LeVack Block, Anansi Poetry Bash

Caucasian male, 50s, with curly dark hair, wearing dark dress jacket and shirt. Family and students gathered close to the stage, whooping when he took the mic.

The Sentinel, A.F. Moritz (House of Anansi Press)

From "You That I Loved"

You that I loved all my life long,
you are not the one.
You that I followed, my line or path or way,
that I followed singing, and you
earth and air of the world the way went through,
and you who stood around it so it could be
the way, you forests and cities,
you deer and opossums struck by the lonely hunter
and left decaying, you paralyzed obese ones
who sat on a falling porch in a deep green holler
and observed me, your bald dog barking,
as I stumbled past in a hurry along my line,
you are not the one...

Her head rolls into his shoulder nightly. Their hands meet at their waists, their legs entwined. In sleep they align, their bodies folding into one another, a reduction of the best they have to offer.

LeVack Block, Anansi Poetry Bash

Caucasian woman, with curly dark hair, wearing a black suit, turquoise scarf and turquoise bracelet. She's a tiny force as she takes the stage. She's quiet and gracious. And she'll wrench you.

Chameleon Hours, Elise Partridge (House of Anansi Press)

Page 27:

From "Buying the Farm"

A little folding of the hands to sleep —
straw hat tipped over my nose,
I’m dozing to the lilac’s inquisitive wrens;
you, your spade flung aside,
sprawl, just starting to snore.

It’s curtains for us,
clasping hands behind the dusty, still-swaying swag —
at last these doublets can come off,
the swipes of rouge and sideburns, then we’ll stroll
to greet the flashing city with our true faces.

She stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. The high rise view stretched across the lake to the next major city. Spring was here, just enough that the window could be left open morning and night. A train was coming. It would soon pass by, through the trees, past the schoolyard, maybe a hundred cars long if they were lucky. In the next room, they felt each other's bellies. Mine. Yours. 80 and 30, connected by an intrusive mass. The kettle whistled. She rinsed the pot, dropped in the bags, and poured the water. Civil now, but come winter she'd watch the pot crash in an exhausted heap in the parking lot.

LeVack Block, Anansi Poetry Bash

Caucasian male, 40s, wearing light brown tshirt and blue jeans. As he takes the stage, he pulls on a baseball cap and says something I may have misheard but hope I didn't, that when you make yourself comfortable in front of an audience, the audience too will become comfortable.

Revolver, Kevin Connolly (House of Anansi Press)

Page 3:

From "Terre Haute"

We're used to a season progressing logically,
then, heading south by car, it suddenly
makes no sense in reverse: a race from
ice to snow, gray earth and nippled trees,
pooled water and mud, then the first white blades,
seeming to expire when they're really
cutting way for flowers...

By the time she spotted the three deer running through the field, the farmer had already lowered his crossbow and turned back toward the house. She lifted her foot from the gas. As the car coasted to a stop, she put the car in reverse and centred the farmer in her rearview.

Hart House, Hart House Review 2008 launch

Caucasian woman, early 20s, with Louise Brooks haircut, wearing black and grey shirt 'n' skirt and patent leather ankle boots. She takes the podium...

From "Valhalla" by Alex Grigorescu, winner of the 2008 Hart House Poetry Prize

so i tell him about childhood:
the lesbians with crewcuts and converse
mounting each other for piggybacks to the corner store.
my eye on a dodgy ginger girl who swung
between all thighs, indiscriminately;
playground kneeslap boys whispered
that her freckles spanned her, like a pox
[but jesus, connect the dots]
and how they must have whimpered while
she bobbed for
[adam's apples].

He sits at the edge of the podium, his friend occupying the chair beside him. He keeps his head low, his expression thoughtful, as photographers dart in and out of view. He'll appear in many of the shots. He raises his hand to his forehead, rubbing his brow, and another flash fills the foreground. He begins to paint his own picture, one in which he realizes these chairs were meant for speakers, and his discarded plate of naked chicken skewers dries out at the delicate ankles of this evening's winner.

