On Tuesday I found that the
recording of my July 23rd song practice didn’t have any more
complete songs on it, so I copied it to my external hard drive and deleted it
from my computer.
I
might try to do a synchronization of a French song practice next.
In
the afternoon I made a soup with the frozen ground chicken, the chicken broth,
four potatoes and three carrots that I got from the food bank. I knew I’d be
home from Shab-e Sh’er that night too late to cook so I wanted to make sure I
had something ready for dinner.
I
practiced my song “Insisting on Angels” a few times during the day. I usually
don’t practice a song more than usual before an open stage but I had a sense of
dread in my gut about screwing it up when I played it that night and so I
wanted to make sure that I had it down.
When
I was leaving my place with my bike and guitar a young woman that was passing,
upon seeing me, shifted her purse to the other side and rolled her eyes.
After
locking my bike across from the parkette at the west end of the St Stephen in
the Fields Anglican church I walked to the entrance and saw Bänoo having a cigarette and
chatting with Norman. After exchanging greetings I asked her if she was all
packed. This was because Cy Strom had told me that they were moving on
September 1st. She answered that they haven’t finished yet and that
it seems like an endless task. I told her that I used to be a mover so I know
it’s a lot of work.
Inside I sat in the front as usual,
then took out my guitar, tuned it and quietly ran through my song again.
Cad
arrived but didn’t come up to talk with me and I didn’t say anything to him at
first either because I’ve been pissed off at him for his behaviour towards me
on Facebook. He essentially said that I should have my throat cut, which I
don’t think is an appropriate thing to say to someone that has been one’s
friend for twenty years, especially when he wouldn’t dare say that kind of
thing to my face.
After a
while I called to him and he sat down with me. I told him that he should
apologize about the throat cutting comment, but he didn’t think he’d said it. I
reminded him of when he’d reposted an anti-immigration meme from a far right
website. The shocking image shows thousands of people gathering on a dock and
trying board an already overcrowded ship. It has been passed from right wing
site to right wing site for the last few years to negatively illustrate the
refugee situation in Europe. I google searched the image though and found that
it was taken during the Albanian refugee crisis after the fall of communism
there in 1991. The Albanians boarded the commercial ship “Vlora” and fled to
Italy.
In this case
though the meme was being applied to Canada, with a caption that read, “A
leader that allows mass immigration to change the demographics, culture and
fabric of its nation is guilty of treason!”
I responded to this by posting a
photo of Nazem Kadri in uniform and playing centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs,
along with the comment, “Oh no! They might all start playing hockey like this
child of Muslim immigrants and cause us to finally bring the Stanley Cup back
to Canada where it belongs!” One of Cad’s responses to me was, “I hope someone
skates over his neck.” I asked, “What result were you imagining if someone were
to skate over his neck?” He answered, “The same results I wish for you.” Since
then I have stopped engaging Cad on Facebook and frankly it’s saved me a lot of
valuable time.
After
I’d reminded Cad of what he’d said he tried to explain that he’d just meant
that I should have my throat cut if I shared his ideology. That didn’t clear
anything up at all.
Cad
doesn’t like that I call him a liar all the time but I explained that I only do
it because he’s a liar and friends should always call friends on their
bullshit. He said he was moving to Israel. I told him, “SURE you are!” He
showed me a picture of a baseball cap with the logo of the terrorist
organization, “The Jewish Defence League”, which shows a black circle
containing a yellow Star of David with a black fist in the middle. He declared,
“I’m a member now!” He warned me that they would break down my door and beat me
up for calling him a liar. Cad’s conservative fantasies have shifted further to
the right over the last few months. While we were talking he made the statement
that Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel is too soft, while
just a few months ago he was speaking of him like he was a hero. Rose Perry,
who was sitting just behind me, asked why he thought that Netanyahu was too
soft. I explained to her that Cad thinks that all Palestinians should be driven
out of Israel or killed. He reasserted “God gave Israel to the Jews and only to
the Jews!” Cad declared, “The Nazis would be fine if they weren’t so
anti-Semitic.” He also insisted that when Nazis say anything against Jews at
rallies they really only mean left wing Jews but they would be okay with right
wing Jews like him.
