full length album. She lives in Vancouver.
To view other poems published in this issue please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

Featured Interview: Malek Yalaoui and Dona La Luna of SistersInMotion

Interview by Rosie Long Decter

In September 2016, I went to see a friend perform at a poetry night in Outremont. The event was at Jardins Cra-Terre; I’d never been before, and found myself wandering outside for a while thinking I was in the wrong place. When I finally arrived, I found a clearing lined with benches, where a full audience sat watching the stage with care. Throughout the evening, the crowd cheered on and lifted up the performers, all women of colour, and in a break between sets, friends gathered to eat dinner in the open air. More than just a welcome reprieve from white-male dominated arts scenes, the night felt like an entirely different kind of literary event; the warmth was infectious.

In the two years since that first event, SistersInMotion (SiM) has become a fixture in Montreal, continuing their performance nights and expanding into workshops. This summer they’ve held a series of workshops, concluding this weekend with When Trauma Speaks The Bones, led by Kai Cheng Thom. I spoke with SiM’s founders, Malek Yalaoui and Dona La Luna, about that first event, the relationship between art and community, and how SiM continues to build its sisterhood.

Malek Yalaoui at the first SiM night in 2016. Photo by Võ Thiên Việt.

Rosie Long Decter (RLD): Can you tell me a bit about the origins of SistersInMotion? How did this organization come together?

Malek Yalaoui (MY): Dona and I met at another writing workshop for racialized women and girls called Unravelling in Rhymes in – I wanna say – 2015/16. Anytime women and femmes of colour gather I feel like it’s just so magic. So [I] came out of Unravelling in Rhymes wanting to do a show.

I actually have a background in spoken word and specifically slam poetry, competitive poetry. And what I found competing again and again is that women and, in particular, women of colour were being judged quite harshly. You know, you do a poem and the audience gives you a score from 1 to 10 and, depending on how well you do, there’s all sorts of travel and career opportunities that open up. So on one side there was really harsh judging and high standards and then on the other hand I would see cute white guys get up there and mention feminism once or twice and nines and tens would be given out.

That was really disheartening for me – the idea behind slam poetry really is poetry of the people, it’s supposed to be more accessible, more equal. And yet we found that all of the biases that play up in larger society – you can’t keep them out of slam. So I’ve had this desire for a long time to do a show where the stage would be closed to the work of women of colour, so that the audience wouldn’t get a chance to let their unconscious, implicit bias play out and would be forced to reckon with the work on its own terms.

When I went to Unravelling in Rhymes, that idea came back. And at the same time Dona had contacted me – she was organizing a poetry show on a beautiful piece of urban farmland in Outremont and asked if I’d like to perform. My response was yes, I would, and by the way would you like to perform in the show I’m trying to organize! We realized this should really be the same show.

Featured Chapbook: Bhanu Kapil’s “entre-Ban”.

Excerpt from entre-Ban
(Vallum Chapbook Series, No. 22)

57 Deletions [Mutations] for Ban [4]:

1. My father was 57 years old when he died, in a hospice in Northwick Park, on a February morning so long ago that I still loved my son’s father with an unearthly bitterness that was assuaged by the slightest deviation from our sexual norms.

2. Colonial force that shows up in the present as too much space, too many fragments, theories of prebiotic conditioning or excellence that bring into proximity the two “static mirrors.” Yes, I met Joan Retallack once, on the outskirts of Detroit. She was wearing a blue coat. Was it her? It was a glimpse. Was I there?

3. “At the beginning of my life I traveled a lot. I kept making trips. I was restless. But since I have my temple, the visitors come to see me.” Mahmoud Darwish, who came from: “there.” “One day,” he writes, “I will be what I want to be.” Alongside Ban, I read poetry that names something I can’t get to, in the writing that, though I learn it by heart, is not inclusive. In fact, I realize that even my handwriting causes other people pain.

4. Something yellow next to the glass. A raised boundary of earth. Ban has left her house and run. Through the streets to get here. A mere ten minutes away. Where the rain has begun to fall lightly, like icy sugar, through the branches and leaves. And it’s here that Ban lies down, neglected, but also alert, grasping something, the changing light, like a vine. Or an antique rose. Descending, she’s also tasting. Out slips her lime green tongue. This, for example, is the wet, silky, tamper-proof smell of smoke that Ban has carried into the forest. In the folds and creases of her creamy skin, her dangerous expression and her uniform, which is pink and white in summer, and maroon come Autumn, Winter and the beginning part of Spring.