Vieux Montreal, Marche du Vieux

Caucasian male, mid 20s, with shaggy beach-blonde hair, awkwardly parted hard to the side, wearing black rimmed glasses, pink striped shirt and faded blue jeans.

Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, Leonard Cohen (McClelland & Stewart)

From "As the Mist Leaves No Scar":

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill,
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will.

When wind and hawk encounter,
What remains to keep?
So you and I encounter,
Then turn, then fall to sleep.

He takes the biggest table to himself, papers spread around him, looking up at passing women with a vacant stare. It's not until he gently requests a glass of water from one of the young women working behind the counter that his expression softens, his lips parting into a familiar grin, his teeth large and white against his pale, fine features. She, too, is wearing black rimmed glasses and bright patterned clothing. They hover in front of one another, hands at their sides. Her shift ends shortly and he's come early to collect.

Down the street from Gwen's head

Caucasian woman, late 20s, with short brown curly hair, wearing jean skirt, white long sleeved tee and pale pink scarf.

The Refrigerator Memory, Shannon Bramer (Coach House Books)

Page 51:

From "Toronto, City of Sad Faces"

He hums inside his solitary body,
flourishes on the subway, unfolds stiff newspaper wings.

Ships, slugs on the horizon.
The sun slips down in you.

Daughter, let the raccoon in.
Hold his cold hand.

It's not as simple as "the little details." Or, "It's all in the details." It's that feeling you get when you read something small, something familiar and ordinary, a few words that placed one in front or behind the other make you believe that you really can do it, that your few words will count for something, that someone will appreciate the image of an aging woman speeding into town for mass, her body warmed by the second-hand fur bungeed to the driver's seat.

Bloor Line, Saturday night, a little sloshed.

Caucasian woman, early 20s, with brown hair pulled back into loose ponytail, wearing long brown felt jacket with three buttons on each cuff, and bright yellow rubber boots.

Open All Night, Charles Bukowski (Ecco)

Page 309:

From "Chinaski"

agnostic
soul
and now let us go on to
more worthwhile
things

He likes to listen to her read, his head restful in her lap. Last night, she caught their reflection. His jaw was tight. She stroked his head and asked if everything was fine. He blinked hard and sat up, pulling out his ponytail and scratching behind his ears. Was it cool if he took off, he'd said? Could he take the book, maybe some others?

Taddle Creek 10th Anniversary, The Gladstone Hotel

Caucasian woman, late 20s, wearing all black, head of brown, soft unruly curls the perfect accessory to her tidy, tight words.

Dani Couture, three time Taddle Creek contributor, reading "Atonement":

Atonement

On the side of the highway,
in August, on full stomach,
I picked the already thin
blueberry bushes clean.

And for a year afterward
the bears roamed hungry--
picked off campers in crisp red tents
as they were offered up in return.

Clipping, late for work. A few quick sips of espresso warms her belly, toasted rye and jam chilling in her palm of paper towel. The path is straight and timely to the main road but she veers, the concrete giving way to solid soil, the odd crumpled leaf, through a circle of Asian women, quipping away, wide circles rushing morning air to their lungs.

(Read one of my stories for Taddle Creek, "Bunkie.")

Spadina streetcar, on at Kensington.

Asian woman, late 20s, with long black hair twisted and draped over her shoulder, wearing a short grey coat with black-and-white checkered scarf tied loosely across her chest.

Treble, Evelyn Lau (Polestar)

About page 29:

From “The Sinking Houses”:

I wanted to tell you a story
about the people with no boundaries,
to see the pain on your face like a flame
that burns neighbourhoods down,
but instead I told you about the dwarf
trapped inside the littlest orange house,
condemned to live alone forever.

She works with a man who is 4’2” tall. His chest is broad, his neck stiff. His eyes are warm and crinkly, his smile easy. His voice is compressed ever so slightly and he glides when he walks the hallways, his funky patterned shoes a daily conversation piece. Once, when he was in university, he told her, he was sitting on the train heading home for the weekend. His car was full of elementary school students on a field trip to the zoo. The teacher, exasperated, had grabbed him forcefully when he wouldn’t leave the train. Fighting her off in the aisles, he stood at his full height and yelled, “Get your hands off of me!” The other passengers all looked away, thinking him a disagreeable child.

