On Sunday I looked on the Plastiscene Reading Series Facebook page just to be sure that the event was going to be taking place that night and at the same place as last month. For the past few years I’ve received notices on a monthly basis, but lately I haven’t. It turns out that it was a good thing that I checked, because it turned out that the Blackbird Bistro has closed and that Plastiscene had scrambled and gotten The Belljar at Dundas and Howard Park at the last minute.
Plastiscene is getting closer and closer to where I live every month. This time it took me eight minutes to get there on my bike, compared to sixteen minutes to the Blackbird. I assume that next month they will move even closer to me and will be across the street from my place at the Capital Espresso.
The Belljar is small, compared even to the Blackbird, and would not be able to handle the fourty-something turnout that Plastiscene has had occasionally in the past. There are booths in the back, but at the front are six old, round tables with metal pedestal bases that are common in a lot of taverns. The chairs are also old but solid, with plywood seats and backs on metal frames. There is a counter across the window, which is faced by three newer looking chairs with wood seats and backs and metal frames, slightly higher than the ones at the tables. At either end of the window counter sit two angled upward speakers, the kind that usually serve as monitors for performing musicians. Directly across the street is Daniel Lanois’s Sonic Temple recording studio. Also viewable from the window is the frequently changed message sign of the Master Mechanic garage that sits on the sharp corner made by the meeting of Howard Park and Dundas. This time the sign reads: “To have a dog is to know what it’s like to be unconditionally loved.” This area is considered to be part of the Roncesvalles Village community.
The first familiar face to arrive was Buffalo spoken word artist, Josh Smith, who was there because he was one of the invited feature performers of the night. We talked about our academic careers. He’s going to Harvard, and has 20 credits under his belt so far. This year he’s taking math and creative writing. What a combination. He told me that he’s relieved that there are no essays this time, because they are not his forte. For me, my essays are sometimes the only things that save my academic ass at U of T.
Paul Valliere arrived next, to my surprise, because I had thought that he would still be on vacation in the Maritimes. He apparently took and returned from his holiday early but had a wonderful time in New Brunswick, Cape Breton and P.E.I.
When our host, Nicki Ward came, she got us all to rearrange the furniture. Four of the round tables were moved to the back and all the chairs were set up facing the window, where the performance area was going to be.
Once we were sitting again, Paul and I argued politely about GMOs. He thinks they are evil and that any scientists who say they are good are liars. Genetically modifying plants is something that has been done by human beings for 14,000. The modern laboratory method can cross species boundaries and I guess that’s what scares people. There is a tremendous amount of potential to feed an over populated earth and to cure diseases with the use of GMOs, but there is also danger of upsetting ecological balances at the same time. I would say they should proceed with caution, while Paul would say that living a natural life will cure diseases and save the planet. I don’t know what his solution to the problem of feeding billions of human beings is though.
Somehow the conversation moved from corrupt scientists to pedophile priests. I suggested that if most pedophiles turned out to be accountants we would never hear about it. I also think that there’s a fair amount of homophobia involved in the association of Catholic priests with pedophilia. If women were admitted to the priesthood and also were involved in the sexual touching of children, I doubt if many people would come forward to complain.
I shared with Paul the John Lennon quote from his song “God”: “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” I suggested that he got that idea from Yoko.
I asked Paul if he had any lobster while he was down east. He said he only had it sometimes in salads, but a tour guide explained how to remove lobster’s shell in two moves. Then he proceeded to tell a long story about the tour that finally came back, with my coaxing, to the lobster shell removal. She didn’t even demonstrate on an actual lobster. She just said there’s one spot where you punch it and everything else will just peel off.
Paul said that when he was in Fredericton he stayed in a UNB residence for $28.00 a night. He told me that’s a really good deal, compared to the price of hostels. I must be old. I remember when hotels were $28.00 a night and hostels were two dollars, and sometimes nothing.