5. In the break between classes, I saw a dark green mesh, 18 x 18, crouching down in the greenhouse by the rosemary plant, just to breathe it in, the atmosphere of fragrant herbs, a reprieve from the corridor, the weirdly progressive yet racist colleagues in the Department of Creative Writing. Crouching like that, I recalled the Tschumi-grid. It’s 3 x 3. Can this be my lemon tree/fig tree grid for Ban? “Is everything okay?” Worked on promotion dossier. Once home, did not go outside. Am re-learning the milky writing, the terribly open writing I learned in the U.S. but which nevertheless affirmed the increment, the part of being here that was a trap. That kept me in my place. That opened its mouth then closed it. Throat, neck. Wrist, ankle. Purse, coin. Register, fate. Dog, owl.

6. Even as a very young child, I recall the desire, or the image really, of my own neck in the mouth of a tiger, a lion or bear. To some extent, I wanted that. I wanted to feel the inside of my body as much as the outside where the wings and talons retracted then unfurled. I wanted to walk away from my family into the outer belt, the sparkling hills. “You look like Shiva,” said my mother when I came back from a deeper form of play, my hair matted and my dress torn. Should I include these memories, germinal, endocrine, angular, sooty, in Ban? Should I write about the red dirt road, the muddy white horse, the sun? The rough arcs, the slowness of patterned activity? Or should I describe, more formally, succinctly: my experiences with extremely violent, persistent, and imaginative men?

7. We lay down next to the green and silver water, eye level to the sparks and drops spat out and up where the waves hit the dirt of the beach. Why is a fluid, starred image ordinary in photography but unacceptable in literature? Centralize the grid with its blocky, geometric rose. Enlarge the photograph. Paste the photograph with honey and oil, then linen, a piece of white material like cotton, but lighter, torn into strips. Is there a part of you that believes you will never be loved?

8. Ban is like that pallid, flame-headed mermaid in some sense, the one who arced up and out of her own pyre. The one who leaped into the Ganges and was carried downstream by the pink dolphins. Received at the delta by new animals, a whale, this body drifts, propped on the back of wetness, to a sleek, an open space like a gazing bowl or glass, mid-ocean, where the lightning collects in a caul of residual plastics and pulpy bulbs of kelp. What is a mermaid? The great silence speaks to a violence that is sexual, historical, because look at her thighs. Her mutation is never to open, never to replicate, never to bleed. Nevertheless, for the purpose of these notes, I’d like to focus on a specific betrayal. Shoals, electrolytes. Helper beings. No, I am trying to write about a rape.

9. The novel’s experiment is an experiment with emptiness, with the fear of empty spaces. Of the two arrangements, I understood that the first was akin to labyrinths, alphabets, the desire to let whatever wanted to come to the surface come to the surface, and that the second was like a bulb, a glass bulb, crushed underfoot, a boot, upon the street. Which novel would appeal more to tall men with meaty legs? The men are all called Ranjit, their surnames all begin with S and they all live in Chicago. They are off-duty security and/or IT professionals who have just discovered Tinder. You exchange phone numbers. They say: “Can you take a taxi down?” Hastily, you scribble: “Take Lakeshore to the 57th Street exit.” Is there something wrong with your brain?

10. A frosted pink hand.

11.

Bhanu Kapil teaches Interdisciplinary Studies and Core Classes in Contemplative Education ad Diversity for Naropa University, and Creative Writing as part of Godard College’s MFA (Port Townsend campus). She is currently rewriting [emptying] her fifth book, Ban en Banlieue (Nighboat Books, 2016).

To purchase or learn more about this chapbook, please click here.

This excerpt was also published in issue 14:2. To view other poems published in this issue, please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

Matrix’s “New Feminisms” launch

 

Held at Sparrow on St. Laurent north, the lounge provided the reading with the perfect atmosphere for a cozy Montreal reading in late March. The dim lighting, dark wood tables and old black and white portraits hung salon-style on the far wall was a warm retreat from the light snowfall outside. By the time the reading began the medium-sized room was packed with patrons leaning against walls and crouching on the floor.

Each reader, all featured in Matrix’s “New Feminisms” issue, offered a different perspective  on the theme. The notion of translation, in particular, surfaced several times throughout the evening. Brownwyn Hsylam read translations of Nicole Brossard’s work. I was particularly impressed with the strict rules Hsylam imposed on her transations. She describes them as ‘anagram translations’ and offers further explanation in the “New Feminisms” issue: “… these translations use the same number of each letter as in the orginal French poem. This translation is tonal strain, inflecting English with the letteral character of the French.” The effect is a translation that combines both meaning and  the feeling of the original language.