Strong Words, The Gladstone Hotel

Caucasian male, mid 30s, wearing black and white striped dress shirt, blue jeans and leather shoes. A well-dressed gentleman, soft spoken, easy with a smile, a natural at the mic.

Making Bones Walk, Alex Boyd (Luna Publications)

Page 15:

From "The Curve of Ear"

At lunch, lying in a first sun of the year
that paints the inside of my closed eyelids
orange, I am in a pool of sound
and the car starting taps me
when it would not have reached
my thoughts at all, mixes
with broken ladders of talk.

Red walls and readers. Framed naked poses in brown and black charcoal. Distraction in thumb smudges rubbed along shaded thighs.

Arts and Letters Club, The Alcuin Society 2006 Awards for Excellence in Design in Canada

Caucasian male, mid 60s, with white hair and full beard, wearing a brown suede jacket, white collared shirt and black jeans. His glasses sit comfortably low on the bridge of his nose. He is not one of the men in the portraits, but could be. (But would rather not be.) He is classic and male, at home in his leather boots. Just a guy who values craft, care and a gleeful attention to detail.

Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists, a. rawlings, designed by Bill Kennedy (Coach House Books)

With apologies. I know the spacing isn't justifying the text...

Page 73:

habit of holding
shoulder blades
as wings
when at rest

transcribe
pins in ings if
wing veins

On the bay, coasting toward the waterfall. An outstretched branch leans heavy over the shoreline. He paddles under it, chin tipped, jaw slack, shoulders arching, the swollen mass bulbous, chalky-white like bird dung. He sits up and feels the sun glow against his bare shoulders, letting the current carry him to a dull trickle, away from nature's piñata.

A Space Gallery, Get Your Lit Out

Caucasian woman, late 20s, wearing a black sun dress, tied about the neck. It reminds me of countless women sunbathing, that tie. Her wrist is wrapped round in a length of white beads. If memory serves, there's a tattoo on her rhomboid, the muscle that draws the scapula toward the vertebral column and slightly upward. Some muscles need be named.

Good Meat, Dani Couture (Pedlar Press)

Page 59:

From "midnight grocery shopping after watching days and days of viking week on the history channel"

an elderly lady hovering
beside the green beans
clutches
her pink sequined purse
tight to her sagging chest.
overripe tomatoes fall
from her gnarled-root hands,
explode, then bleed
onto the cool green linoleum.
i smell blood
and like it.

I sat in the front row, self-conscious and alone, vague and impatient. I draped my arm over the back of the steel chair, crossed my leg broad and fiddled with my cell phone, a sulking picture of indifference. The readers were strong, vibrant, amusing women. As she stepped to the microphone there were the red toe nails, easy gestures, fluid wrists, and such friendly eyes. Joy in the work that had been done, now to be shared. She began to read and I felt limp. She made herself in my home. Simple words, suddenly. And inspiration came. I found myself composing a thought, a letter, god help me, a poem? her soothing voice threading itself throughout mine. Was that a shoulder shake? A chuckle? An appreciative nod, my face settling into an expression, perhaps, a smile? I left without hellos or goodbyes, quickly resting my hand on the wrist of an acquaintance as I was half out the door. I walked the hour home, upright, eager to put pen to paper.

The Dewdney Principle book length reading, The Don Valley Brick Works

Caucasian male, mid 50s, with shaggy grey hair, half glasses, v-neck sweater and khaki pants. Behind him, rolling green. Most directly behind him, a line of yellow caution tape. In front, rows of covered tables, clothed and blanketed cutlery, sweating water glasses and a captive audience.

The Natural History, Christopher Dewdney (ECW)

Pages 3-117. But for the purposes of this entry, I shall blindfold myself and pick one at random.

Page 37:

Constant gushing thrill the night
permeated. Eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils,
genitals, hands and feet. A night unmoved
by crickets until dawn. Red haven. Free
stone. Midnight in the hyper-personal
theatre of an August moon. Its reflection
in the lake an electric mirage loomed
a dazzling monotonous dream light.
The water quick molecular sand.