I told him that when my sister was a student at UNB she worked as a carhop on roller skates for A & W. I was in my early teens when we used to come from the farm to visit her. Eating at an A & W was exotic enough for me, but to actually be able to sit in a car and eat a Teen burger with root beer was for me like dining at the Taj Mahal.
It was almost 19:00 by the time things got rolling. Nicki Ward paid tribute to the organizer of Plastiscene, Susie Berg, starting by calling her an impresario and then invited us to add to this. I called out “Potato farmer!” David Clink said, “Don’t forget the leeks!” This diverted Nicki to talking about how she loves the leek but they are impossible to get clean. Then she added that they are much like the Welsh in that way. As she spoke, the Dundas streetcars were rolling loudly by and she commented about being upstaged by the TTC.
She told us that a hat would be passed later on to make up for the fact that they are only currently receiving a grant from the Ontario Arts Council. I think that Susie added that they wouldn’t be hearing until December whether or not they will be getting anything from the Toronto Arts Council.
Nicki introduced us to Jessica at the bar, and said she accepts limericks, tanka and tips in exchange for food that one can either eat or wear.
Nicki asked if we were in the same time zone at Howard Park and Dundas as we were closer to downtown.
To kick off the open stage, Nicki asked me to start. I had brought my guitar with me and sang my translation of Heloise Lettisier’s “St Claude” – “A fine attitude, that impatience, like certitude, is three strands of beads. You will be, I wish, faithful to the violence that arrives when we breathe. This city offers nothing but a breath of audacious scents, I know this town is dying but you will not give in. You would see the barriers blown while they lock themselves in. I descend two hells below as a storm is moving in …” I think that I sang and played it fairly well, but it was hard to gauge the audience’s reaction. David Clink was moving to the rhythm, so I’ll take that.
There was a question as to whether or not we should close the door to diminish the noise from outside, but the general agreement was that cooler is better than quieter, so it stayed open for a while. The second open stage performer was Irena Niolova, who read a poem that she said was inspired by Molly Peacock, entitled “The Poetry of Math is that …” – “ … mummified in a coffin full of numbers … falling rain washes through soil … buries symmetry of beauty …” She read a second piece called “Parallel Universe” – “ … reading books, living in a parallel universe … post 9-11 … in a world encumbered by threats of destruction our … umbilical chords severed from the working of nature …”
Next, Nicki called for Karen Shenfeld to read one of the poems from the hat. She pointed out that it was a coincidence that Nicky had mentioned the Welsh earlier and that it was an additional coincidence that she’d been selected to read a poem by Dylan Thomas, because in three weeks she will be travelling to Wales. The poem was “Twenty Four Years” – “Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.) In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor, sewing a shroud for a journey by the light of the meat-eating sun. Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun, with my red veins full of money, in the final direction of the elementary town I advance as long as forever is.” Nicki commented that Thomas is so concise in his search for the perfect word.
Returning to the open stage, Nicki called for Susie Berg to come out from behind the scenes and read some of her poetry. Susie read from her phone, telling us that her browser crashed that day, not unexpectedly, given how the day went, with the last minute scramble for a venue. She said that she was going to read from her book, of which, now that it’s published, she hates all the poems. She shared “Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands Abdicates Her Thrown” – “ … Do you know what her friends have been doing all these years? The widowed ones take younger lovers … She has missed so many jokes … Her grandchildren grew up while she posed with shovels and bare earth … It’s been a staring contest with that Liz. For goodness sake, old woman. Something has to give … How she longs not to wear a hat.” Susie told us that her second poem came from a blog prompt on the theme of “Be” – “We are ten years old … screen doors echo in our wake …”
Next, came Paul Valliere, who read an excerpt from the road journal of his trip to the Maritimes – “It rained a lot, so I read … August the fifth, the day I began my adventure … David Weale on P.E.I., Chasing the Shore … After Paul was Susie’s son Jacob, who read a poem from his phone entitled “Crusades of the Vegetable Crisper” – “I left a love song in the vegetable crisper … It smells a little off now … The smell is a metaphor …” He told us of his second offering that he wrote it on a train – “I see myself in the jagged edges of the cliff …”
Then came another poem from the hat, read quite well by Russell. It was David Ury’s “Poetry Won’t Get You Laid Anymore” – “ …. They announced it yesterday, it was in all the papers, at once, thousands of men all over the country put down their pencils and went outside, because poetry won’t get you laid anymore, it was the last chance at procreation for the shy, the ugly and the manic, but it’s gone now, everyone’s stopped writing because poetry won’t get you laid anymore, it won’t, so why even bother finishing th …” At this point Russell mock angrily crumpled up the page and threw it on the floor.