Rula,
one of the Shab-e She’r volunteers was distributing copies of a poem brought by
John Portelli, which he was going to read on the open stage. She pointed out
that it was in three languages: English, French and his native Maltese. She
said she could understand the Maltese a bit because it descends from a type of
Arabic. Cad asked her if she was Christian or Muslim. She very gently stressed
that she doesn’t answer those kinds of questions. Cad asked why and she
explained that it’s because she is from Lebanon where a civil war was fought
over religion. That’s the most graceful way that I’ve ever heard that question
put down. I think though that by not answering the question she actually
answered the question.
Bänoo came to the mic at about
19:10 to start the event. She promised newcomers that they were going to have
an exciting night and second and third comers that they would have an
interesting night. I thought that was a curious distinction. Sort of like
saying, if you’ve been here before the exciting honeymoon is over so the best
you can hope for is to try to maintain interest. Does that mean that in a few
years Shab-e She’r and its audience will have to go into counselling together
just to keep things going?
Laboni Islam, as
usual, recited the Native land acknowledgement. Then Bänoo returned to the stage and
announced that this was the 54th Shab-e She’r. Comme habitude she
gave a brief outline of the mission of Shab-e She’r and its history. She
stressed that this is a “brave space”.
The
first open mic poet was Rula Kahill, who shared a tribute to her cousin –
“Because I don’t understand absence and death I try to push you away from my
memory … But you are stubborn … You persist … and colonize my thinking, even in
sleep … I’m raging right now … at how stubborn you are … I still don’t
understand your death …”
Next
was Rose Perri, who told us that her poem, “Tin City”, was about the 2008 crash
–“Tin boxes … spreading tentacles … Bringing shock therapy to its psyche …
Profanity for the benefit of the status quo … Plans for survival in a tin box.”
She was about to read a poem
called “Transformation” when she saw that Yecid Ortega had just taken her
picture. She stopped and called out, “Don’t photograph me please!” He said he
would delete it and she said, “Yes, please delete it!” From her poem – “Within
this universal construct … a reflection of peace in our journey of
transformation.”
John Portelli read is poem,
“Between Here and There”, first in Maltese, then in French and finally in
English – “ … between here and there / forgotten luggage … dual identity … lost
bearings … tainted ideals …”
Weda
Sharequi started reading her poem when Rose Perry’s phone went off. From the
poem – “My heart … allowing my soul to bond with it … This created place where
hate changed to love.”
Sydney
White declared that she thought that a lot of people there would appreciate her
poem, “Gypsy Blood” – “He wandered lonely at the fair … He longed to ride the
gypsy blood … He rode her gentle … beyond the time and tide … to kill the
arrogance and pride of one who tamed without the spur … As he died there in the
wood his hair ran dark with Gypsy blood.”
Simon
Constom read “The Farthest Point in the Journey” – “She looks Persian … She
persists in being an immigrant … She is weary … even though she has accepted
you have to be enthralled … She does admit that she misses the patriarchy of
the old country … She and I have fondly reached a point where we can talk about
styles … She says that sex between equals always evokes submission from the
stronger one … I want children … I don’t think this is going to work out.”
From
Therese Pierre’s first poem – “Speak of loud objects … unsatisfied, surrounded
by treasure … Be ready to show people the pages … A ride up to the penthouse …”
From
her second – “Just know that you are the same as everyone else … I want
something to hate … There’s a man … calls me princess … I stand so far away.”
Therese
finished with a very short poem, the only parts of which I caught were – “ …
pink cheeks … I love you.”
