On Tuesday evening it was still
hot as I rode to Shab-e She’r but I only really felt the heat whenever I was
waiting for a light. There was actually a pleasant breeze whenever I was in
motion. Because of that, in some ways it would have been nice to skip the
poetry reading and instead to ride my bicycle all night long.
I
went through a corridor of tiger striped construction cones between Dufferin
and Doverourt and then my thoughts eclipsed time and scenery until I was
already passing Sneaky Dee’s and then the fire station with clock tower, which
always tells me that the Church of St Stephen in the Fields is next. I saw Bänoo smoking and chatting in front of the church with a very
large man who was wearing shorts and a plaid fedora. I also saw that there were
no free bike posts on the south side of College, so I crossed north, found one,
locked my bike, left it with a bag of oats, re-spanned the street, waved to Bänoo, thought about going up to her and singing a few bars
of “Smoke Smoke Smoke That Cigarette” but didn’t, and then I went inside the
church.
Paul Edward Costa was sitting in my
usual seat and there was no chair on the corner of the front-left side of the
aisle, so I pulled one over.
The church was hot with a
cedar-perfumed stuffiness. A kilometre above the sanctuary and the stage was a
lazily turning ceiling fan. With the help of the lights that surrounded it, it
cast four spinning shadows on the curved vault from which it hung that were
blowing just as much air as their parent.
When Bänoo came back in
I asked her if she and Cy had moved yet. She answered that they’d moved to an
11th floor apartment at Queens Quay. I shook my head and tsked in
exaggerated disapproval. In retrospect, even in joking, my gesture was probably
a little rude. It’s a lot of work finding the right place, moving and settling
in. I’m sure that what they found was more right for them than it would be for
me. I can sort of see the appeal of living in a high-rise but I don’t think
that I could ever live in one. Other than having lived on the sixth floor of a
hotel in Vancouver for three months, I’ve never lived higher than the third
floor in a building. It’s not so much the height that would bother me but
rather the feeling of living in a hive.
Sydney White arrived and asked if
I’d heard from Tom Smarda, who hasn’t been to Shab-e She’r for the last three months.
I told her I hadn’t but that I doubted if he would still be up north. I think
that he only goes for a month out of every summer. She wondered if he had gone
down into the devastation of Texas to visit his brother. I questioned why
anyone would travel down there at all during hurricane season. She informed me
that she used to have a place in Florida for
twenty years and lived there from November till April every year. “I never saw
a single hurricane!” she declared and I nodded, thinking that to be a very
smart part of the year to spend in Florida, but then she raised her eyebrows
and tilted her head forward in that way she does before she is about to let
loose one of her conspiracies. “There’s a lot of engineering going on!” I got
the impression from this that she thinks that the weather has been engineered
to cause hurricanes since she lived in Florida. But the thing is, hurricane
season has always been known to last officially from June to the end of
November and there were a few named hurricanes in the 90s that formed in
November. I don’t know when exactly her 20 years in Florida occurred, but
engineering or not (and most probably not) she wouldn’t have ever seen a
hurricane from December to April.
At around
19:15, Bänoo went up to the mic to announce that
this was the 55th Shab-e She’r event since November of 2012. She
repeated that it has always been her goal to make Shab-e She’r would be a brave
space for people of all points of view and she said that despite this there has
never, as far as she knows been any fighting or bloodshed. As usual she first introduced Laboni Islam who would come to the
microphone to do the land acknowledgement. Bänoo stressed though that Laboni does not want to be photographed.
When
Bänoo returned to the stage she told us
that she limits the main features at Shab-e She’r to poets but that the open
stage is open to all types of writers.
The first open stage reader was
Susie Berg, who said that she was inspired by the church and the fact that it
was the Jewish New Year to read a particular poem – “In the beginning we create
the packing lists … We pack bathing suits … groceries … Eager for beach … When
it is light we need towels …We open the lift gate on the car and it is like the
mouth of a whale … We consider the week … and we call the week good.”
Her second poem was called “After
Kadish” – “Silent we stand … we who fear the empty hand … fling our woman
selves to the ground and wail … Hear our cries of sacrifice … lost love.”
