An incontournable of Montréal’s spoken word scene since the early ’90s, Catherine Kidd has forged a reputation as one of the nation’s most surprising and inspiring voices for page and stage. Her award-winning multimedia poetic creations have toured Europe, Asia, Africa, UK, US and Canada.
“Our city’s newest superstar… a knockout… This Kidd is pure gold.” — Montreal Gazette
Photo by Mariel RosenbluthKaie Kellough is a Montréal word-sound systemizer. He is the author of Lettricity, and Maple Leaf Rag, the latter of which was nominated for the Manuela Dias design award. Kaie is the voice of one sound recording, Vox:Versus, a suite of conversations between voice and instrument.
Kaie's print and sound work is underwritten by rhythm and by a desire to dis-and re-assemble language and meaning. Kaie's work emerges where voice, language, music, and text intersect. He blends word-games with sound poetry, dub, and jazzoetry. He has performed and published internationally. Kaie is presently working on short fiction, on poems that say goodbye, and on a new sound work.
Henry Beissel has published two books of poetry this year: Coming to Terms with a Child (Black Moss) and Seasons of Blood (BuschekBooks). He is the author of sixteen other volumes of poetry including Cantos North (Penumbra Press, 1982). He co-edited the Festschrift for Irving Layton, Raging Like a Fire (Vehicule Press, 1993). Beissel's most successful play, Inuk, has been performed widely since premiering at Stratford in 1973. It has been translated into French, German, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, and Turkish. Beissel taught in the English faculty at Sir George Williams (later Concordia) from 1966 to 1996. In November 1994, he was awarded the first Walter-Bauer Literaturpreis in Germany for his translations of Bauer's poetry.
Tea and scones ($6) served on a first-come/first-served basis.
The A B Series acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which, in 2009, invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
This event is made possible with financial assistance from The Canada Council for the Arts through The Writers' Union of Canada.
Adeena Karasick is a poet, media-artist and the author of seven books of poetry and poetic theory. Her poetry collections include Amuse Bouche, The House That Hijack Built, both published by Talonbooks, and The Arugula Fugues (Zasterle Press, 2001). Marked with an urban, Jewish, feminist aesthetic that continually challenges normative modes of meaning production, and engaged with the art of combination and turbulence of thought, her work is a testament to the creative and regenerative power of language and its infinite possibilities for pushing meaning to the limits of its semantic boundaries. She is Professor of Global Literature at St. John's University in New York.
bill bissett’s more than 60 books are immediately identifiable by the incorporation of his artwork and phonetic spelling. On December 3, bissett will be launching and giving the first public reading from his latest book, novel. An energetic "man-child mystic," bill bissett is living proof of William Blake's adage "the spirit of sweet delight can never be defiled." His idealistic and ecstatic stances frequently obscure his critical mindedness, humour and craftsmanship.
"I know who the great poets are. William Bissette of Vancouver. An Indian boy. Bill Bissette, or Bissonnette." (Jack Kerouac, 1967)
Margaret Atwood's "astral twin" and James Reaney's "one-man civilization", living legend bill bissett returns to Ottawa for a feature reading in The A B Series.
bill bissett ART SHOW: the event before the event is a bill bissett art show and sale taking place at the same venue, Avant-Garde Bar, between 5 and 6:30pm. The Ottawa launch for Carl Peters' new book on bissett's visual art textual vishyuns: image and text in the work of bill bissett takes place at that time and as such, copies will be available for sale. Suitably priced for gift-giving this holiday season, bissett's paintings will range from $100 to $250. Free admission - artist in attendance
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And after the event, at 10pm, stay on after for a performance by Ottawa band, The Sonic Defense
Patrick White is former Poet Laureate of Ottawa. He is the author of eight books of poetry: Poems (Soft Press), God in the Rafters,(Borealis), Stations (Commoner’s Books), Homage to Victor Jara, (Steel Rail Press), Seventeen Odes, (Fiddlehead Books), Orpheus on Highbeam, (Anthos Books), Habitable Planets, New and Selected Poems, (Cormorant Books), and The Benjamin Chee Chee Elegies, (General Store Publishing). His work has been translated into five languages and appears in hundreds of national and international periodicals and anthologies, including the likes of Poetry (Chicago), Dalhouse Review, Texas Quarterly, the Fiddlehead, and Georgia Review, etc. Winner of the Archibald Lampman Award, Canadian Literature Award, Benny Nicholas Award for Creative Writing, he was also a runner-up for the Milton Acorn People’s Poet Award. Founding editor and publisher of Anthos, a Journal of the Arts, Anthos Books, and producer-host of Radio Anthos, a popular literary radio show. George Woodcock wrote of his Selected Poems in the Ottawa Citizen: He promises to be one of our best and best respectedpoets. Sharon Drache, in the Kingston Whig Standard: He might well win the Nobel Prize one day inhis own inimitable way. And Orbis, (London, England), has said of his work: His images are strong, lyrical, moving. He dares and achieves.
