Public Poetry's Weblog

Call for poetry submissions

publicpoetry — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:33:04 +0000

From Leonard Cohen's, Back In Montreal

CALL FOR POETRY SUBMISSIONS

In honour of Leonard Cohen’s 75th birthday (September 21, 2009,) the Foundation for Public Poetry/Fondation Poésie Publique is seeking submissions of poetry(poetic responses) based upon Leonard Cohen’s poetry. A maximum of seventy-five poems will be selected for this publication.

The publication is a fundraising initiative to help support the commencement of a Leonard Cohen Poet-In-Residence program at Leonard’s old high school(Westmount High.)

All submissions will be considered to grant the Foundation for Public Poetry anthology rights. Submissions should include a note of reference to the Cohen poem which the author is responding to. Authors should also include a three-line biography and complete contact information.

To submit, please email: publicpoetry@gmail.com

For more information, see FAQ in the [comments link] below.

Deadline for submissions is July 12, 2009.

Thanks Margaret Atwood

publicpoetry — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:03:36 +0000

Yes, it is true Margaret Atwood has agreed to compose a piece for inclusion in the Leonard Cohen–You’re Our Man event. Merci Margaret.

Call for Poets & Audition

publicpoetry — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:53:56 +0000

“Leonard Cohen – You’re Our Man: The Poetry of Leonard Cohen with Reflections by Montreal Poets.”

In honour of Leonard Cohen’s 75th birthday, the Foundation for Public Poetry/Fondation Poésie Publique is sponsoring a fund-raising Gala on September 21, 2009. A silent auction is also planned.

Montreal poets who wish to participate in this event must select a poem of Cohen’s, write a poem in response, and then present both poems in a live audition. Finalists will be invited to present at the Gala. We can forward a small sampling of Cohen’s poetry, upon request.

To apply for an audition, poets must write to the Foundation for Public Poetry at publicpoetry@gmail.com

The application deadline is August 1, 2009. Auditions will be held Friday evening, August 21, and Saturday, August 22. You will be notified of the audition time and location when you register.

Proceeds of the September 21 Leonard Cohen fund-raising Gala will support the Foundation’s Poet-In-Residence program. For more information, call Jan at (514)721-8420, or write publicpoetry@gmail.com

Leonard Cohen – You’re Our Man

publicpoetry — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:30:11 +0000

To honour Leonard Cohen’s 75th birthday, the Foundation for Public Poetry/Fondation Poésie Publique is organizing:

An evening of The Poetry of Leonard Cohen with Reflections from Montreal Poets

We currently seek volunteers willing to help plan this fundraising event for the Foundation’s Poet-In-Residence program.

Experience in event coordination, marketing, and fundraising is preferred, but not imperative.

Contact J.J.(Jack) Locke at <publicpoetry@gmail.com> .

publicpoetry — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:11:20 +0000

The Foundation for Public Poetry’s

Annual General Meeting

7 P.M. Monday, May 18, 2009

For more information, or to RSVP

contact Jack J. Locke at publicpoetry[at]gmail.com

OFFICIAL FESTIVAL LINE-UP

publicpoetry — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:44:42 +0000

Pure Lines

Montreal Public Poetry Festival / Festival de Poésie Publique de Montréal

Sept. 26, 27 & 28, 2008
All readings/performances at Café Culturel SABA
5124-A rue Sherbrooke Ouest(one block north of metro Vendome.)

(see FESTIVAL POETS for complete summaries and photos)

Friday September 26 Vendredi

6 P.M. Katharine Beeman & Raphael Bendahan(Montreal)
Quiver
Katharine Beeman is a Montreal poet, in Our America, a dreamer passing…a realist dreaming the impossible. Raphael Bendahan is a Montreal poet and film-maker. Born in Casablanca, Morocco, his poetry is infused with a sense of longing, exile and seduction.
English(mostly) • $5

6:40 P.M. Vincenzo Di Nicola & Jan Jorgensen(Montreal)
Corvi & Co.: Aliases and Dialogue
Discover your self in poetic conversation with Vincenzo and his poetic identities (Corvi & Co.) and Jan in her religious explorations.
English • $7, proceeds to charity: Dans la Rue