David Ury is also an actor, and any faithful follower of Breaking Bad would remember his character, “Spooge”, the drug addict who stole an ATM machine, took it home to his squat and while trying to open it, was killed when his wife tipped it over on him, crushing his head.
Nicki talked about using Twitter to find the heart of a poem. I thought that was interesting because I do the same thing. She shared a poem called “My Emotional Toolkit” that she had worked out with tweets – “When I was young … Gave tongue to simple questions and listened hard to answers … I learned almost nothing in that season ‘cept how to sulk … and though I am a child of fools I merited the harvest of my un-society. Of all the living tools that I inherited the only social ones with which I regularly played were a pair of tweezers and a hand grenade.”
Nicki also made a curious statement about haiku. She said that the word “haiku” simply means “short poem”. I doubt if most Japanese people would accept the etymological meaning of haiku as being sufficient to define what it meant to Basho or even what it means to most writers dedicated to the haiku genre. To accept any short poem as haiku would cheapen the genre beyond repair.
Nicki then introduced the first feature of the night, Josh Smith. One bit of information in his bio was that he was rejected twenty times by The Buffalo News before they finally published something he’d sent to them. Josh knows most of his work by memory, and he began reciting something without a title that referred to living in “a cocoon of promises and walking dead reruns.” Josh told us that though he is from Buffalo, he considers Toronto to be his second home. There was someone looking curiously through the window as he went by and Josh coaxed him in with gestures. Josh then orated one of his more interesting pieces that I’ve heard him do once or twice before, about the social problems that come along with being half Black and half White – “ … Do you think that you’re Black? … Take half your identity and murder it … Always picked last for basketball, and hockey … Look out of place in a mosh pit … I wish I was Black, I wish I was White …”
He told us that his next piece was inspired by a workshop in which the prompt was a painting by Berkshield.
Josh’s voice was very much like that of a D.J. as he told us about the merchandize that he has for sale, including a “Josh Smith Poetry” t-shirt. I’ve seen Josh perform in Toronto a number of times over the past five years and even over that time it’s interesting what an over the top stage presence he’s developed.
From his next piece – “The ocean didn’t ask my autograph but I wrote my name in the sand and it came and took it anyway … Do you read me in the raindrops?” Someone walked in as he was saying this and he called out to him, “I want to be inside you, buddy!”
Josh next read a cover poem by his friend and fellow Buffalo writer, Florine Melnyk, entitled “Dusk In Costa Rica” – “We beat out the lost rhythm of our days …”
Josh then told us about another of his projects, this one in which he has been rewriting the comedy of Monique Marvez as poetry. The poem he shared was “Women Are Hornier Than Men” – “It’s not dainty, it’s not feminine, but we are … women are cryptic about their sexuality …” It doesn’t really come across so much as a poeticization of Marvez’s words. That’s pretty much exactly the way she talks. The claim though that women have a stronger libido than men is just not backed up by most of the many studies that have been done on this comparison.
Josh said that his next piece, entitled “Rock Bottom”, got its inspiration from a novel by Collette Cossini – “ … Your beauty was a weapon aimed at your own head … superpower … ugliness … consumed by the chlorophyll of rage … when you act ugly, you win ugly … bile diabolical … “ At the end of each line, Josh adds a subtle “ah” sound, expressed as half grunt and half sigh.
When he was finished, Nicki told him that he has a future as an MC, if she ever vacates the job.