Daniela, from Uruguay, read two
poems from her phone. The first was in Spanish. From the second – “Do not mess
with me … I’m a food of the goddesses … My territory is free / My territory is
me / I’m whole on my own.”
Paul Edward Costa read – “When I
first went there my feet carried me to the door of the mansion … I knocked and
Lucifer opened the door … Lucifer sat, slouched and played an opening move … My
sweat was like great drops of blood …”
From his second piece – “In the sun
blackout a woman down the hall hit all of the speed dial buttons … Huddle like
children on lunar outposts … singing in the vacuous eternity.”
Paul took a minute or so as usual to
do his little self-promo.
Susan began her poem, “Passing” with
wordless singing – “Wohohoho, mhmhmhmmm! In the passing … where did you go … How
selfish can you be … to confide in the passing … I long to smell your sweet
sweat … and I will not miss … and I will continue …” She ended the piece the
same way it began.
Weda Shareqi read a poem called
“Let’s Vote” about the first election in Afghanistan – “My tired life / my old
eyes … We will make a change / Choose the king … We will have it all … Then we
will fly kites …” I assumed from this last line that kite flying has some
special meaning in Afghanistan. I looked it up later and found that the flying
of kites is a national pastime and an important part of Afghan culture that was
suppressed under the Taliban.
Eden Nameri told us a story – “Way,
way back at the beginning of time … god had just made the sun and the moon …
but at that time they were the same size … The moon complained that it
shouldn’t be the same size as the sun and so god punished the moon by making it
smaller … The moon begged to be restored to its old size … God consoled it by
telling it that it would rule the tides … and shine when people are most afraid
… The moon sighed and wept stars.”
It was then time for feature number
one: Cole Forrest, an Ojibway of Nipissing First Nation who currently lives in
Toronto.
He began with “Indiginaity” – “It
pisses me off when people tell me that I don’t look Aboriginal … My dad was
never the chief … I’ve actually never been called Aboriginal … No one’s ever
come up to me and said, ‘Are you from Canada?’ … This summer a couple of
friends of mine and I took a cruise on Lake Nipissing … on the second Chief
Commanda boat (because the first has been turned into a bar) … I felt like I
was on Deadliest Catch … Drove through the Manitou Islands … There was once a
uranium mine … The tour guide said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Lake
Nipissing were once wizards, able to shoot fireballs across the lake’ … Where’s
my magic? Why would someone say that? Racism! Why would you call people that
lived downhill from you wizards? According to the people of North Bay, an
Indian can’t buy beer from the Beer Store … An Indian can’t go to university
because education is a White man’s game … The Serpent People’s story might shed
some light … A long time ago the people wanted to go out and hunt … set out for
the islands … set up their huts … (a menstruating girl) She got her hut … As
the night goes on … they’re fishing in this giant hole in the ice … pull out
this beautiful black sturgeon … They cooked that black sturgeon … juiciest,
most beautiful tasting fish … They took off their layers … because it felt good
… So the little Anishinaabe girl … fell asleep … The next morning she came out
of her hut … She saw the remnants of that feast … A slither mark going into the
huts … From the torso down her mother had turned into a serpent … She ran to
another group of Ojibway people … All they saw were slither marks going back
into the ice … That’s probably why they think Nipissing people are magicians.”
From “Brown Skin” – “I’m a
self-identified Aboriginal person under the Indian act … Whenever I ask for
help, I’m too young … I’m an Aboriginal person, and what does that mean
anymore? I’m sorry that I don’t skin wild animals … Call me uncultured … I
don’t smoke, I don’t drink and I don’t love … I’m an aboriginal person and I’m
proud of it … No man will ever tell me what I do isn’t manly … I’m in a
relationship with a girl … at a junction … under the Indian Act.”
Cole told us, “My family was hit
hard by the residential school system … All the women in my family wear their
hair short … I never understood what being Aboriginal meant … I started seeking
it out … As I’ve grown … I’ve found the culture … You see pow-wows more than
ever … Amazing to see the resurgence.”