7:20 P.M. Rachna Vohra & Rahul Gupta (a.k.a. That Brown Bastard!)
Rachna is a poet with soul, purpose, and a side-order of wit. She takes on social issues, taboos, and your belief systems and throws them back at you to teeter you off your axis. That Brown B@$!@%&! is a professional poet (in other words, broke) and is the token brown guy in the Last Call Poets poetry troupe.
English • Language Warning • $6

8:00 P.M. Rita Amabili (Chambly, QC)
Femmes et soirs du Monde
J’aimerais faire chanter (un guitariste et une chanteuse m’accompagnent) et réciter deux ou trois poèmes. Toutes les œuvres de cette auteure sont imprégnées de son désir d’être solidaire de ceux qui souffrent et d’offrir une lueur d’espoir à ceux qui, comme elle, rêvent d’un monde plus juste et plus humain. Elle exprime ce désir depuis plus de quinze ans à travers des moyens d’expression multiples.
Français • $8

8:40 P.M. Jessica Mailas (Montreal)
The Preciousest
Sharply confessional, fiercely introspective and highly illustrative… “The Preciousest” is a portrait of an artist searching for a sense of self, both internally and through her relationships with others.
English • $5

9:20 P.M. The Throw Poetry Collective (Montreal)
The Throw Poetry Collective made an impression on the spoken-word scene with their inaugural season of poetry slams. Now, the winners from that season make their debut as an ensemble… Don’t miss your chance to say, “I knew them when!” or your chance to find out when “when” is!
English • Language Warning • $5

10 P.M. Rebecca Schwarz (Montreal)
Paperasse
Pornography, penis envy, and that boyfriend who keeps asking you to do something about your hair. Strippers, lawyers, and dictators. Coups and Quiet Revolutions. For people who believe poetry still has a place in our daily lives: Paperasse is for you.
English • Language Warning • $6

10:40 P.M. Derrick Cantwell and James Grieve (Montreal)
Familiar Faces in Strange Places
The beat, the sound, the guitar. Iconic celebrity lost, found, drowned in a sea of word. From here to there, to anywhere-Anything, everything, and nothing.
English • Language Warning • $10

Saturday September 27 Samedi

NOON Rae Marie Taylor (Levis, QC)
The Wild In Critical Times
Montrealers know Rae’s poetry through her Spoken Word CD Black Grace and her several one woman shows in the province with music composed and performed by Montreal’s own David Gossage. Writing and performing as well in Santa Fe, New Mexico, her semi-nomadic life bridges the north and the south, keeping her concern for the trials of the earth and the spiritual health of our contemporary lives in focus. One critic states, “her words create a powerful chemistry,” another that “her voice provides a haven for our encounter with sound.” Today she will read acapella.
English & French • $7

12:40 P.M. Maxianne Berger(Montreal)
Juggling Words
Lexicographers might frown, but poets love the flexibility of words, reveling in their contortions, juggling them into unexpected positions and juxtapositions. For all the exuberance of her choreography, meaning itself never slips from her grasp.
English • Language Warning • $5

1:20 P.M. Claudia Coutu Radmore (Carleton Place, Ont)
a minute or two/without remembering
“Co-editor of Gusts and Raw Nervz poetry magazines, I was born and raised in Montreal. The poems are in the voices of my actual ancestors, all members of the Coutu family. and cover the period from 1672 to 1792.
English • $5

2 P.M. Oana Avasilichioaei (Montreal)
Urban spaces, parks and voices
In her new book, feria: a poempark, a collection that dismantles language and landscape, Oana uses Vancouver’s Hastings Park as a palimpsest. Poems revolve around questions such as what is natural, what is language and whose voices are we listening to?
English • $5

2:40 P.M. Susan L. Helwig (Toronto)
The Theory of Rock Gardens
“Sometimes love don’t feel as it should!” or so go the lyrics. Join Pink Purse Girl author Susan Helwig on a heart breaking ride with a happy ending.
English • $7