Then it
was time for the first feature, Puneet Dutt. She began by reading a formal note
of thanks to Bänoo and then
she officially nominated Bänoo
for the Community Creator Award 2017 and encouraged us to nominate her as well.
Puneet’s first poem was a cover
of “Humanity 101” by Denise Duhamel – “I was on my way to becoming … someone
who gave a shit … I enrolled in Humanity 101 … I flunked … My professor
suggested I take Remedial Humanity … I may have been a non-traditional student,
but I was a traditional person, she said, the way a professor can say intimate
things sometimes, as though your face and soul are aglow in one of those …
makeup mirrors … For homework we had to bend down to talk to a homeless person
… We took field trips … sat on the floor to colour with strange little people
who cried and were afraid of us … I almost dropped out. I went to see the
professor … I said … Now I see humanity everywhere … He showed me where he had
been stabbed. He said I had to assume everyone had such a wound, whether I
could see it or not …”
The
first of Puneet’s own pieces was called “I’m from Where the Towers Fell” – “ …
where we mourned Tupac / armpit of a state bruised by / had it too hard dollar
ferries and subways … where houses
leaned over highways / 1 & 9 faced women of smudged jazz and
spangles / work sheds across Hudson / I’m from Little Havana of … whistles for
thick hips in beaters / two-toned where mixed don’t mean a flavour / I’m from …
Garden State of loan sharks / crap games against brick bodegas / Black Tom and
Panky Zepps / I’m from where you could live a whole life and never learn a word
of English / I’m from where the only birds were pigeons.”
From
“PTSD” – “In a country no longer hers … To what place will you bring me … there
is nothing you can do but sleep … A place you can stay without seeing the stars
… Perhaps this is what Sun Tzu meant when he said, ‘Subdue the enemy without
fighting’.”
Puneet
told us that if one admits they have PTSD they lose everything.
From
“Over Cider and Whisky in Hotel Rooms” – “The great fear was pedestrians … We’d
be so annoyed when someone would slap the car to pass … We’d all have to get
out of the car to check …”
From
another – “ … where a man relieves his urges … there were the dancing boys sold
through the Taliban …”
Puneet
made her set very short and frankly I had a hard time following her reading
because of the very loud whispering Rose and Randy going on behind me.
Bänoo observed that Puneet was the
first pregnant feature that Shab-e She’r has ever had, as far as she knew.
Puneet
Dutt’s “I’m From Where the Tower’s Fell” was a powerful piece of poetry and
I’ve seen some other work of hers online that compares to it. The writing is
clearly based on personal experience and because of that she was able to
conjure strong, vivid imagery and natural language. Her PTSD poems however
sound as if she is trying to make poetry out of someone else’s situations and
so it comes across more like not bad journalism but not great poetry.
As
usual there was a fifteen-minute break. I went to the gender-neutral washroom
and saw that, since I was there last, someone had used black marker to write on
the back of the toilet. Beside the small load flush was written the word
“Gender” and beside the large load flush as “Non-Gender”.
When I
got back to my seat I retuned my guitar and ran through my song one more time.
Cad
told me that the reason he hadn’t come to Shab-e She’r last month was because
he’d been in a hot tub with ten naked Black women and that he’d had sex with
them all.
After
the break, the sandwich open stage poet to warm us up for the other feature was
Shlomit Kriger.
From
“Regress” – “Sour and unsavoury against my tongue … drenched in sweat … the run
through the field … how to find enough water … cling to you … tracing a path …
Surrender.”
From
“The Purple Sky” – “Young girls in stilettos and pigtails … She sits for
morning black coffee … Beads of sweat dance on the workmen’s heads … It was the
day you passed me by …”
After
announcing that the next Shab-e She’r would be on September 26th Bänoo introduced the second and
final feature, Justin Lauzon.
He
began with “Distant Sun Upsetting Itself” – “Emerald curtains are drawn over
shop windows … The fortune of Bay Street … A flash of identification … The sun
rolls … inky and slow … There among the ticking of dry labour … already spent
by day.”