Ascend and merge.

As the dark rolls in, the second act is unveiled, stars on a downtown city summer night. I was not there*. But I've imagined it a few times, their heads to the side, rocked forward, settled back. How can I not write to fingers rimming the mouths of beer bottle tops, adjusting the knife, now the fork, aligned, then discarded. The moment you stop listening, "Is that a word?" and realize that your tongue is floating. You look at her. She looks at him. She and he are looked at, as yet another looks on you. A quick smile then you're back to the words, oblivious.

and orange. Unnatural grace of her moving.
Her urgent and delicate choreography.
Silk and gold. Leaves sliding long taut
abdominal trails across the skin palace
warm devon cream. Darkly traced
in a silence our vision does not seam.

The Scream Literary Festival menu for the evening:

First Course

Chilled cucumber soup with beet mousseline served with a black pepper dragonfly cracker
Mixed field greens with toasted pine nuts and nasturtiums, tossed with a honey orange vinegrette

Second Course
A mixture of wild and cultivated mushroom crepes drizzled with basil pesto
Ontario smoked trout platter
Brown and wild rice salad with cranberries and toasted walnuts

Third Course
Fossil and shell shaped specialty chocolates
Blue Cheese drizzled with juniper scented honey
Platter of Niagara Region fruits

*I'm never not going again.

The Gladstone Hotel, Scream Literary Festival launch

Caucasian male, late 60s, standing at a podium, wrestling with a limp mic. He turns to one of the many pink page flags, in stark contrast to his all black ensemble, and reads.

un, Dennis Lee (House of Anansi Press)

Page 27:

Ex-
tinction warmup dues: feel the
mindmeat resist.
Pre-necro hush, bombbalm to the planet but
yip yap yip go the ostrich curs of the brain.

Bite down on un-
tology.
Nuzzle the brink of extremis.

I'm listening, I swear. I know my pen is poised but I'm willing my musculature into line, to put the pen in my mouth so that my fingers will stop twitching. I succeed, the pen bouncing between my lips, my teeth and tongue finding the groove of the cap, rolling it like a log driver. I spit it out and put it on the table, right-angle flush. I finger the edge of a magazine, drawing it closer. I grab the pen and write on her forearms, one word each. Because while I'm trying to stay with his words, they're carrying me to my own.

Trane Studio, watching the bartender chip ice.

Caucasian woman, late 30s, wearing jeans and a soft, black top with hood, holding a thistle.

Human Resources, Rachel Zolf (Coach House Books)

Page 7:

We took this offline to firm up the 'one-stop shopping
spot' for HR content requires minor refreshing.

My head's spinning in reverse 360s just to close the
loop with you.

She orders a second glass of wine.
She catches up.
She drives out of town for lunch.
She tips the man who cloths her car.
She gets her car washed.
She pulls away.
She shakes.
She stares out the windshield.
She slams on the breaks.
She dials her favourite song into her iPod.
She drives past the park.
She calls her friend to say she's on schedule for their date.
She unbuttons her coat in the sun.
She throws a bag into the composter.
She leaves her scarf inside.
She finishes the bottle.

This Is Not A Reading Series, The Gladstone Hotel

Caucasian woman, late 20s, with short, dark curly-q hair, wearing a black and white polka dotted dress with black nylons and black strapped heels.

songs for the dancing chicken, Emily Schultz (ECW Press)

Your cohort reading from page 10:

I am seeing a film.

I am seeing a film
and you are with me.

I am seeing a film
and you are far from me.

I am seeing a film
and the theatre is bathed
in blue light, but the insides
of my mind are crimson.

I had forgotten how much I loved those films, those Herzog moments of irrational and poetic insight. I had forgotten that a dwarf outrunning a truck could be at once so brutal and honest and funny, dancing chickens and bunnies, stirred into activity by shocks or a sudden rise in temperature, motivated to move against the grain of a turntable.