 In addition, Christine Sy read from her prose piece “An Anishinaabekwe Intellectual History, 21^st Century Turtle Island,” featured in the issue. Her lyric prose included Anishinaabekwe words, which required some translation. Her strong presence as a reader and beautifully crafted images drew me into her piece and the world it described. The Anishinaabekwe words, which were only translated once at the beginning of her performance, reflected what her piece ultimately provided for me: a translation of experience.

 Indeed, the notion of translating experience, particularly the experiences of women, was loosely present throughout the reading. (In fact, it could be argued that all writing is, in a sense, a translation of experience, feelings, senses etc.)

 Melissa Bow, who began the evening strongly, experimented with a ‘cut-up’ technique in one poem, where she took apart Derek Walcott’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize and put it back together. Reminscient of Burroughs’ and Dadaist techniques, the poem can be seen as kind of translation, offering a new intepretation of Walcott’s own words.

 Julie McIssac read from “The Baby Section,” a story that appears in the issue. Simple language and precise descriptions characterize her reading. McIssac embodied the main character in her reading, perfectly capturing the moment of revelation, where this young women reveals her pregnancy and thoughts about the absent father.

 Angela Hibbs read poetry not featured in the issue. “Good Housekeeping” stood out for me. The poem described the landscape of a housewife’s environment, focusing on cleaning products and areas needing attention. Again, a strong sense of the female experience was present and highlighted by her use of language and rhythm.

 Zoe Page injected the reading with humor— and chose to share a prose piece about attending a “specific” party. Indeed the repetition of “specific” combined with her honest description of the speaker’s fears and position in this “specific” scene, both vividly captured ‘that kind’ of party and humorously jabbed the ‘hip’ culture of today.

 Ending the evening with a bang, spoken word artist T.L. Cowan read a long piece composed entirely of questions. Often humorous and with a focus on sexuality, the piece prodded at the notion of female sexuality. Cowan’s strong presence as a reader was a joy to watch.

 Ultimately the reading was a great experience. I would highly recommend checking out Matrix’s “New Feminisms” issue and visiting their website for online content that wasn’t included in the issue.

A.F. Moritz wins the Griffin Poetry Prize

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A.F. Moritz, award, Griffin Poetry Prize, Griffin Prize

Congratulations to A.F. Moritz, whose recent poetry book The Sentinel (House of Anansi Press, 2008) won the Griffin Prize. Moritz is a frequent contributor to Vallum, and we are thrilled with his success. Also winning this year is C.D. Wright for her collection Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008).

For more information on the Griffin Poetry Prize and A.F. Moritz’s winning collection, visit the Griffin Poetry Prize official website, where you can read his poem “Light.”

New work from Moritz will appear in Vallum 6:2 “Play and the Absurd,” due out soon.

Boo! Halloween Haiku!

Tags

haiku, Hallowe'en, halloween haiku, halloween poetry

It’s the day before Halloween! Whether you call it Mischief Night or Devil’s Night, you’re probably either frantically putting together a costume for tomorrow using cheese cloth and toothpicks or buying a large quantity of toilet paper and eggs. Whatever you’re doing, take a moment to enjoy these Halloween inspired Haiku by Vallum workers Maja Romano and Drew McKevitt:

Sweet tricks: tissue, eggs.

Lights inside flick on. Scramble

quickly little feet!

-Drew

What kind of trick is

this? Raisins are not candy!

Don’t knock on that door.

-Maja

I’m tall for my age,

maybe wearing platform shoes…

Just give me candy.

-Drew

Sweating in my mask

as I drag my burden home;

candy feast awaits.

-Maja

Delicious and bright:

Jack carved lanterns from turnips.

Safe pumpkins tonight.

-Drew

We will share a cold,

dark interior, ignore

requests at the door.

-Drew

Fat Jack O’ Lantern

glowing brightly on my stoop.

Hallowe’en is nigh.

-Maja

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Cafe / Culture reading

Tags

arts cafe, cafe\culture, danielle lafrance, drew mckevitt, ilona martonfi, jeffrey mackie, jesika starnino, montreal

Saturday marked the first in what will hopefully be many small and informal Café / Culture readings from Vallum. Hosted at the cosy Arts Café on Saturday, a considerable crowd gathered to sip wine, nibble hot sandwiches and hear poets Ilona Martonfi, Danielle Lafrance, Jeffrey Mackie, and me, Drew McKevitt, as well musical guest Jesika Starnino.