He said of his poem “Into the
Bloom with Incendia” that people found his previous description of it as “two
people eating each other on the beach” to be somewhat disturbing. From the poem
– “Sitting beside her marks of ether … I was the thief of moments … My ears
dripped with music … There was lust … with all due regret … My adoration came
two-fold … She full of words … If we dine on each other now … There was stumble
… He encephalated adjectives … in a click of her thighs … breaking silence and
courtesy … I know all your words are stolen from the dictionary … that gently
drip … her mudded blood … Spend your teeth …Altruistic syntax … His flesh watered
… His ears melted … She needed to finish him … Please don’t stop now, this is
the warmest I’ve ever felt!”
From
“In a Breach of Curiosity” – “I was asked about my skin … and noticed those
long, ancestral hues … and was linked to the movements of good rhythms … as it
took on and waffled through a window’s broken mesh …”
In
between poems, Justin admitted that he doesn’t write a lot of poetry.
From
another poem – “On hot nights … along the catch … on the wall’s burnt orange …
new distances of the sky … long stretches of inactivity … bend the coral twists
of her letters … her voice is collected.”
Justin
took a moment to express what an honour it was to share the stage with an
intelligent writer like Puneet Dutt. He declared, “I don’t think I’m an
intelligent writer … I’m more emotional … Putting together a bunch of words
that are colourful in my head.”
From “Sailor of Marseilles” – “ …
You misunderstood my desire … Arrived too late for light … An Adam’s apple
bitten to the core … resting staunch on his knees … the twisted edges of your
mind … my new name.”
Justin
told is that Bänoo had edited
the bio he’d sent her because it was too self-deprecating.
From
“Rebellion” – “Before you read this there will be from the underside of things
a rebellion … When branched leaves shake … a bike will drop at its post … All
this as the oscillations spread … between those who learn distance by the
length of subway maps … the shadows cast on the walls … what shape the tears
take.”
From
“The Romantic Confession of Zero” – “Yes, I admit it. It was I who fraternized
with Alexander the Great. Kissed his lips … I who failed to launch a love …
Yes, I fucked Justin too … but men like
him don’t fall in love … He stupidly chose not to listen … He claims it, names
it on his lips like the whining of his pleading wastes …”
From
“Flowerbeds” – “The dance always begins in lamplight … You ask for directions …
limp-footed and twitching …You never take your own hands … in the simultaneous
mix.”
From
his next poem – “On another occasion caught under askance of blue … you noticed
the plumb and shift … on the opposite line … under awnings and white snow … you
will be blinded …”
From
“Trumpets” – “It’s as if the trumpets began in September when the sun keeps its
position … It’s a selfish request … much like the sequences behind the city … e
replacement of sound … from these steps toward something … the time it takes to
burn.”
Justin’s
last poem, “Kimberley” was very short and all I picked up was – “Babylon has
lost its claim on your letters.”
I
disagree with Justin Lauzon’s assertion that Puneet Dutt’s writing is more
“intelligent” than his own. Perhaps he meant that her work is more intentional,
but that would be like saying that Norman Rockwell was a more intelligent
painter than Jackson Pollock because it represents something specific. Justin
opens his eyes to the dreams and for the most part knows how to arrange them in
a way that pulls in the mind of the listener to dream along.
After
reminding us that although Shab-e She’r’s largest turnout had been 105
attendees at the previous location, Bänoo announced that the head count of 67 for this night had
been the highest yet at St Stephen in the Fields and while pointing up at the
balcony she assured us that there was room for lots more.
Returning
to the open stage, I was the first person she called.
I
decided to stand on the floor in front of the stage to sing my poem, and I
explained that it was because I didn’t want to go over anyone’s head. Everyone
was silent and it made me wonder if they had taken what I’d said
metaphorically, rather than literally as it was meant.
