Event Recap: Argo Summerfest Readings

Recap by Rosie Long Decter

There was barely space for readers to make their way to the front of the room at Argo Bookshop’s Summerfest Readings earlier this month. The narrow shop was lined with chairs, and by the time the evening started, nearly every seat was filled.

Curated by Ilona Martonfi, the readings began at eight and packed nine writers into the space of an hour. Robert Winters read first, his steady voice and stark poems invoking far-off battlefields, as he spoke of “heavy metal cracking old roadways like dry egg shells.” Following Winters was the curator herself, whose calm reading included a particularly captivating folk tale about a refugee girl. David Gates completed the first third of the night with meditations on change, place, and nature: “my questions, asked or not, are in the stones,” he recited.

Mike Di Sclafani

Breaking with the poetry of the first three readers, Kitty Hoffman read a piece of prose about prose itself. Her reading was a poignant ode to intellectual investigation, chronicling her desire from a young age to spend her days thinking and writing, to “dance with the old rabbis” – as well as her understanding that this “special world of meaning” was reserved for men. After Kitty, singer-songwriter Mike Di Sclafani brought his guitar up to the front. Sclafani performed original songs straight out of the folk tradition, with a drawling voice and heartfelt lyrics.

Catherine Chandler

Maria Caltabiano steered the evening back to poetry with a charming piece about the “poet’s companion,” and Jim Olwell after her brought to vivid life a “cafe for old men.” Catherine Chandler read from a series of poems for her mom, depicting a bittersweet scene of a mother wrapping a ribbon around a child’s curls. Chandler’s light, rhythmic voice paired with her clear language made her a standout. Her final poem, “Votiv,” invoked the ambiguities of faith and grief, describing a woman wandering through St. Joseph’s Oratory after the Sandy Hook shootings, testing her “limits of belief.”

Robert Martin Evans

After Chandler, the evening closed out with a final reading from Robert Martin Evans, who left the night on a wistful note with his delicate imagery: “I know you that way / an airplane passing like an arrow,” he read. Swift as an arrow, Argo’s Summerfest Readings concluded as smoothly as they started – a sweet sampling of Montreal talent on a late summer night.

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For upcoming Argo events, check out their website.

Find Ilona Martonfi in Vallum 11:1 here.

Find Robert Martin Evans in Vallum 13:1 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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Event Recap: Art Lounge Readings with Becca Schuh, Natasha Young & More

Recap by Rosie Long Decter

Summer often starts to lose steam around mid-July, but the back of Art Lounge filled up easily last Thursday for a jam-packed night of readings. The six writers who took the stage treated the crowd to a range of forms and voices, tied together by host Anya Leibovitch.

Becca Schuh, a New York-based writer and editorial director at Triangle House, began the night with an excerpt from her upcoming novel. The passage centred on Schuh’s art student protagonist and her relationships with various men on campus; in one scene, she flirts with a professor at a party, in another, she hooks up with a fraternity bro. Schuh read with enthusiasm, conveying the confidence and confusion that come with campus power dynamics and liking a guy who kind of sucks.

Natasha Young

Up next was Natasha Young, who also read an excerpt from her upcoming book, Static Flux, which is coming out via Metatron this fall. Young began in a similar place as Schuh – with a young artist, this time a writer, heading to a party – but her narrator approached the evening with skepticism and detachment, not excitement. Young’s calming voice and fluid language gave the sense that the story was happening around the narrator, not to her. The passage poked fun at the pretentious art scene without letting its narrator off the hook; when someone at the party asks her what she writes, her response is both joke and admission: “nothing.”

Andrea Bridgeman

Third reader Andrea Bridgeman apologized as she took the mic, because she was about to read a “summer bummer” (which, as someone who hates the heat, is my kind of summer content). Her short story, “Summer Camp Boy Band,” was definitely a bit of a bummer, but in the sweetest of ways. Undermining the trope of the life-changing camp story, Bridgeman’s piece was quiet and deliberate, softly outlining the days and desires of each idiosyncratic pre-teen. Pausing occasionally to turn a page, Bridgeman described with care the candy the girls ate, their secret spots on the campground, and the way they began to notice themselves and each other, the images hanging together in the summer air.