Shirley Bear was recently named a member of the Order of Canada for her contributions as a First Nations visual artist and cultural activist. She is a multimedia artist, writer, traditional First Nation herbalist and Elder. Born on the Tobique First Nation, she is an original member of the Wabnaki language group of New Brunswick. She is the 2002 recipient of the New Brunswick Arts Board’s Excellence in the Arts Award. Bear’s writing has been included in several anthologies including Best Canadian Poetry in English (ed. A.F. Moritz, Tightrope Books, 2009), Kelusultiek (Mount St. Vincent University, 1994) and The Colour of Resistance (Sister Vision Press, 1993). She is author of the poetry collection Virgin Bones (McGilligan Books, 2006).
Mark Truscott is the author of two books of poetry: Said Like Reed or Things (Coach House, 2004) and Nature (BookThug, 2010). In June 2011, BookThug published a prose chapbook, Form: A Series. Truscott leads courses and workshops through the Toronto New School of Writing.
There will be an intermission between readings, a cash bar and books for sale.
Guests will have the opportunity to view Gallery 101's current exhibition, Memory / Migration.
The A B Series acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which, in 2009, invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
Photo courtesy of Evi TsiligaridouZorras make poetry-music-video-weirdness fusion. With megaphones. They're known for their unique bilingual mixture of text, sound poetry, percussion, singing, electric bass, guitar and projected images.
Zorras are visual artist/writer, Sandra Alland, and musician, Y. Josephine -- with occasional added visual flavourings by Ariadna Battich. Zorras are from Scotland via Canada, Venezuela and Argentina.
Zorras have performed widely throughout the UK, including at London's Soho Theatre, Glasgow's The Arches, and The Edinburgh Book Festival. They have just returned from Berlin's Entzaubert Film Festival and 9 days of gigs in London. This is Zorras' first tour in Canada, and they are very pleased.
Photo courtesy of Cameron OgilvieCamille Martin is the author of three collections of poetry: Sonnets, Codes of Public Sleep, and Sesame Kiosk. Steeped in lyric traditions and influenced by her training as a pianist, her poetry is known for its meditative and musical qualities. Yet it also restlessly questions the assumptions of traditional lyricism, form, and narrative.
Of Sonnets, Rae Armantrout observes that “in some ways, these poems are almost traditional," yet "in these taut, fast-paced, self-aware poems, the lyric meets 21st-century paranoia and sparks fly.” Carol Dorf writes that Martin creates “a world where science and myth intersect,” a “world of a mind reflecting on itself, the natural and built environments, time, and language.” And Jordan Scott speaks of “the magnificence in these poems, a poetic magnetic, propelling you to turn the page.”
One of her current poetry projects is “Looms,” a collection of layered narratives. She is also working on “The Evangeline Papers,” a poetic sequence based on her Acadian/Cajun heritage and her participation in archaeological digs at an eighteenth-century village in Nova Scotia.
The A B Series acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which, in 2009, invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
Readings of poetry and fiction + performance of Norman/Ross collaborative works
Stuart Ross published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street and sold over 7,000 poetry and fiction chapbooks. In addition to dozens of chapbooks and two sound-poetry cassettes, he is the author of two collaborative novels, two story collections, and six full-length poetry books. He has published a collection of essays, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (Anvil Press), edited Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press), and co-edited Rogue Stimulus: A Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield Press). His story collection Buying Cigarettes for the Dog (Freehand Books, 2009) won the 2010 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. In spring 2011, ECW Press released his first novel, Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.
Peter Norman’s poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies and other venues, includingArc, Industrial Sabotage, Bywords and the first two editions of The Best Canadian Poetry. His first book, At the Gates of the Theme Park, was published last year by Mansfield Press.
The A B Series acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which, in 2009, invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
This event is made possible with financial assistance from The Canada Council for the Arts through The Writers' Union of Canada.
Montreal poet Erín Moure writes mainly in English, albeit multilingually. Translation is also part of her practice, and she has translated Nicole Brossard (with Robert Majzels), Galician poet Chus Pato, Chilean Andrés Ajens, as well as the famed modernist Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, among others, into English. In her own most recent books, O Cadoiro and O Resplandor (both from Anansi), poetry becomes hybrid and even the author's name and signature are altered and invented in the process of dealing with grief, with love, with language. Here, names of the poets blur, sexes are indeterminate, modern and ancient levels of language co-exist, the palimpsest is pockmarked, and we sometimes don’t know any more who calls out to us: it must be the book.