3:20 P.M. Vincenzo Di Nicola & Jan Jorgensen(Montreal)
Grammars of Creation: Poems and Meditations
In a sampling of their forthcoming volume of religious poetry, Vincenzo and Jan explore and extend their religious sensibilities across the universe of faith and doubt, religious revelation and spiritual self-disclosure.
English • $7, proceeds to charity: Dans la Rue

4:20 P.M. Meredith Quartermain (Vancouver)
Lick the Queen: from Nightmarker, (Newest Press)
Winner, 2006 BC Book Prize for Poetry. There’s an automatic impulse within the human species, the way its cities spring up all over the planet. Humans reproduce by way of towns and metropolises, replicating the bee-dances of the Romans, Greeks,..
English • $5

5 P.M. – 6:20 P.M. Kyna Real, Jan Jorgensen & Colette Vidal (Montreal)
Poetry, folk singing with guitar
Kyna Real, folk singer/writer and has been writing lyrics for 8 years.
Jan Jorgensen is a poet, editor and produces the monthly poetry series: the lawn chair soirée.
Colette Vidal has been writing and reading poetry for 3 years and published her first poetry chapbook, INTO THE TWILIGHT, in June 2007.
English/French • $6

6:20 P.M. Grace Moore
Poems of Change, Love and Everyday Life
Grace writes on a variety of topics ranging from the political and socially conscious to the personal and mundane. She has taught community writing for 4 years in Pointe St. Charles. She founded Expresso Writers in 2005.
English • $7

7:00 P.M. Rita Amabili (Chambly, QC)
Femmes et soirs du Monde
J’aimerais faire chanter (un guitariste et une chanteuse m’accompagnent) et réciter deux ou trois poèmes. Toutes les œuvres de cette auteure sont imprégnées de son désir d’être solidaire de ceux qui souffrent et d’offrir une lueur d’espoir à ceux qui, comme elle, rêvent d’un monde plus juste et plus humain. Elle exprime ce désir depuis plus de quinze ans à travers des moyens d’expression multiples.
Français • $8

7:40 P.M. Rachel Brown (Montreal)
Home-Away-Home
Rachel’s work has appeared in Poetry Canada as well as Women Write magazine. She has recently returned from Asia after a six-year journey.
English • Free, pay what you can

8:20 P.M. Matthew Ferrara (Malden, Massachusetts)
After The Meteor
Matt Ferrara is the author of Young drunks in love and Five seeds in a capsule. In 2004, he earned an MFA in poetry from New England College. His work has most recently appeared in The Henniker Review and Caesura Magazine.
English • Language Warning • Free, pay what you can

9:00 P.M. Rachna Vohra & Rahul Gupta (a.k.a. That Brown Bastard!)
Rachna is a poet with soul, purpose, and a side-order of wit. She takes on social issues, taboos, and your belief systems and throws them back at you to teeter you off your axis. That Brown B@$!@%&! is a professional poet (in other words, broke) and is the token brown guy in the Last Call Poets poetry troupe.
English • Language Warning • $6

9:40 PM Chris Masson (Montreal)
Chris Masson swaggers his way between belligerence and humility. sincerity and pretension, pathos and punchlines Thanks to clairvoyant technologies, his readings at the Montreal Public Poetry Festival have already been described as “breathless,” “non-stop,” and “apocalyptic.”
English • Language Warning • $5

10:20 P.M. Vincenzo Di Nicola & Jan Jorgensen(Montreal)
Among the Heretics: Poem-Conversations
Vincenzo, an Italian with a foot in the Catholic world, another in the Jewish and a Sufi heart, exchanges poem-conversations with Jan, American poet and pastor of the United Church of Christ, in a series of encounters with poets, philosophers and mystics from Siena to Mile End and East L.A.
English • $7, proceeds to charity: Dans la Rue

Sunday September 28 Dimanche

NOON Rachna Vohra & Rahul Gupta (a.k.a. That Brown Bastard!)
Rachna is a poet with soul, purpose, and a side-order of wit. She takes on social issues, taboos, and your belief systems and throws them back at you to teeter you off your axis. That Brown B@$!@%&! is a professional poet (in other words, broke) and is the token brown guy in the Last Call Poets poetry troupe.
English • Language Warning • $6