Poet Diana Hamilton read next. Her poem, “Persuasive Essay for Sex Ed,” was written from the perspective of a student in a sex ed class contemplating desire and consent while her teacher talks about how to get out of having sex. Funny, incisive, and heartbreaking, the piece explored the ways in which the burden of consent is consistently and harmfully placed on women. Hamilton’s matter of fact reading voice allowed the poem’s playfulness and sense of humour to come across, while making sure the commentary hit just as hard.

Rebecca Fishbein

Rebecca Fishbein – also from New York – picked up where Hamilton left off, reading a personal essay about her own relationship to sex, and wanting – or, mostly, not wanting – to have it. Fishbein recounted tales of bad sex in a wry voice – several times referring to the voice inside her vagina – encouraging the audience to laugh at and interrogate these experiences. The amusing stories doubled as an analysis of how and why women often end up having sex not because they want to, but because they feel like they should.

The final reader was local writer Anna Leventhal, who read a short story from her 2014 collection Sweet Affliction. The wonderfully titled “Frenching the Eagle,” in which a facilitator lectures a group of women on the importance of elegance, was perfect for reading aloud; Leventhal became the facilitator as she lectured the audience, forcing us to wait through the pauses in a countdown that you could skim over on the page. Her voice sped up as the story developed and the tone darkened – eventually it became clear that these women weren’t in a yoga class or on some kind of retreat, as I had first assumed. They were heading to prison. By the time the story finished, my whole body was tense, my mind reeling from our facilitator’s plight, her call to elegance.

In a night with so many readings, the different pieces easily could’ve been lost in the shuffle, but instead the styles and subjects all seemed to enrich one another. At the end of the evening, I left Art Lounge with several new worlds of women occupying my mind, the various voices talking loudly amongst themselves on my walk home.

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 Literary Event: Desert Pets Jess

Desert Pets Jess at The Rocket Science Room

Reviewed by Kian Vaziri-Tehrani

On the evening of Thursday July 27th, the Rocket Science Room (a lovely loft space in Little Italy, Montreal) held the Desert Pets Press chapbook launch of Jessie Jones‘s Nix, Jess Taylor‘s Just Pervs, and Jessica Bebenek‘s Fourth Walk, hosted by Catriona Wright.

Catriona Wright

The eager crowd of roughly 40 came to a hush as author and co-founder of Desert Pets Press, Catriona Wright, took to the stage. Introducing the three Jess’s and thanking Vallum’s Leigh Kotsilidis for providing the venue, she went on to cite the Urban Dictionary definition of “Jess”, claiming it to be the name of “most kind, beautiful, and nicest person you could ever meet.”

Jessie Jones and a curious polar bear

The first of the three Jess’s was Jessie Jones, poet and co-founder of the writing service Literistic. Her warm tone and deeply personal poems from Nix evoked memory, self-reflection, and past and present selves. In a comedic, frustrated tone Jessie explained the rationale behind one of her poems by referencing the “Yes” and “No” dance manifestos, specifically highlighting the satiric “Maybe Manifesto,” which she claimed, in disbelief, ends with the lines “Maybe yes, maybe no.” On self-transformation, a major theme of her work, Jessie left the audience with the heavy lines:

“you were once/
and will be again, were once, will again”

Jess Taylor

Next, Catriona introduced Toronto writer and poet Jess Taylor, who jokingly noted upon reaching the stage how the ocean documentary being projected behind synced up perfectly with the readers lines. Her confident, clever voice shone as she read selections from her chapbook Just Pervs. The story, she explained, is told from multiple points of view. She first read as Jill then as Jenade. The central theme of her work is sex, and Jess approached the subject without limitation, exploring its effect and influence on the lives of her characters with subtle humour and poignant realism.

