Straight talk

Two stars of spoken word talk about
the past year of poetry, slams and fest

CHALLENGING HER OWN CONVENTIONS: Moe Clark

by VINCENT TINGUELY

Even while novelist and spoken word performer Geneviève Letarte was focusing her energies on writing a book this year, she managed to hit the stage in Lyon, France, Trois Rivières and Montreal’s own Festival Voix d’Amériques, where she shared the stage with New York spoken word artist John Giorno last February. “When he was with the violin player Malcolm Goldstein, that show was really really amazing,” says Letarte. “I like the joy of his performances, he has this joy in life. He’s very energetic, and he’s like a dancer onstage.”

Letarte has a vivid memory of French poet/mathematician Patrick Dubost’s performance with experimental musician Vincent Dionne at last December’s Le Coeur des sciences at UQÀM. “He raised the bar very high,” says Letarte. “He’s a really fine poet, but he’s also found a very interesting and accessible way to perform his poetry.”

Dubost returned to enliven our poetry scene at numerous shows last fall; this year also saw Ivan E. Coyote, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Heather Haley and the Fugitives pencil Montreal into their busy touring schedules. “The Fugitives bring together folk music and spoken word—it’s a mix of nostalgia and joy,” Letarte says. “Also what I like is that it is a group—everyone has his own place in the band, you don’t feel that it’s one person and then the others.”

Spoken word artist Moe Clark’s brought a fresh perspective to the constant ferment of the Montreal performance arts scene since moving here from Calgary. “There’s such a great potential in Montreal to perform and to be exposed to these different forms,” says Clark.

“The audiences are more open, there’s just more artists doing things that are challenging my conventions of what spoken word is or was or should be. Meeting different artists from so many different backgrounds and vocabularies, I feel like I’m challenged to push what it is that I’m doing, and to really consider technique, technology, performance, even performance venues.”

Clark’s cut a swath through the spoken word scene in Montreal, performing at a range of venues, from last June’s Fringe Festival to Mile-End loft spaces like l’Enver. She’s checked out the ongoing Kalmunity Vibe Collective’s weekly jam; sat in on Deborah Margo and Devora Neumark public performance of Why should we cry: lamentations in a winter garden; and she was featured as guest solo artist in Kathy Kennedy’s Fréquence Nord with the Choeur Maha.

As a Metis, she’s recently been finding means to explore her Native roots here in Montreal. There was this November’s Tusarnituq Festival, organized by Ian Ferrier and Taqralik Partridge, which also featured Kateri Akiwenzie- Damm and Elisapie Isaac.

“I think Taqralik Partridge is an incredible performer,” says Clark. “I’ve been really inspired by her work. I actually first saw her perform with Guido del Fabbro and DJ Mad Eskimo for CBC Radio 1 at the McCord Museum in the summer.” Mad Eskimo then invited Clark to perform with him and Émilie Monnet for Paroles et pratiques artistiques autochtones au Québec aujourd’hui, at Café Chaos. “It’s starting to pick up now, there’s starting to be more venues and more avenues for exploring and participating with aboriginal artists,” says Clark. “I’m finding that the diversity of the culture here is really confronting me in beautiful ways.”