Christopher Dewdney won first prize in the CBC Literary Competition for poetry and was awarded the 2007 Harbourfront Festival Prize. In 2005 his book, Acquainted With The Night; Excursions into the World After Dark (Bloomsbury, 2004) was nominated for both a Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction and the Charles Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction and was published in six countries. He has been nominated three times for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. In 2007, Wilfrid Laurier University Press published Children of the Outer Dark : the Poetry of Christopher Dewdney. His most recent non-fiction title, Soul of The World; Unlocking the Secrets of Time (HarperCollins, 2008), a best seller, was listed fourth in the non-fiction section of The Globe and Mail's Top 100 Books for 2008.
Tea & scones served by Laurier House (optional - $6)
General seating available at 7pm, readings begin at 7:30pm, readings conclude 8:45pm, optional tour of Laurier House at 9pm (fee for tour $3.40)
The A B Series acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which, in 2009, invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
Renowned sound poet and musical vocalist, Jaap Blonk returns to Ottawa for an exclusive A B Series engagement. Blonk is a unique figure known internationally for his powerful stage presence. He has performed all over Europe, as well as in the USA, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and Latin America.
On May 25, Blonk presents a live version of Antonin Artaud's To Have Done With the Judgement of God (translated by Clayton Eshleman). This work was commissioned by BBC Radio and premiered in London, England in November 2010. It includes sound poetry by Artaud with Blonk’s variations and electronic sound.
As an opening act, the A B Series presents playback, a poetry reading. In this piece, Christine McNair, Sean Moreland, Glenn Nuotio, Carmel Purkis, Sandra Ridley and Grant Wilkins read, reconfigure and respond to artist Michèle Provost’s exhibition, playlist. You can listen to the March 4, 2011 interview with the Playback artists which aired on CKCU radio.
The evening's Master of Ceremonies is Alan Neal, host of Ottawa's favourite drive home show, All in a Day, on CBC Radio One, 91.5 FM.
The A B Series hosts the North American debut of world music power trio TOKYO TAIGA. Preceding the trio’s appearance at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Québec, the three members – Makigami, percussionist Massa Sato (Japan), and Altaic throat singer and multi-instrumentalist Bolot Bairyshev (Russia) – perform in an unprecedented concert in Ottawa, Ontario on May 18, 2011 at the National Arts Centre’s Fourth Stage.
Ten percent of ticket sales support the Canadian Red Cross Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami Appeal
TOKYO TAIGA members
Koichi Makigami is a vocalist known for his virtuosic range and profound expressivity in linguistic and musical forms. Master of a dizzying array of vocal techniques and innovator of previously inconceivable vocal acrobatics, Makigami fuses the avant garde with Tuvan throat singing, sound poetry, theatre, performance art, cartoon music and Japanese traditional music to create a universe of sound and silence.
Massa Sato is a Japanese percussionist and guitairst. He plays in his own bands Massa’s Jammer and Creole a massA as well as Hikashu. In addition to his work as a music producer and composer, Masaharu has participated in major international music projects, such as Drumsique in Singapore and JapanFest in Atlanta, U.S.A.
Bolot Bairyshev is an Altaic throat singer and multi instrumentalist. He plays the Khomus (Jew’s harp), Topshuur (traditional Altaic lute), and Shoor (flute). Bairyshev has won several awards and has performed in numerous festivals across Europe and Asia. He currently works at the State Philharmonic of the Republic of Altai, Gorno-Altaisk.
A Short History of Tokyo Taiga
1998 Makigami and Bairyshev meet at jewsharp Festibal in Austria and begin collaborating
2000 Bairyshev visits Japan for the first time and continues working with Makigami
2007 Sato joins the group and Tokyo Taiga is formed
2010 first album “Tokyo Taiga” is released on John Zorn’s label Tzadik
When Miss Holloway opens up, you immediately get the sense that there's someone real here. You remember what it's like to FEEL music rather than listen to it. She's been compared to some of the more esteemed female artists of the present and past… to the confessional style of Lucinda Williams, the haunting wail of Stevie Nicks, the broken charm of Shelby Lynne. But there is no mistaking that this is a truly original voice - someone new. A troubadour by nature and adventurer at heart, she’s been singing and playing her songs across Canada extensively and started hitting south of the border into Nashville, Austin and Los Angeles. Her ep "Sins to Confess" was released in 2010.
