readings: Collage

I remember the opening of Collage, and I remember (but who can trust her/his memory) that the opening was in late spring and that the first readings began that fall. That would mean, what, five years of readings? More or less once a month, more or less the third Friday of each month, summers off. Things change. It was Kate who suggested adding an open reading after the featured readers. I’m sure that there have been many other changes but usually we don’t remember how things have evolved after they have evolved. What I love most is the informality of the series—any distinction between the readers and the audience is almost non-existent. (And, in any case, most of the audience ends up reading in the open.) My favorite readings have been those when almost nobody came, where the poets sit in a circle reading to each other, but I’ve also loved the readings that were better attended, and those that were packed. I want to thank the three readers at our last event, Emilie Delcourt, Harriet Sandilands, and Kevin Johnston for a particularly inspiring performance, and the three readings in the open reading, Martin Getz, Casey Pierce and Fran, for terrific work and readings. Megathanks, of course, to Emilie Delcourt and Kate Simer for starting and continuing the readings, and to Emilie for continuing the series next fall. And thank you, of course, to Valerie, for everything.

readings: IVY Writers

Perhaps a lectern or podium, perhaps a stage, perhaps a microphone, someone, probably standing, probably with a book, a group of others, larger or smaller, probably seated. Almost something from a university, what a used to call a lecture (lectura?).

When Valerie and I read a couple of Tuesdays ago at the IVY Writers reading at the Delaville Café, certainly we were the least of it. The warmth and enthusiasm of the audience, and whatever their experience might have been of what they were hearing, and of that lovely spring evening in Paris, the terrific one-act play that followed—those were certainly were what mattered in the evening.

I’d like to thank Jen Dick, Michelle Noteboom and Jacob Bromberg for the opportunity to read and for showing us a great time, and Carole Pereira, David Lescot and Catriona Laing for the play, and everyone there for their attention and enthusiasm. And of course I’d thank Valerie for being a terrific collaborator and for reading beautifully, and for everything else.