by VINCENT TINGUELY

On Sunday, Sept. 17, the first Words and Music at the Casa of the season presents a couple of out-of-town touring artists, noted Fringe performer Keir Cutler and spoken word artist Hilary Peach, who also organizes the Gabriola Poetry Festival on her home island in B.C. Local legend Fortner Anderson will be launching a new CD single, recorded with actuelle musicians Fabrizio Gilardino and Bernard Falaise, on the topic of 16-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr’s incarceration at Gitmo. Series organizer Ian Ferrier is impressed with the state of spoken word these days. “I’m surprised at how popular it is all of a sudden—it seems like the houses are up, more people are showing up.”

September also sees tonight’s (Sept. 14) inaugural prose and poetry reading at the Yellow Door Coffeehouse with Ann Diamond, Julie Keith and others. On Saturday, Sept. 16 at Boa, Matrix editor and multidimensional scribe Robert Allen launches The Encantadas, a book-length poem sequence 25 years in the making. The show’s hosted by the ebullient David McGimpsey, with guest reader Jason Camlot.

And at the end of the month there’s Coco Café at Pub Quartier Latin. Jason “Steel” Joseph hosts the next show on Sunday, Sept. 24, and the hot button topic of the night is religion. And keep in mind there’s more words put to a groove with the Kalmunity Vibe Collective jam, every Tuesday night at Sablo Kafé.

Punk parenting

There’s more touring action later this month, when Baltimore-based China Martens rolls into town on the latest Perpetual Motion Roadshow tour, to promote her first book, The Future Generation: The Zine-book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others. It’s a compilation of the best of her punk parenting zine, which she started in 1990 when her daughter was two. She hits the stage at Café Toc Toc/Bibliograph/e Zine Library on Thursday, Sept. 21, along with Californian songsmith Troy Curtis and Chicagoan scribe Eric Lab Rat.

October sees the launch of Freedom, a poetry collection in support of Sükriye Akar Özordulu, Musa Asoglu and Kaya Saz, all Turkish prisoners of conscience. Edited by Endre Farkas, Elias Letelier and Carolyn Marie Souaid, the anthology includes work by Canada’s poet laureate Pauline Michel, and former laureate George Bowering. The reading on Oct. 14 at O’Hara’s Pub includes the three editors, as well as Michel, Geoff Cook, Katherine Beeman, Caesar Castillio and musical guest Swift Years.

On Oct. 25, Luna Allison kicks off her tour of the Northeast USA, promoting her Wired On Words mini-CD with a show at Casa Del Popolo, featuring herself, Erin May and Ian Ferrier. And in November, watch out for the much-anticipated launch of Ferrier’s latest CD, What Is This Place, featuring collaborations with musicians Gordon Krieger, Pharmacon, Bryan Highbloom, and the Diviners. He also worked with improv artists Jean Derome, Norman Guilbault and Pierre Tanguay. “I gave them a few bars that I thought would be interesting and boom—they were off in one take,” says Ferrier.

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