Jessica Bebenek

Finally came Jessica Bebenek‘s turn to read, who, along with being a poet and essayist, coordinates the Centre for Expanded Poetics. She began by mentioning the passing of her grandfather as the main inspiration and driving theme behind her collection, noting in particular the cyclical nature of her work as an allusion to the course of death. Her poems dealt with grief, pain, and death with beautiful, heartbreaking detail. Her soft, melancholic tone worked in perfect, somber tandem with her descriptions of bodily and emotional decay.

The night of fantastic poetry was elevated with a surprise cocktail in honour of the Jess’s made from Soupson’s ginger pear juice, Kraken Black Spiced Rum, lime juice, served in a sugar rimmed glass!

Despite sharing the same first name, each of the three Jess’s readings were vastly different, captivating, and evoked a range of emotions. I admit, though Jess and Jess were great, my favourite of the night was…Jess!

To read more about Desert Pets Press and the amazing chapbooks they publish, visit their website.

Find Jessica Bebenek‘s poem “The World Without” in Vallum 14:1 “Evolutution” 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.

Featured Literary Event: Knife|Fork|Book at Monastiraki

Knife|Fork|Book at Monastiraki

Reviewed by Kian Vaziri-Tehrani

On Saturday June 25th, Monastiraki held the Knife|Fork|Book poetry chapbook launch of Jeff Kirby‘s She’s Having a Very Doris Day and Jonathan Garfinkel‘s Bociany (Storks) which featured readings by the two author along with poet David Bradford.

Walking into Monastiraki (for the first time I might add) I was struck by its quaintness and the subtle elegance of what it had on display, with a vintage Conan the Barbarian comic and a How do You Say it in Chinese? guidebook particularly catching my attention. It wasn’t long before a few familiar faces popped up, like fiction writer Guillaume Morrissette and poet Klara du Plessis. But of course, the afternoon belonged to Kirby, Garfinkel, and Bradford, who were making the rounds through the shop, mingling and chatting before their readings.

David Bradford

Kirby first introduced David Bradford, who read a handful of poems, some of which appear in his chapbooks A Star is Boring and the upcoming Call Out (Knife|Fork|Book, October 2017). Bradford read in a slow and purposeful tone, one which demanded precise attention to every single spoken word. This was most apparent as he read “Why Can’t We Live Together”, with peculiar and striking lines like:

“…Black squirrels sparkling
like warm steak knives for my twix bars”

and

“Wheezy stardust sucking on gold cellophane
where they buried the garrison in a gravel pit”.

Jeff Kirby

Next up was Kirby himself, who, before even beginning to read seemed overjoyed to share this moment with the standing crowd of smiling faces. His excitement was infectious; his voice, resonant. Kirby’s selected reading from She’s Having a Doris Day was inviting, warm, and eye-opening. Each spoken verse carried the emotions of the poet. His work explored themes of gender identity, homosexuality, love, and loss. Heavy stuff, admittedly, but the personal struggle was counteracted with just the right balance of biting humour. His shortest poem, entitled “Pink,” simply read:

“Why not orange?”

Jonathan Garfinkel

Finally, it was Jonathan Garkinfel‘s turn, and with two amazing readings preceding him, my expectations were high for the poet and playwright. As he delved into his past experiences travelling far across the globe, particularly of the time he lived in Poland, Garfinkel spoke and read in a tone that lingered, much like the lingering images of the human condition he paints in his poems. The last poem Garfinkel read from his chapbook, entitled “Bociany (Storks): After Chełmoński,“was featured in Vallum’s 14:1 “Evolution” issue. Combining the mystical with the concrete, the final lines of the work are haunting, beautiful:

“He believes in proximity, worms
piling off the highway.
He coalesces dreams of black turtles
swimming in fetid waters.
He wants them to call him.”

Lovely Knife|Fork|Book Cake

Of course, the real star of the show was this cake that I happened to be standing next to for the entire reading. Though it was calling to me incessantly, with it’s shiny green frosting and red gum-drops, I left before having a slice…

To read or hear more about these fine chapbooks visit Knife|Fork|Book’s website.

Find Jonathan Garfinkel’s poem in Vallum 14:1 “Evolutution” 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.