As this was the first Café / Culture reading ever, Vallum‘s staff was a bit nervous about how the event would go off. Fortunately it was tremendously sucessful, entertaining, and loaded with talented performers, due in large part to Connor Friesen, Vallum‘s summer intern, who organized the event, as well as the poets and musical act who aggreed to participate.

Around seven, as poets and guests drifted in, Jesika Starnino began warming up by playing cover songs by the likes of George Michael and Michael Jackson —loosening the overall mood and making it clear that this reading would be far from stodgy.

Then I was up, glad to be participating, but reluctant and slightly frightful of taking the mic and reading first. Initially I found the idea of reading for fifteen minutes daunting and a little more than terrifying, but the generous time given each poet was perhaps what made the gathering so enjoyable and intriguing. Fewer readers allowed for a more in depth listen to each one. Coupled with the intimate setting of the Arts Café, the overall effect was warm, friendly and personal.

Ilona Martonfi read second from her book recounting poignant, sometimes stark, childhood memories. She was followed by Danielle Lafrance, a feminist essayist and poet, whose series spoke to struggles many young women face when trying to carve identities for themselves. Jeffrey Mackie went last, reading a long humorous poem, that ranted about the state of culture, or rather the lack there of. Finishing the evening, Jesika Starnino played her unique and delightful folk / pop. Particularly crowd pleasing were comic songs about annoying ex-boyfriends and getting tanked with girlfriends in Montreal.

If you missed out on the reading, don’t worry, there are sure to be more in the future. And hopefully, you’ll even be able to catch this one on YouTube. Keep checking our blog and website for links to Vallum’s YouTube channel.

KOLA launch and reading: writing home….

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George Elliott Clarke, home, Horace I. Goddard, KOLA, poetry reading, The Black Writers’ Guild

Last Thursday Jane and I attended a reading in honour of the The Black Writers’ Guild (KOLA)
and the Quebec Board of Black Educators (Q.B.B.E.). KOLA sponsors a black literary magazine of the same name that’s been published in Montreal since 1987. Six readers, George Elliott Clarke, Peter Bailey, Clarence Bayne, Horace I. Goddard, Anthony Joyette, and H. Nigel Thomas, read their work, the works of writers they admire, and spoke about their experiences as immigrants living in Canada. Vallum‘s honorary board member, George Elliott Clarke began the evening and stood out as undeniable highlight, reading from his fun poetic opera, Québécité. The other readers lived up to the auspicious start by reading sections from novels and poems dealing with black experience in Canada, and often adding their own personal anecdotes to supplement the readings.

In questioning how to define identity here in Canada, each reader circled back to the notion of ‘home’ and how such a concept can be understood. This made an impact on me. Granted, on many occasions, I’ve been asked, “where are you from?” followed quickly by, “but where are you really from?” or “where are your parents from?” when my response of “Philadelphia,” shed no light on why I look the way I do. But this is not why the question of how one defines home resonated with me. What makes a place home? I think I would call it the place where I feel like I belong. Not necessarily where I was born or live.

The host of the evening, Horace I. Goddard, said at one point, that he feels that most writers struggle with what they call home, and perhaps they only feel at home in what they are writing. It’s my feeling that it’s not only writers who find a home in the written word, but readers as well. I find a home in any book I read, be it poetry or fiction. And while it’s difficult to explain the feeling of how a good book can make you feel so comfortable and welcome that it’s almost like physically being at home, I think most readers will agree and understand what I’m talking about here. Something happens when we read, something that cuts off the world in which we live and builds a different kind of home around us. A non-physical, but just as real, place that we can retreat to and feel more like ourselves than we might in our own realities.

We may move from place to place and call a variety of locations ‘home’ throughout our lives, but a story can remain for years between the same two covers. And sometimes when we reread, we are able to recapture that first moment of belonging and being at home with literature.

This idea is especially relevant here at Vallum, when we are now getting down the wire with production of the upcoming issue. I think about all the writers that Vallum has given a home and all of our devoted readers, who find a space for themselves twice a year in the pages of Vallum. As writers we create a place for ourselves through our words. As readers we bring our experiences with us when we read, and writers and readers both find a way to connect profoundly with what appears to be only static typeface.