12:40 PM Michaela Sefler (Montreal)
The Mystical/New Age Poetry
Michaela Sefler is an esoteric poet living in Montreal. Her poems allude to an ancient writing to convey a message of hope and survival.
English • $5

1:20 P.M. Sandra Sjollema (Montreal)
Out of (in) Control
Through both content and poetic form, the theme of control undergoes many twists and turns in a series of poems that take the reader through suburban family dysfunction, mayhem and beauty…
English • Language Warning • $5 or pay what you can

2 P.M. Joanne Page (Kingston, ON)
Watermarks (Pedlar Press)
“These astonishing poems, many of them variations on the sonnet, show Joanne Page at the height of her powers. Page uses her characteristic warm wit… to make worlds we can enter with curiosity and delight….” – Molly Peacock
English • $5

2:40 P.M. Chris Masson (Montreal)
Chris Masson swaggers his way between belligerence and humility. sincerity and pretension, pathos and punchlines. Thanks to clairvoyant technologies, his readings at the Montreal Public Poetry Festival have already been described as “breathless,” “non-stop,” and “apocalyptic.”
English • Language Warning • $5

3:20 P.M. Erica Ruth Kelly
Symptoms
Published in Four Minutes to Midnight, Subversions, and sources, Kelly has been a featured poet in WAWA(We Are Women Artists) 2007 and 2008. Her newest chapbook, Symptoms, promises to confuse and hopes to enlighten.
English • $5

4:00 P.M. Angelika Bertsch
Photographer and creative writer
Savoring the potential of “what lies within us” Angelika has discovered the pleasure of writing about a world often unknown to the individual.
Text combined with imagery—whereby the image is reworked and ‘charged’ with her personal energy—are the tools she uses to express perception, time, feelings and visions.
English • $5 or donation, proceeds to Montreal’s Old Brewery Mission.

4:30 P.M. Rita Amabili (Chambly, QC)
Femmes et soirs du Monde
J’aimerais faire chanter (un guitariste et une chanteuse m’accompagnent) et réciter deux ou trois poèmes. Toutes les œuvres de cette auteure sont imprégnées de son désir d’être solidaire de ceux qui souffrent et d’offrir une lueur d’espoir à ceux qui, comme elle, rêvent d’un monde plus juste et plus humain. Elle exprime ce désir depuis plus de quinze ans à travers des moyens d’expression multiples.
Français • $8

The Montreal (International) Public Poetry Festival?

publicpoetry — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:58:22 +0000

Walt Whitman photo from Wikipedia

No, Walt Whitman has not applied to be in the festival, however, with the addition of Massachusetts’ Matthew Ferrara, we’ve become an international festival. To see who else is coming to the festival check, FESTIVAL POETS.

When lilacs last in Montreal bloom’d…

The festival grows like a….

publicpoetry — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:32:12 +0000

With only two weeks before the deadline for applicants(Aug. 29), the Montreal Public Poetry Festival is growing slowly but steadily like a…. Okay, no metaphors, just wonderful writers. Here’s the latest list of confirmed poets/musicians:

Sandra Sjollema, Joanne Page, Susan L. Helwig, Meredith Quartermain, Oana Avasilichioaei, Maxianne Berger, Michaela Sefler, Jessica Mailas, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Kyna Real, Janette Jorgensen, Colette Vidal, Rita Amabili.

Their full bios/summaries are located under the heading to the right “Confirmed Poets.”

Hmmm? Do you think men like to procrastinate?

Dead Poets and CBC dreams

publicpoetry — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:23:16 +0000

The reporting of the death of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, proves that CBC is interested in poetry.

Now, if only they carried stories about living Canadian poets.

Alas, there’s no harm in dreaming.

Quebec wha’?

publicpoetry — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:48:15 +0000

I was extremely disappointed to learn today that our Festival call for poets, translated into French by my good friend (and talented poet,) Colette Vidal, which was sent on July 11 to the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains Québécois(Quebec Writers’ Union), was not disseminated–nor will it be prior to the Aug. 29, 2008 deadline.

I can only say, we honestly tried.

So, if any blog readers know any French-language Quebec poets, please direct them to this blog , so they may learn about our festival(en français). And hopefully apply to participate!