by VINCENT TINGUELY

The past 12 months on the spoken scene saw the inauguration of a bilingual spoken word festival, Voices of the Americas, and a flurry of books and CDs, not to mention live performances that have bedazzled audiences from here to New York City. “This year’s been a remarkable consolidation of everything that comes out of this scene,” says Wired on Words producer Ian Ferrier.

In terms of product, Wired on Words was responsible for four new spoken word CDs this fall: Sea Peach by Catherine Kidd and Jack Beetz; the media-savvy Swifty Lazarus disc The Envelope, Please; Spoken Broken, a best-of compendium of Canadian spoken word (free for subscribers to the zine-guide Broken Pencil); and a soon-to-be-launched disc by Mia Rose Brooks. “It was a pretty hectic fall,” Ferrier admits. The autumn also saw the publication of Corey Frost’s My Own Devices; Paris-based, Montreal-born Todd Swift’s second book of poetry, Café Alibi; and In Abulia, the genre-defying Alexis O’Hara’s self-produced CD, which was released by pop-rock label Grenadine.

O’Hara worries that the live spoken word scene’s getting staid. “There’s nothing really edgy happening lately,” she explains. “I’ve never been comfortable being lumped in with poets and writers - I’m really an improv artist.” O’Hara finds more adventurous work taking place in multidisciplinary spectacles like Kiss My Cabaret and the Meow Mix cabaret. Poetry performer (and zinester) Paula Belina sees another lack. “I’d like to see a serious open mic that really respects and encourages people to improve on their poetry and performance,” says Belina. “The kind of show that you hate half and like half - but you have no idea what comes next!”

Mahalia Verna, co-organizer and host of the longstanding series Coco Café, credits their new venue for bringing in new blood. “Quartier Latin felt like a natural fit for the event. That enabled us to put newcomers at ease on the Coco Café stage.” She points to a new crop of performers joining regular luminaries like Buttaphly, the Quadriceptor and Robin Akimbo. “Mark Harris is a multidisciplinary artist - photographer, singer, poet. Through sarcasm and dark comedic intonations, he seeks to expose true dilemmas and issues. Mulumba - what he says is serious, but he’ll take a theme and shake the audience up with his outrageous spectacle.”

Of the year’s biggest live event, Frost comments, “It was inspiring, at the Voix d’Ameriques festival, to see all Montreal’s mature performance scenes coalescing.” Ferrier, a co-organizer of the bilingual festival, adds, “We saw stuff from theatre, from First Nations performers, stuff based on prose, poetry, storytelling and on performance art.” According to co-organizer Victoria Stanton, “I was at 80 or 90 per cent of the events, and there’s obviously still an interest in this kind of performance work. If the scene was dead you wouldn’t have had a paying, full house every night!”

Another live milestone was Kidd and Beetz’s performance of Sea Peach in November. “During the run of the show I was going to bed happy and waking up happy,” says Kidd. “It really restored my faith that this is what I love to do, and I should keep doing it.” Stanton observes, “I’m really amazed to see how much Kidd’s pushed this form. Her work’s evolved, and the form has evolved through the work that she’s doing.”

A good number of Montreal word performers appeared in New York at the launch of the international compendium of fusion poetry, Short Fuse. According to co-editor Swift, “You had 50 poets from around the world get up and perform at the New School - on the same stage were Nicole Blackman, Regie Cabico, Corey Frost, Wednesday Kennedy, Charles Bernstein, Adeena Karasick, Bob Holman, Willie Perdomo - the list goes on and on.” He continues, “The Montreal scene needs to build more bridges to communities outside of Canada, especially in New York, L.A., London and abroad.” The currently N.Y.-based Frost points out, “A lot of people commented on the strength of the performers from Montreal, and I know from contacts I’ve made in the U.S. poetry scene that people are aware of something unique going on in our city.” •