I sang
and played my song, “Insisting on Angels” – “Well I’m back / on the stage / of
this bench / on the street / but I’m no / entertain / ment / just tragic /
relief / I feel / like a pit / that’s been poor/ ly disguised / covered / with
weak / smiles / and dumb / alibis / But hope / is the dope / that I smoke / to
get by / though it don’t kill the pain / and it don’t / make me high / cause
all / that we hope for / depends on where we’ve been / and if you’ve been to
heaven once / then you’ll cry till you’re back there again …”
While I did sing all of the words
that I’d written, they did not come out exactly in the order in which I’d
composed them. The guitar playing part of myself seemed to get stage fright and
my chord forming fingers fumbled like hockey players trying to figure skate
over the strings. That has happened on more than one occasion when I’ve played
my guitar in front of an audience but the difference is that usually I have been
able to recover. The problem with this particular song is that, although it
only has three chords, the sequence in which the chords are played is
relatively complex and they are on top of that played quickly. These elements
of difficulty, combined with nervousness, formed a perfect storm of musical
chaos that affected my concentration and repelled my memory at moments from the
correct sequence of the lyrics. I tried my best to keep going as if nothing had
gone wrong, so I don’t know how bad I sounded to everyone, but from my
perspective this was my worst performance ever at Shab-e She’r. In all my years
of coming to Shab-e She’r I have never brought the same piece twice, but this
time I did so poorly that I feel compelled to bring this song back again, perhaps
after six months, and then try to climb that same mountain again.
After
me came Jeff Pancer, who read – “You with a cross … While struggling with
financial woes / I struggled with a baby’s clothes … what Jesus suffered was
much worse.”
Maida
Valazquez announced that it was her first time at Shab-e She’r. From her poem –
“We are in fear of swaying bodies … We are the worn and working … There is a
hole in the sock of his left shoe … He tugs his collar away from his neck and
strokes his tie … He holds her in his mouth … She burns inside … I glide over
tracks … shifting my legs … heavy with secrets … In the aisles they carry more
of themselves than they do out here.”
I think
that Maida’s poem was the best one of the night on the open mic.
Paul
Costa read his first poem – “A farmer drives his red tractor between stocks of
corn … Select bits of hay stick to the tires as they rotate … His body bounces
as the tractor moves along … Intending to drive down the next road … the farmer
sees a cemetery worker … She waves at the corn farmer … He refuses to call the
cemetery workers ‘farmers’.”
Paul
recited his second poem – “When you hear me claim that of course kerosene
carries flames … like a fictionalized sitcom … the deep cuts made by caring
surgical blades.”
Then
Paul spent a couple of minutes talking about his projects, including “Fuck it,
We’ll Do it Live Press”.
Allan
Weiss read one of his stories, this one called “Unspeakable” about his Jewish
wizard character – “ … I’m not gonna make a Golem … But isn’t that what you
people do … Although quite short he weighed as much as the wizard’s horse …
Things had quite literally fallen apart … Streetlamps had suddenly decided to
douse themselves and turn to powder … I think we’re gonna have some trouble
here!”
Allan
then read what he said was the only poem he had ever written. From “Guidebooks”
– “Throughout Dickensian London the trains draw me north from station to
station … My hay fever alone a constant companion … My sneezes inspired by
Shakespeare’s pollen.”
In the
middle of the open mic Bänoo
suddenly decided to do a poem. She told us about the Persian poet, Hafez and
that a book of his poems is used in Iran for divining. The poem she read was
inspired by him – “I stood at the gates … Roses scattered the morning breeze …
The sea kissed the boat / and waved at the palace … I was the bard / the blood
of the city … Centuries later they would say / that I … remained true to the
past // Open my book /and read your future.”
