bounty - robyn sarah

Make much of something small.
The pouring-out of tea,
a drying flower's shadow on the wall
from last week's sad bouquet.
A fact: it isn't summer anymore.

Say that December sun
is pitiless, but crystalline
and strikes it like a bell.
Say it plays colours like a glockenspiel.
It shows the dust as well,

the elemental sediment
your broom has missed,
and lights each grain of sugar spilled
upon a tabletop, beside
pistachio shells, peel of a clementine.

Slippers and morning papers on the floor,
and wafts of iron heat from rumbling rads,
can this be all? No, look -- here comes the cat,
with one ear inside out.
Make much of something small.

Sarah, Robyn. "Bounty" Modern Canadian Poets. Jones, Evan and Todd Swift, eds. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2010. 181.

submit to Bridge Songs: Heartbreak

some friends of mine are putting on a great community arts event. details:

Bridge Songs is an annual two day community arts event blending original music (a recorded album and live performances) with visual art, poetry and short films around a central theme. 

This year's event, Bridge Songs: Heartbreak, runs June 14 and 15, 2013, at The Anglican Parishes of St.Faith's and St.Stephen the Martyr (11725 93st, Edmonton, Alberta).

"You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.” ― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

From lost loves to lost hopes, let downs to letting go, we've all housed broken hearts. Sometimes we're all alone, and sometimes communities break together, all at once. Every heartbreak holds a choice - retreat or restart? Seal off, or open up? Contain, or continue? 

We invite artists in all media to submit original works about heartbreak. We want to hear the deep and abiding stories of hearts at risk, hearts betrayed, and hearts made whole again.

you can submit songs, art, poetry and/ or short films here.

show & tell: a workshop

i will be doing an introductory workshop about exhibiting your work with the bleeding heart art space crew april 20th. developing artist statements, finding the right audience/ venue for our work, submissions processes, etc. here's the blurb:

A workshop on how to exhibit and talk about your work

Once you’ve made your work, who do you share it with, and how do you get it to them? 

Join professional artist and curator Edward Van Vliet for an interactive workshop on showing and speaking about visual artwork. Artists will be challenged to consider the audience for their body of work, and how to best connect with that audience.

This workshop will look at what is involved in submitting for gallery shows, including crafting an artist statement and CV. Different types of galleries, as well as alternatives to the gallery system will be discussed. 

Artists are encouraged to bring a sampling of work (6-10 images) in digital format (jpg photographs) for projection, as well as current CVs and artist statements for group critique and conversation.

This workshop is geared toward artists working in visual culture (painting, photographs, mixed media, video art, etc.).

register, or find out more, here.

how we care for trees in winter - anne compton

To the west of the highway, cedars
burlapped for winter. Trappist monks moving
slow as a car in storm. Snow on their shoulders.

The bushier ones came in A-frames, hinged at the top.
Rodents scramble up one side. Look at the world from
the peak, scuttle down. Their story, the tracks in the snow.

Everything is after. Do you not find it so? Then,
a road shrine long past. The beginning of a descent.

I was wondering, do you remember the view from there?
Or did that cloth you were called to
enforce a forward focus? Is God's voice when it calls
like snow falling: a flurry that wipes out tracks?

I've been stopped in mine ever since.

Compton, Anne. "How We Care for Trees in Winter" Modern Canadian Poets. Jones, Evan and Todd Swift, eds. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2010. 152.

ghazal: waxwing - crystal sikma

tsee-tsee, to see, to sleep, to dream, to smoke the night's
last cigarette, to see, to quote the waxwing

this winter, you can see the stars again, the orange light of the city
rises in the east, and falls on the coat of the waxwing

the December wind scattered tiny apples, fermented blood on snow,
frozen, then warmed in the throat of the waxwing

we breathe the prairie silence, the cold dark sky, listen
to the wind beneath songs of the coyote and the waxwing

the branches of the tree hold their bodies, flutter, give
darkness the last trill note of the waxwing

when you slip into bed, kiss the curve of my neck,
Poet, I say, who wrote of the waxwing?

Sikma, Crystal. "Ghazal: waxwing" Fast Forward: New Saskachewan Poets. Klar, Barbara and Paul Wilson, eds. Saskatoon: Hagios Press, 2007. 68.