Spadina streetcar, rumbling home through the fish markets

Caucasian male, early 40s, short and stalky with bright blue eyes, wearing a grey jacket, black scarf and green cargo pants. His specs are round, sitting on a pointed nose straight out of one of Simon's chalk drawings.

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart (HarperCollins)

Page 41:

But the noise of my inside seas, the dazzle of this cataclysmic birth of love in me, cannot hear clearly what he says. To make a response is like rousing a heavy sleeper who longs to remain asleep. I smile, but I am in a trance, there is no reality but love.

Tyler ran up the ropes to the Six Spin urging Gregg to hurry. When Gregg got to the gate he froze at the sight of the girl taking tickets, a seasonal employee who changed her look each summer. Brigitte was tall for a girl, at least six foot. She had on the requisite carnival uniform, blue polo shirt and crème-coloured shorts; but, while other attendants wore white sneakers with tennis socks, she wore high-laced black boots with steel toes. The commitment to her blue baseball cap was half-assed, the hat sitting on the edge of her razor-cut black bob.

Gregg hiked his brother's hand-me-down cut offs and started up the aisle. He handed Brigitte his tickets, staring up into her face, enamoured by the thick make-up outlining her eyes straight up to her temples. In place of hoop earrings, she wore safety pins, one through a ragged hole that looked infected.

She was, in a word, stunning.

Keep Toronto Reading. February 1-28, 2007

Yonge Line, looking forward to fresh air.

Caucasian woman, early 20s, tall and lanky, wearing a long brown parka, knitted cap with long strings. She stores her thick mittens under her armpit and holds the middle bar for support while trying to turn the pages with courtesy, but not nearly fast enough for instantaneous gratification.

Lemon Hound, Sina Queyras (Coach House Books)

Page 52:

And the puddle was the word. And the puddle
reflected everything. And the puddle grew. And the
puddle spoke back. And the puddle was nothing.
The puddle unplugged her.

She tucks her hair into her knitted tuque and zips her coat. He rubs against her ankle and rests a paw gently on her foot. She bends down for one last pat, scratching behind his ear. He falls into a slump on the kitchen floor, his chest vibrating, full of loving purrs. She takes a final swallow of tea, considering the wide-open sky outside her kitchen window, and rinses the mug, leaving it to drain on a dishtowel. She heads to the door past a multitude of mirrors, tiny, large, in picture frames, up high and down low. In her home you are reflected everywhere as a work of art.

Collar up, she steps onto the stoop and closes the door tightly. It's an older house; it takes one and two and slam to be good and sure. His face is pressed against the glass. She smiles at her friend and taps the window as she passes. Hello to the neighbour outside smoking and past The Grotto toward the boardwalk.

The sun is brilliant, blinding. The snow banks sway. At the lake, she sits, face turned to the sky, the crystal latticework of snowflakes reflected behind her eyes. Her breaths steady; her shoulders drop. The winter's breeze licks past her ears, carrying the sound of the water freezing, crackling. A branch above her creaks, its bark giving to its limits, wavering in the gust, until coming back gently to its starting position. Under foot the frozen earth shimmers, warm beneath its coat as she is beneath hers.

If I lived in an alley, this would be so up it.

Shelf Portrait is an exhibition that renders an act of generosity into a work of art. Robin Pacific’s entire archive of 1,670 books, collected over 30 years, will be given away– free – to all who attend the Shelf Portrait exhibition at the Red Head Gallery from Saturday January 6 through Saturday January 27, 2007. Books read 30 years ago, books read last week, books read and re-read, books never read – Art, Fiction, Poetry, Cultural Theory, Memoirs, Biographies, Autobiographies, Essays, Letters, Philosophy, Psychology, Travel, Gardening. Each book has been catalogued and inserted with a bookplate: "This book is a gift to you from Robin Pacific." In exchange for signing their name beside the title of the books on catalogues hung on the wall, visitors can take the books home with them immediately.

You can find out more about the event here.

Gotta love a podcast

Thank you to CBC for including my Here and Now appearance as part of this week's Toronto This Week podcast. You can hear it by going here and scrolling down to Toronto This Week where you can subscribe.