ASPEN SWITZER AND THISTLEDOWNE & JACKETS AND POEMS & NEW DENVER & STAR SEEDS

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After kicking off the summer by playing the Fringe Festival circuit (Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg), singer-songwriter Aspen Switzer



is back in BC, playing a few gigs with her trio, Thistledowne. Today, they played Kelowna Arts and Music, aka "Summer in the City".

Thistledowne is Aspen, with Jessa Koerber on keyboards and vocals (you really want to hear her bust loose), and Jesse Lee on guitar, bass, and vocals.



Next, they'll be in Salmon Arm for Roots and Blues, August 14-15. This is what it says about them on the website:

Aspen Switzer’s voice will stop you in your tracks. Filled with longing and an ethereal yet grounded quality, it is powerful, subtle, pure and haunting. Aspen is accompanied by Jessa Koerber on keyboards and mandolin and Jesse Lee on guitar and bass. The trio adds seamless harmonies for a full and luxurious sound, balancing the charm and warmth of old time music with the contemporary.

Aspen Switzer and Thistledowne are playing Idlewild Festival, held in the park of the same name, in Cranbrook, August 22.

And heads-up—here's another date for Kootenay Thistledowne fans: Saturday, September 12, they'll be at the Vallican Whole in Winlaw. (Well, Vallican, actually.) Time and money to be advised. The Whole is a great venue for a performance like these three will put on. Don't miss it. Put it on your calendars!

Here they are, playing a house gig last year,



only they'll look a little different this year as Jesse, who also plays bass in a reggae band, Brian Rosen and the WhatNow, grew his hair.



And now, the saga of the jackets. One was left here after Wendy Morton's workshop a couple of weeks ago. This past Friday, Nanaimo poet and one of the instigators of that city's very popular WordStorm monthy readings, Cindy Shantz, and her husband found themselves in Castlegar and dropped in for a visit. (We love it when that happens.) While they were here they got a tour of Ted's shop.



After they'd left, another jacket appeared. Now there were two.



When she discovered hers was missing, Cindy sent me the following,

Oh to be abandoned
in Castlegar today,
surrounded by other jackets
left in the same way.
It seems our poet owners
have such random minds that we
are left behind to wonder
when our owners we will see.

to which I replied:

I love it when my poet friends
drop in to shoot the breeze.
We laugh and look at fonts and things
and then we go climb trees.
And when they go, they're sure to leave
an unexpected treat,
a book of aphorisms, perhaps,
or slippers for my feet,
a hat of many colours
or a picture for my wall...
I just wish they'd stop leaving clothes
that don't fit 'cause they're small.

I'm happy to report that both jackets have been returned to their rightful owners (assuming Canada Post gets it right).

Pyjama parties are still the best! My writing group disbands for the summer, citing too many interruptions (usually in the form of very welcome company and lots of outdoor parties as this season is all too short) to carry on, but this weekend five of us managed to get together in New Denver for a potluck dinner,



a walk, breakfast when Panini's opened, buying the odd thing at the market.



Ran into Ross Klatte and his wife, April, just as we were leaving. It was full-on summer in New Denver. A bit of the main street was blocked off for what was purportedly an antique market but there were people selling paintings and dresses, whirly-gigs and soaps, and all manner of books as well.



New Denver is nothing if not accommodating. You can figure out how far you are from just about anywhere!



These shoes were outside the Hidden Garden Gallery where several of Judy Wapp's latest photocollage concoctions are on display.



Picked up a copy of Sean Arthur Joyce's new book, Star Seeds (New Orphic Publishers).



There are some lovely poems in this collection. Here's one I like very much.

Luminous

You made yourself invisible—
a lace moth trapped in agate
a fugitive ray of light
in a house of glass—

holding your breath
against the world cracks.
But then I saw you
wake from your spell—

visible as song
on the spring air,
luminous as sun
on a snowdrift—

a beauty so ordinary
I almost missed it.

I was sorry to miss Art's launch last month. It was one of those days when I had to go to Nelson twice and the launch would have meant a third trip, and we had company who'd just pulled in. But thanks to the wonders of YouTube, here he is, reading because I am empty, one of the poems in his new book.



Over and out. Out into the sunshine sort of out.

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WENDY MORTON COMES TO THE KOOTENAYS

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I met Wendy several years ago at a writers' conference/festival/shindig in Salmon Arm. My friend, Heather, and I were sitting, probably enjoying a beer (or a coffee, depending on what time of day it was), when Wendy came by with her parasol.



"You're wearing a Bling," we said, allowing as how we knew the person who made them (Sandy Korman, and they're available at a number of places, including the Kootenay Gallery, across from the airport in Castlegar).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~BLING~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heather was wearing one, too, which prompted a lovely conversation about blings, the Kootenays, writing, the lovely day it was, poetry, and so on.

Cut to about three years ago, when I went to one of Patrick Lane's Glenairley poetry weekends, organized by Wendy. We became friends, and when she had to come to the Koots on business, she stayed in Ootischenia and gave a talk about how we can all get what we want if we just go at it in the right way, to a group of ready-to-be-inspired writers and friends of writers from the area.



Just as everyone was arriving, this double rainbow appeared in the back yard, a poetic omen if ever I saw one!



Somewhere around twenty people showed up (not bad, given that it was short notice and middle of the week).











Wendy talked about how she's managed to garner financial and/or moral support for the business of poetry, based on her memoir, Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (link takes you to a review by Yvonne Blomer in The Antigonish Review), a book that should be a must-read for any poet seeking book publication who is uncomfortable with the prospect of having to promote it. She also read poems, including some from What Were Their Dreams, her new book from Black Moss Press, and talked about Random Acts of Poetry, a project she initiated in 2004.







Thanks to Wendy, for ALL she does for poetry. As she says, it is "the shortest distance between two hearts".

Here's one of her poems, to be published in "Tears, the Same Music", a chapbook of poetry written at the March 2009 retreat, currently in production from Leaf Press.

ONCE A MAN FROM JAPAN

played the horse head violin
on the cliff above the Strait.
Full moon.
Today, snow.
The Strait weeping green;
a grieving wind off the Pacific.
I’m thinking of his widow in Osaka
who took her husband’s ashes to the shore.
Gave them to the wind.
She chanted, sang her grief.
I walk into the wind.
It tastes of salt and ash.
Today, even the kelp sings.

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If you're at all interested in the way Canadian poetry evolved in the sixties, this is worth a look—bill bissett and bp nichol in a 60's interview with Phyllis Webb. (I think it's 1966, but now I can't find where I read/heard that. Phyllis' hair looks like 1966, that's for sure.)

Here's bill, at the Shuswap Lake International Writers' Festival in 2005.


And finally, take a look at Ontario poet Conrad DiDiodato's brand new poetry review blog, Word-Dreamer: Poetics.

Let's go surfing now!

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