Vocal talent

Venue changes, new reading series, Leonard
Cohen celebrated and more in store

MASTERFUL MC: Ian Ferrier

by VINCENT TINGUELY

Three of Montreal’s favourite spoken word series have moved house! After three shows at Cagibi, Words and Music at the Casa is back at the newly re-licensed Casa del Popolo (4873 St-Laurent). The Sept. 20 show features poet Gillian Sze, while Oct. 25 celebrates Show Number 100 across the street at Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent), with Edmonton spoken word scholar T.L. Cowan. “I’ve noticed I’ve lost track of all the people who’ve performed there over the years, because that’s probably 500 performers,” says Words and Music host Ian Ferrier. The Throw Collective’s irrepressible Poetry Slam heads downtown to O’Hara’s Pub (1197 University) for its first show on Oct. 5; and Kalmunity Vibe Collective will shake it down to the ground on Oct. 6 at Le Consulat (1442 Bleury, 2nd floor) with Toronto dub poet sensation d’bi young anitafrika.

Elizabeth Robert’s Noches de Poesia stays put at the Depanneur Café (205 Bernard W.); Oct. 14 brings Calgary’s Sheri-D Wilson and much more. September 28 Alessandra Naccarato and James Finnerty speak at Clamorous Sundays, a new series at the Green Room (5386 St-Laurent).

The Foundation for Public Poetry has published Leonard Cohen:You’re Our Man, an anthology of 75 poets from Montreal, Canada and the rest of the world, including Margaret Atwood and 2008 Governor General’s poetry award winner Jacob Scheier. With the goal of establishing a poet-in-residence at Westmount High School, the foundation celebrates Cohen’s 75th birthday at the Atwater Library Auditorium (1200 Atwater) on Sept. 21. The gala includes readings by local and international contributors, and a silent auction featuring Atwood’s signed poem “Setting Leonard to Music” and Cohen’s limited-edition print “Back in Montreal.”

NATIVE SPEAKERS

Aboriginal artists are highly visible this fall. Kalmunity’s Oct. 20 show features Red Slam. “They do everything from song to poetry with live instrumentation, traditional native instruments and contemporary instruments,” explains Kalmunity member Katalyst. On Nov. 5 and 6, the Tusarniq Festival, hosted by Inuit poet and performer Taqralik Partridge and Montreal poet Ian Ferrier, features work by Inuit and First Nations poets, performers and filmmakers at the Sala Rossa and the Casa del Popolo. West Coast songspeaker Kinnie Starr, Partridge with musicians Guido del Fabbro, Geronimo Inutiq, and Metis performer Moe Clark are slated to take the stage. You can also catch Clark at the Yellow Door (3625 Aylmer) on Sept. 24.

The Sept. 21 Joyland soirée in the Green Room celebrates “the United Nations of short fiction,” a literary Web site (joyland.ca) drawing on the talent of six North American cities, not to mention London. The reading features Montreal contributors Jon Paul Fiorentino, Sina Queyras and Arjun Basu, Joyland founders Emily Schultz and Brian Joseph Davis, and host David McGimpsey (also Joyland’s Montreal editor).

ReLit shortlister Daniel Allen Cox, Christopher DiRaddo, Nathan Burgoine and Mark Ambrose Harris will be steaming up Casa del Popolo on Sept. 28 when they launch I Like It Like That: True Stories of Gay Male Desire.

For more online delectation, check out the second issue of Poetry Quebec (poetry-quebec.com), dedicated to the memory of Sonja Skarstedt.