Events Re:Viewed

Words and Music at the Casa, Casa Del Popolo
December 17, 2000

It was a dark and stormy night ... in fact it was a howling, sleeting blizzard outside when friends and fans gathered in the cosy confines of the Casa to witness the rare presence of Todd Swift in Montreal. Since 1998 he's been living the life of the ex-pat in Budapest, Hungary, all the while managing to keep a finger in the spoken word scene with books - he co-edited Poetry Nation, launched by Vehicule Press in 1998, and released his first book of poems, Budavox, with DC Press in 1999.

Todd Swift

After an introduction, regular host Ian Ferrier handed the MC task over to the ever-modest Swift, who took to the job with his usual gusto. After watching him for a while, a friend commented on how incredibly quick on his feet he is - a performer would barely concluded before Swift would pull lines out of the poems just read and spin speculative, ironic raps from them.

First up was Andrew Sweeney. Better known in the Montreal scene as a musician, he launched into a long poem, a rolling rant that drew heavily on the trademark long breath-lines of Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman. While the focus seemed to be on a doomed relationship, the poem veered all over the map on its way to its conclusion.

Jeffrey Mackie

Jeffrey Mackie is a poet who's become a familiar face since he moved to Montreal a few years ago - although I had a little trouble recognizing him because he'd shaved off his BC Interior Beard and cropped his hair since I'd last seen him. His poetry seems to have evolved somewhat as well, delving with insightful humour into the minutia of life in the Montreal urban and suburban scene.

Mary Elizabeth Grace

Mary Elizabeth Grace is a seasoned performing poet who moved from Toronto to Montreal last year. She seemed a little uncertain of herself, although there was no doubt that the audience appreciated her well-crafted pieces. Sometimes incantatory - accompanying herself with a Celtic hand-drum - sometimes reflective and intimate, her poetry has a musical quality that lends itself well to the live setting.

Swift himself read selections from his new poetry manuscript, tentatively titled Transworld. He juxtaposes the relative 'newness' of the New World's suburbia of his youth with the thick strata of history that suffuses Old World Europe, and specifically Hungary. I got the sense the change of locale has been a rewarding one for him, affording him a broader canvas on which to trace his thoughts.

Lisa Joy Sheppard

The evening closed with the sparse accoustic folk tunes of Lisa Joy Sheppard, while various members of Montreal's literati and spoken word scene mingled and swapped yarns.