Josh Smith is a better writer than he is a poet and he’s a better performer than he is a writer. He does sometimes achieve poetry, such as in “The ocean didn’t ask my autograph”, but often his work consists of well written statements with clever phrases, sort of like a modern day Will Rogers. His greatest power is in his performance but there he could stand to relax a bit. He comes across like a general making a speech to the troops before a battle when that kind of command is not really necessary among friends and peers. Literary audiences are rarely so out of hand that one needs to impose crowd control techniques on them.
Nicki declared a fifteen-minute break. I wandered outside and noticed that above the door was hanging an empty brown paper bag and wondered what comic voodoo was behind that. I pointed it out to Nicki and Russell and it turned out that Russell knew exactly what it was for. It fools the instincts of wasps that there is already a nest there and so buzz off. Nicki and I were both surprised by that one. “Get outta town!” she exclaimed.
Russell playfully told Nicki to “Lay off the Welsh!” because it turns out that that’s his background. I mentioned how the Welsh get teased on Doctor Who, in particular, the city of Cardiff. He reminded me that Torchwood had also been set in Cardiff, with six of the main actors being Welsh.
After the break, the featured reader was Steven Mayoff, who read from his novel, “Our Lady of Steerage”. He began with a quote from Milan Kundera: "The present moment is unlike the memory of it. Remembering is not the negative of forgetting. Remembering is a form of forgetting."
From the novel – “Montreal, 1962 … She’s aware of empty spaces in her mind … She can remember the coolness of the jelly … electrodes were taped to her head … a fire erupted in her head … feeling her body echoing into emptiness … I seem to have trouble remembering some things … I had to have this procedure … Dora pierces the egg with the spoon … the taste spreads like liquid sunlight over her tongue … She thinks of the fourth station of the cross …”
From what little Steven Mayoff had time to share of his novel; one could hear that he has the ability to design a multi-layered story that intriguingly juxtaposes issues of mental illness with religion, immigration and childhood trauma. If the rest of “Our Lady of Steerage” is as engaging as the section he read, it’s a very good novel indeed.
The final featured writer of the night was, Amani, whose self-written bio described her as “the contemporary blues poet”. She started with a piece entitled; “Why I Write” – “I write because it is my cure … I write to save myself from having to see a therapist … “
Amani set up her second piece by telling us that she is not a slam poet but she has performed at slams. She said that the first performer at a slam is the sacrificial lamb. The piece was called, “I Don’t Give a Slam” – “ … I do like to watch a poetry slam …”
Amani told us that she’s come up with a new term to describe herself: “quirkylicious”. She said that her next poem was entitled “Fourty-five” because she wrote it when she was fourty-five. The audience gasped in disbelief that Amani is older than fourty-five. She said, “They say black don’t crack!” She told us that she makes TTC drivers lower the ramp so she can get on the vehicles and they seem incredulous. She tells them, “Young face, old knees!” From the poem – “ … I have boyfriend named gym …” The rest of the piece sounded like a long personal ad.
Amani’s final poem was called “Ice Cream” – “ … you say to yourself, ‘I could really use the lick of an ice cream cone’. Don’t talk to me of vanilla …”
In some moments during her set, Amani sang, and she does have a beautiful singing voice. As for her poetry, while every now and then a clever phrase or word pops up, she’s not really a great writer of poetry or any other genre of literature. She writes for therapy and to reach out, but not for the art of writing.
In closing, Nicki chose to revisit the Dylan Thomas poem, “Twenty-four Years”. She read it quite effectively in a more Beat style.
I told Steven Mayoff the story of how in the late 80s, while moving some furniture out of the old Lakeshore Mental Hospital, I found a manual entitled, “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”. I took the manual, turned all of the instructions inside of it into a poem and finally into a song. Steven’s story was particularly poignant for me because I have known a few victims of electro convulsive therapy. One man I shared an apartment with in Montreal had had the first twenty years of his life wiped from his mind.
I stood outside on the sidewalk for several minutes chatting with Paul Valliere about the late German singer Nico Krista, who was one of Andy Warhol’s muses.
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