Last month marked the launch of "Short Fuse",an international anthology of 175 poets from Rattapallax Press in NY.
The launch took place in three cities in North America and Canadian poets and performers were among the stars in all three, with performances in NYC, Toronto and Montreal. NYC was the highlight, as the launch began with a huge poetry event at the New School auditorium on West 12th. The next night it was the brand new Bowery Poetry Club, where owner Bob Holman has created centre stage for literature in performance in North America. I first saw the club on the front page of the Style section of the New York Times, and it was making headlines again the next day as Amiri Baraka showed up for a press conference. Baraka, who is the poet laureate of New Jersey (yes New Jersey has a poet laureate!), has been fighting charges that one of his poems, "Somebody Blew Up America," is anti-Semitic and pro terrorist. You can read the poem (with a short intro that did not appear until lately) at http://www.amiribaraka.com/blew.html
The best show of the week came at the Galapagos Art Space, just across the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn. The entrance to this space is a metal gangway spanning a 10x20 sheet of water on the floor at the front of the building. Behind the moat is a bar and a performance space where the poetry show took
place.
The Canadian contingent featured three words & music pieces, ne each by Ian Ferrier, Corey Frost and Catherine Kidd, who was launching her new CD/book, "Sea Peach" (Conundrum/Wired on Words 2002), as well as excellent work by Victoria Stanton and Vincent Tinguely. There were also fine performances by Silvana Straw out of Washington, Andrea Thompson, and Heather Hermant, who currently lives in Budapest. Rumour has it that a certain national radio station will be carrying excerpts of the show, so watch this space for a date & time.
The event took a day off and then reconvened at the Sala Rossa in Montreal, where the Words & Music show launched a new CD from Swifty Lazarus and hosted 18 (yikes!) poets from the Short Fuse anthology. Mind you I've recently discovered that the League of Canadian Poets boasts of over 570 members, meaning that Canadian poets will soon outnumber the rest of the population. Ouch. Didn't know there was that much talent out there...
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