From “Anishinaabe Youth” – “I swim
in a sea … I’m drowning again … I wake up from the sea but my hair is still wet
… They give me medicines from another time … My ancestors sit beside me … I’m
drowning again … The dream catcher that hangs around my chest … I’m living a
nightmare … I am not conquered … I am the bi-product of generational
deconstruction … Please do not be afraid of my beads but do not touch without
asking … Question my culture and you’ll get the long answers … Trying isn’t an
option … Warriors fight on … Lay down
your tobacco … I feel the tear slice through my eyelids … I am swimming in
brown skin.”
Cole commented about how hot it was
and recounted that he’d heard that we were in one of the longest droughts in
Toronto history. I don’t know what he means. Ontario’s drought was last year.
The rainfall was relatively normal here this summer overall.
Cole told us that he was going to
finish with four tiny poems:
“I saw that in a note you wrote
today … you are running away … You smudge too little … Our people need you …
You’re supposed to be the one to pat down the grass … just don’t go into town.
They’ll go looking for your braids …”
“Your brown skin so smooth … They’re
coming for me … I keep braiding and unbraiding my hair … I hope they don’t find
my braids …”
“The cold dew wets my moccasins …
The wind doesn’t whistle … Moonlight through the dead cedar trees … The lake is
beginning to ripple … Where is the whistling wind?”
Cole pointed out that he was holding
a tobacco tie and was wearing a tobacco pouch around his neck. He finished with
a poem about his grandmother – “There she sits … crows feet around her eyes …
She would paint murals … She would never paint over another stroke … ‘Those
cucumbers are growing pretty nicely / Go pick some for me, will you?’ … We all
fall sometimes … My feet were too big for my little body … She can put her back
and vocal cords to rest … I became an artist just like you were … You stitched
together a childhood for me … You were bigger than that small town …”
Cole finished by saying, “The most
important part of our culture is to share the stories of the people that we love.”
Cole Forrest has some important
things to say about his own struggles as a young man and the struggles of his
people. Much of his work consists more of stories than poems, which is
interesting considering Banoo’s earlier statement about picking only poets to
be features at Shab-e She’r. Most of the poems he offers have trouble rising
beyond slam clichés that tend to weigh down their power even in the moments
when they are flecked with light. His strongest poem was “Braids”, but to
repeat that success he needs more experience. He’s quite young, so there’s no
strong reason why his skill shouldn’t improve with time.
We had a fifteen-minute break. I
went to use the washroom and lined up for one of the two loos on the edge of
the gym where, as usual, Maggie Helwig, the church minister, was in a meeting
with some of her flock. She looked up and I got the impression we were
disturbing them. Someone from her group came over to point out that there were
two washroom doors. I had been sure when I’d gotten there that they were both
occupied and I told him so but then the person behind me went around me and
found it empty.
On the way back I stopped to chat
with Cy about his and Bänoo’s new home.
I had asked Bänoo if she liked it but she said she was
still getting used to it. Cy on the other hand answered that he likes it very
much and that the view is like a Monet painting at certain times of the day. I
asked if they’d had to be approved by a committee and he confirmed that had
been the case. It’s hard for me to imagine a committee ever approving me,
though I guess I was approved by the management of 1313 Queen Street West 19
years ago when Artscape first set up the co-op there. It was more of a lottery
process though that I’d won when they’d offered me a studio. What they offered
though was not as spacious or as cheap as the place I had already across the
street so I turned them down. Plus, I anticipated clashing with the community
and therefore the management over my lifestyle of playing my guitar and singing
at the top of my lungs every morning between 6:00 and 7:30. I asked Cy if they
could handle something like that at his new place and he said the walls seem to
be quite thick.
After the break, the open mic
performer that Bänoo selected to precede the second feature
was Dave Walker, who was the big guy with the plaid fedora that I’d seen
earlier chatting with Bänoo. Before he
came up to the stage she thanked him because he had come very early and helped
her set up.
Dave introduced himself in Ojibway.
From his poem – “I don’t hate her … I hate her trauma … I hate the molesting
she suffered in foster care … I hate her youth being taken by drugs on the
street … I hate the poison she started injecting into her veins … I don’t love
the poison spirit she is walking with.”
The second feature was Janet Mary
Rogers, who is Mohawk/Tuscarora from the Six Nations band.
Janet began by saying; “I’m confused
about 2017. I don’t get it …Canada is 150 years old … Who here knows Chief Dan
George?” I raised my hand and I guess several people behind me must have done
so as well. “I love it when there’s an older crowd!” She went on to talk about
George first becoming famous for his Oscar nominated role in Little Big Man
with Dustin Hoffman but that he was also a residential school survivor and a
poet who wrote a piece to mark Canada’s 100th anniversary in 1967.
Dan George’s piece was entitled
“Lament for Confederation” and she read it to us – “How long have I known you,
oh Canada … I have known you when your forests were mine … I have known you in
your streams and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun … But in
the long hundred years since the white man came I have seen my freedom
disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea … When I fought to
protect my land … I was called savage … My nation was ignored in your history
textbooks … I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, and when I drank
your firewater … I forgot … Oh Canada, how can I celebrate with you … I must
forget … Give me back the courage of the olden chiefs … Like the thunderbird of
old I shall rise again … I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s
success – his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my
race into the proudest segment of your society … I shall see our young braves
and chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled
by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land. So shall we shatter the
barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest …”
Janet said she disagrees with George
about his definition of success. The successes that Native people have
experienced have been in White pop cultural arenas. She said, “When the
colonial move into our arena and find success” then that would be a success for
her people.
Janet read her answer to Chief Dan
George’s poem – “Ah Canada! Standing defiantly behind a line that doesn’t quite
define or separate as it was wished and won by war, these spoils are yours …
Taking and overtaking the dismissing and denying and buried under layers the
ice is petrifying … Did you remember to ask permission? Ah, Canada! Don’t slip
me the tongue and call it a French kiss … Offering song to join in false
chorus, another choice to remain forgetful. Your soldiers stay true and the patriot
hearts continue to glow each November when veterans take the stage and we the
originals remember it differently … The strength of our identity was born
before you were formed … so listen close … There is no home if there is no
Native land … Ah, Canada! How many of me had to die so you could be you?”
Janet commented, “If I had a choice
between intelligence and wisdom I think I would choose wisdom. Wisdom just
comes from knowing.”
I think they both need one another.
Wisdom gives direction to intelligence but intelligence gives depth to wisdom.
From “Opposite Directions” – “Why
talk about territories / Why vote and go to war … What do you hear inside my
sound combinations … (she begins chanting) … Awakeness is not the same as
awareness … There is not enough land to grow all the food to feed all the
people … At least stop feeding people into the problem … Drums are sounding …
The red ones have been caretakers of this land since forever … Happiness is a
song sung on the land by those who know it.” She ended the piece by chanting
again.
Janet commented of the church that
she liked the space. Then she read a poem called “Touch”, for men that love men
– “He wanted to be touched … He just wanted the contact … more than anything …
Go, let go … Torture his loneliness … All consuming crouch, touch, stroke,
poke, evoke … See … he wants it … Touch, know him, show him … He ah wants it …
Be him, feel him … He ah wants it, touch, touch.”
Janet said, “What’s worse than this
hot weather? Having hot flashes in this hot weather!”
She announced that her final poem,
“Something for the Tongue” would be about chocolate but not about chocolate –
“Love chocolate / Love chocolate … Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate /
broken chocolate / raw chocolate / …
Searching reaching melting chocolate / Brown chocolate / dark chocolate /
Chunky funky love chocolate / kiss me, kiss me, kiss me chocolate / Hot
chocolate / Bought chocolate / Bunnies, chickens, ducks chocolate / Cheeks,
breasts, dicks chocolate / Rivers of chocolate / Streaming chocolate /
Everything chocolate chocolate chocolate /
Midnight chocolate / Secret chocolate … Love chocolate / Love chocolate
/ Love chocolate chocolate chocolate /
…Sun chocolate … Tummy chocolate / Lick chocolate / Suck chocolate / Bring me
chocolate chocolate chocolate / Gobs of chocolate / Stacks and stacks and
stacks of chocolate / Chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate / … Talk chocolate / Ancient from the past
chocolate / Coco chocolate / Caca chocolate / Willy silly Wonka chocolate /
Spicy chocolate / Homo chocolate / … Rock chocolate … Great big cock chocolate … Swiss chocolate, Spanish chocolate /
Cross the border at night chocolate / Get down chocolate … Love chocolate, eat
chocolate” These last two phrases were repeated like a chant several times to
end the poem.
There was a little girl of about
three years wandering around freely during Janet’s performance, but not more
than a few meters from her mother. During this last piece though, as she kept
hearing the repetitions of the word “chocolate”, she was drawn to stand
directly in front of the stage to listen and watch Janet with fascination.
Janet Mary Rogers has presence,
confidence, rhythm, talent and whether she likes it or not, intelligence. She
knows how to work, play and dance with words and phrases to weave a poem with
internal rhyme. She knows how to build a line up and to orchestrate where it
goes with either tension, humour or both. She’s got savvy, sass and sensuality
and she can swing the poetic bat or whip with wit but without letting the
listener off the hook. This was one of the best performances ever at Shab-e
She’r.
When Janet had left the stage, Bänoo urged people, “Please approach Janet and get her …”
Janet interrupted and called out “Phone number!”
Returning to the open stage, the
first reader was Charles C. Smith, who read “After the Rain” based on the John
Coltrane composition – “Light slashes a darkening sky … Clouds splinter into
prisms … Rainfall in swooping sheets … Dangling in front of windowsills … In
all this it was clear … Long cadence of something unusual …No one knew … such
outrageous … overt circumstances of disorder … Synchronicity … a persuasive
percussion.
Bänoo
mentioned that George Elliot Clarke, Canada’s current poet laureate has often
performed on the open stage. I noticed while researching this review that
George had placed Janet Mary Rogers’s poem, “Something for the Tongue” on the
Parliamentary website.
Jeff Cotrill read one of his
humourous pieces – “Hey, talk about your feelings!” “But what if you tell me
I’m whining?” “Talk about your feelings.” “Well, sometimes I feel insecure when
…” “Stop whining!”
“I baked these cookies for you! Have one!” “But what if you call me a mooch?” “I won’t!” “Here, I’ll pay you for it!” “I baked them for you!” “Okay, I’ll have one.” “You’re a mooch!”
“I baked these cookies for you! Have one!” “But what if you call me a mooch?” “I won’t!” “Here, I’ll pay you for it!” “I baked them for you!” “Okay, I’ll have one.” “You’re a mooch!”
“You need a break!” “But you’ll call
me lazy!” “No I won’t!” “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take five.” “You’re
lazy!”
“Tell me a joke!” “But you always
get offended!” “No I don’t!” “Did you hear about the world’s worst thesaurus?
Not only is it bad, it’s bad!”
Nelley Garcia understood enough
English to tell us that she didn’t understand anything that happened there that
night but that she understood the spirit. She read a poem in Spanish, which she
said was about the world and the universe.
Next it
was my turn. I got a laugh from the audience by mentioning that the shadows of
the ceiling fan were blowing just as much air as the fan itself. Then I read my
poem, “Anti Prayer” – “What if the world is just the result of unplanned
parenthood?
Would its sudden reversion back to energy matter to the deadbeat deity?
… Why aren’t we satisfied as microcosmonaut monkeys dead-locked in orbit around
death while unlocking the secret code of boredom?”
Sepideh Alavi read a
cover poem by an ancient Persian poet. She did this only in Persian but her
style was very expressive.
Norman Perrin recited a
story in which he incorporated his playing of the recorder at the beginning, at
points within and at the end – “My Uncle Norman had the farm next to ours …
Long ago he said, when I was six, my Aunt Matilda came to live in your house …
I loved hearing her play the flute … One night she packed the flute and I
followed her down to Black Bay … There were some that said it was bottomless in
places … When the full moon had risen she pulled out her flute and began to
play … The moon shone on the black water … out of which came the great head of
a sea serpent … then two, then three, until there were twelve sea serpents …
their long necks swaying in the moonlight … When she stopped playing those long
necks descended into the water … The next morning there was a note: ‘I’ve gone
to follow my friends’”
Chai told us that a
friend of his told him recently, “You are a great poet!” He asked him, “What
makes me a great poet?” “Because you wear a poem on your back all the time!”
Then Chai turned around to show us the back of his t-shirt (which he indeed
always wears) with one of his environmental poems printed on it.
He read the poem “ABC
of Climate Change) which he has shared at every Shab-e She’r for at least the
last three months – “A is for Alberta 2015 … B is for beautiful BC … C is for
Canada 150 /Are you ready to cut down Canada’s carbon footprint? Do it before
your dog catches fire! H is for Hurricane … W is for do you wish or want a
weather war by your window? No poem can save you from forest fires … You either
do it now or die later … the time we have left … is less than you think.”
Mind the Gap read – “I
want you to play the hand you were dealt like it was the left hand of god … We
are all bleeding together … Being in the red is not an option …”
Emilio read a poem in
Spanish and one in English that was too short for me to catch.
The next poet was
Ghazahel Zarrinzadeh, the mother of the little girl in the pink dress. Her
daughter had been impatient to leave but Bänoo told us that she had asked the child if she would give
her mother permission to read a poem before they left. She agreed. The poem was
called “Peace” – “The track I took many times to reach you … The peace is a
black frame in my memory.”
Shei
Al-Kheir read a poem in Arabic but he told us in English that the story behind
it reminds him of the song “Complainte pour Ste Catherine” by Philippe
Tatartcheff and Anna McGarrigle.
Sydney
White told us that she’d heard lately that people have been getting killed
while walking because drivers are texting. From her poem, “Transtextual” – “To
spend your life clicking while time is ticking … Not give a shit for the people
you hit … Pinch yourself hard and leave Transylbrainia”.
The final
performer was Terry Trowbridge, who said Bänoo
had asked him to get up and do something, though he didn’t have any poetry or
anything to read. He just began talking – “Talk about vocabulary! Ojibway is a
verb-centred language …” Suddenly he called out to Janet Mary Rogers, “I love
your earrings! Those are power earrings! I like the way you say ‘eh’, different
from the Canadian ‘eh’ … Vocab8lary in Toronto … Let’s develop a different
vocabulary in Toronto … On the TTC you can acknowledge that the other person
has eyeballs but you don’t have time to count how many … TTC language consists
of “sorry” and “thanks” … Someone stepped on my foot and said ‘Sorry’! I said
to someone nearby, ‘I don’t think he’s sorry’.” The person heard that and came
back to give a detailed and sincere apology. Tom thinks that people say the end
of the word instead of the beginning and then shrug. He dove through a door
that someone opened and it turned out to be the secret entrance to the Eglinton
subway station. He called to the woman that he’d followed and said, “Thank you
for showing me that door!” The person looked back, said “Sorry!” and then
hurried on. He told us, “It feels like
we are living in an analog record or an AM radio station … He suggested that
maybe we should work at Shab-e She’r to develop a mingle game to counteract the
deterioration of communication in Toronto. “A revolutionary act.”
First of
all, one of the TTC riders proved Tom wrong inside of his own narrative when he
came back to apologize. It also could have been Tom’s abrupt and intense manner
that freaked out the woman that thought she was alone on a stairway or in a
corridor. She could have meant, “Sorry, but I don’t have time to risk my life
talking to psychos in the dark!” Finally, his observation that people on the
TTC say “nkss” instead of “thanks” is something that I haven’t noticed in 36
years in Toronto. He admits that he’s a newcomer here so maybe his experience
is limited or his perception is just off.
Bänoo informed us that the next Shab-e She’r would be on
October 31. She didn’t mention that will be Halloween. I wonder if any poets
will be coming in costume.
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