The Small Machine Talks Episode 19
with a.m. kozak and Amanda Earl
Recorded on Sunday, July 30, 2017
- Recent Events
Aaron and Amanda both missed Tree’s Hot Ottawa Voices, but Amanda went to
Sawdust and enjoyed the sweetness of the series. Aaron missed out on the Gama Grand Opening in Montreal. It’s a collaborative arts space and will host bimonthly multigenre/media events: https://godberd.com/
Aaron went to ArtFest in Kingston where he performed some of his own poetry.
http://www.artfestontario.com/poets-artfest-ii/
The poetry event was curated by Bruce Kauffman, who also runs Finding a Voice, a radio show where he talks to various poets.
https://findingavoiceoncfrcfm.wordpress.com/
The anthology Canada’s 150th was launched.
Bruce also opens a monthly open mic.
Aaron went to the first Urban Legends Pop Up Poetry event and enjoyed spoken word and jazz performance plus another spoken word poet who was quite funny and shall remain nameless.
Bluesfest made Aaron feel old.
Aaron discovered nudity at the Canada Dance Festival at the Compagnie Marie Chouinard’s performance of Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights. A & a.m. talk about the importance of the movement of the body in performance, but they dwell for a long time on the nudity. We touch on Naked Boys Reading, which had a reading in Ottawa in July. It’s an international series curated by Allan Hollinghurst.
Amanda talks about stiff poets awkwardly at the mic and nervously trembling papers.
Aaron attended the launch of Arc’s latest issue at the Manx Pub. We congratulated Kayla Czaga on winning the poem of the year.
Aaron regretted not being able to attend the season finale of words (on) stages in Toronto.
Aaron went to hip hop karaoke where the words aren’t posted, so you have to memorize. Awesomesauce.
Aaron also enjoyed La Machine, city wide performance. Amanda waxes curmudgeonly about it. Aaron talked about how the architecture becomes part of the performance.
Finally, Aaron attended the ChinaTown Night Market and didn’t like the smell of the fish from Smelly Tofu.
Ottawa is thriving!
- Recent Podcasts and Interview Series
The Slackline Creative Arts Series has started a podcast, Slackcast hosted by former In/Wordian Drew Douglas. and featured Kathryn Stagg. Episode 1 features AJ Stainsby, an emerging poet. Happy anniversary, Slackline
https://soundcloud.com/slackline_series
Mallory Tater has started a new interview series called Glamato: Stiff Drinks and Strong Women and it is delightful.
https://glamato.wordpress.com/
Amanda mentions Can’t Lit, a podcast that has been going on since 2014.
- News
Bywords.ca received a City of Ottawa grant for 2017.
Arc has new editors
Doyali Islam becomes Arc’s Poetry editor replacing Rhonda Douglas
Rusty Priske becomes spoken word editor, a new position
Jennifer Baker becomes reviews editor
Rahila’s Ghost, a new press in Vancouver will release first chapbooks in the autumn, which will be launched at that time. Dina Del Bucchia will have an advice booth. There will be gourmet popcorn.
- Current Reads
Aaron read Arlene Pare’s He Leaves His Face in the Funeral Car. Which leads to a reminder that Aaron owns two rabbits. He’s also been reading latest online issues of magazines, such as Bad Nudes and Arc. We discuss the idea of reading in the same genre while working in that genre.
Amanda read Lessons on Expulsion by Erika L. Sánchez– vivid, macabre, sexy, disquieting; Amanda recommends the Poetry Foundation’s poem-of-the-day email list
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/series/74634/poemoftheday
Amanda mentions how much she loves strong imagery. We discuss Ben Ladouceur’s imagery in his recent featured reading at Sawdust.
Aaron talks about his poetry reading practice which is to read individual poems rather than full collections. We talk about whether the way we read changes our writing. Amanda has resolved this year to read through whole books of poems. It’s ok to dabble when reading, Amanda says.
- We discuss upcoming events and upcoming calls and contests.
Listen to the podcast for all upcoming activity mentioned.
- Just Jamaal the Poet delivers a poem in anticipation of his upcoming interview on the next podcast.
Thanks to all who are listening and sharing the podcast. Thanks to Charles Earl, our recording engineer and Jennifer Pederson for the intros and outros