Norman
Perrin, who normally recites his own stories, decided on this occasion to read
two cover poems by his favourite poet whose full name I didn’t catch, but whose
first name I think was Kate. From the first – “gather up quickly all of your
heart’s old sorrows … Fashion out of all your memories … Years of absence …
Lest we should, fifty years in traveling find, its end was just a truth we left
behind.”
The
second poem was entitled “Eating Onions” – “Eating onions in the boardroom and
other such indiscretions … The birthrate would go down … Show me a man with a
taste for indiscretion.”
Before
introducing the next poet, Bänoo
urged us not to censor ourselves.
Cad
Gold Jr. read “Hugo and Margo” – “Hugo and Margo were both born in Fargo … He
sold his work while Margo poured coffee for strangers … He forced her to work
on the street … Hugo’s heart was hard / Poor Margo got her heart broken … Margo
wished it was all a bad dream …”
From
Cad’s second poem – “When greasers stood on street corners …Corned beef on rye
with a pickle on the side … Times have changed, but not I.”
Stephanie
shared “As If I’ve Never Read” – “Walcott looks at me … I am filled with
concrete … Hamilton’s moon … tosses me a poem … Try to destroy order … Let this
blade spit … He flicks the stained knife at my page … Remember nothing / Write
everything.”
Norman
Allen read “Whose Voice Is This?” – “It’s not me … Ashkenazi? It’s funny who
speaks … Moments where they lock … doors closing … Tires sing through the
slush, zooming down the 401 … A rabbit crossing the highway … history
splintered … catastrophe is stalking us …Now my wife is leading my children
away … The words to change the word …”
Chai
Kalevar read “ABCD of Climate Change” – “A is for Alberta, 2015 / B for
beautiful burnt out BC / C for Canada 150 / D is for the dummy … H is for
Hurricane Harvey / W is for do you wish or want a weather war by your window? /
Do you want Houston in Toronto? / No poem can save you from the forest fires
and flash floods.”
Khashayar
Mohammadi read “Maybe” – “Maybe I don’t like wars … Maybe I don’t like those who
criticize those who speak against wars … Maybe I love liberty so much … Maybe
senses are all we’ve got left … Maybe this is poetry … Maybe it doesn’t even
fucking matter … Maybe it won’t even make a difference …”
Laura
Deleon began her reading with, “Good evening everyone and welcome!” Then she
declared what an honour it was to be at Shab-e She’r.
Her
first poem was “In the Sphere of Love” – “Wipe the tears from my eyes / raise
me up from the clay and mire … Awaiting the relentless tide … a mermaid of the
mist …”
From “The Garden” – “If it were
that we met in the past … Ours would be the kingdom … We would partake of the
fruit … without fear or strife … Nothing would be beyond approach.”
The
last poet of the night was Sozan Jamil . She began with “The Blue Street” –
Behind your window there is a blue street … I wrote on it in cursive, Dante did
not live here … I forgot whenever the sun approached the horizon to form a
small hear with thumbs and fingers.”
From
her second poem – “Whenever the sun sets she does not rejoice … Holes in the
ceiling rise to the last point in the sky.”
Sozan
read her final short poem in Arabic.
Bänoo gave a few closing remarks,
one of which was to assure us that, “We want to hear everyone’s voice!”
I left
with Cad. We went over to look through a box of clothes that someone had left
on the sidewalk. One of the open stage poets, I think his name was Jeff, left
the church and approached us. “Great guitar playing!” he complimented me. I
argued realistically, “No it wasn’t!” “Yes it was!” he countered. He told us
that god had once told him to wear a cross, even though he’s Jewish and so he
went to a jeweller store and bought the cheapest cross he could find. He wore
it for eight years until it broke. After he left Cad asked me if I thought that
god had really talked to him. I answered that it didn’t help the credibility of
his perception to declare that I was a good guitar player. Cad pointed out
though that it was a good song, with a good melody. That I agreed with.
We
walked to Bathurst and then I rode home. After dinner and before bed I played
my song again just to show myself that I could do it without screwing it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment