London Open Mic Poetry Archive
  • Home
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Stan Burfield Blog
    • Fred Burfield's Homestead Memoirs
  • Our Events
  • News
  • PHOTOS & SUMMARIES
    • Season 5: 2016-2017 >
      • June 7th, 2017: Summary & Photos featuring Stan Burfield
      • May 3rd, 2017, Summary & Photos featuring Jason Dickson
      • April 5th, 2017 Summary & Photos, feeaturing James Deahl & Norma West Linder
      • Mar. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Andy Verboom
      • Feb. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Ron Stewart
      • Dec. 7th, 2016: Photos & Summary featuring David Stones
      • Nov. 2th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring Don Gutteridge
      • Oct. 5th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring David Huebert
    • Season 4: 2015-2016 >
      • June 1st, 2016: Photos and summaries: featuring Lynn Tait
      • May 4th, 2016 Photos and Summary: featuring indigenous poetry
      • April 6, 2016 Photos & Summary, featuring Steven McCabe
      • Mar. 2nd, 2016 photos, summary: featuring Andreas Gripp
      • Feb. 3rd, 2016 photos: 3 Western students.
      • Dec. 2, 2015 photos: featured reader Peggy Roffey
      • Nov. 7, 2015 photos: Our Words Fest open mic
      • Nov. 4, 2015 photos: featured reader Charles Mountford
      • Oct. 7th, 2015 photos: Madeline Bassnett featured
    • Season 3, 2014-15 >
      • Aug. 16, 2015 photos: The Ontario Poetry Society's "Sultry Summer Gathering"
      • June 3rd, 2015 photos: John B. Lee featured
      • May 6th, 2015 photos: Laurie D Graham featured
      • Apr. 1st, 2015 photos: John Nyman & Penn Kemp featured
      • Mar. 4th, 2015 photos: Patricia Black featured.
      • Feb. 4th, 2015 photos: feature Gary Barwin
      • Dec. 3rd, 2014 photos: Feature Debbie Okun Hill
      • Nov. 5th, 2014 photos: feature Julie Berry
      • Oct. 1st, 2014 photos: feature Roy MacDonald
    • Season 2, Sept. 2013 to June 2014. >
      • June 4th, 20114, featuring Monika Lee
      • May 7th 2014, featuring Susan McCaslin and Lee Johnson
      • Sept. 4th, 2013 featuring Frank Beltrano
      • April 16th, 2014, featuring Penn Kemp and Laurence Hutchman
      • March 5th, 2014, featuring Jacob Scheier
      • Feb. 5th, 2014: featuring four UWO students of poetry; music by Tim Woodcock
      • Jan. 2nd, 2014: featuring Carrie Lee Connel
      • Dec. 4th, 2013, featuring M. NourbeSe Philip
      • Nov. 6, 2013 , featuring Susan Downe
      • Oct. 2nd, 2013, featuring Jan Figurski
    • Season 1: Oct. 2012 to June 2013 >
      • June 4th, 2013 featuring David J. paul and the best-ever open mic
      • May 1st, 2013, featuring Sonia Halpern
      • Apr. 24, 2013 featuring Frank Davey & Tom Cull
      • Mar. 6th, 2013, featuring Christine Thorpe
      • Feb. 6th, 2013, featuring D'vorah Elias
      • Jan. 3rd. 2013: John Tyndall featured.
      • Dec. 5, 2012: RL Raymond featured
    • Dig These Hip Cats ... The Beats
  • Poet VIDEOS (open mic & featured readers)
    • 5th Season Videos (2016-2017)
    • 4th Season Videos (2015-16)
    • 3rd Season Videos (2014-2015)
    • 2nd Season (2013-2014) videos
  • BIOGRAPHIES - Featured poets & musicians
  • INTERVIEWS & POEMS (featured poets)
    • SEASON 6 - Interviews & Poems >
      • Kevin Shaw: Poem & Interview
      • David Janzen - Interview
    • SEASON 5 INTERVIEWS & POEMS
    • SEASON 4 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 3 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 2 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (only from Dec. 4th, 2013)
    • Season 1 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (& 1st half of Season 2) >
      • INTERVIEWS of Featured Poets
      • POEMS by Featured Poets (1st Season & to Nov. 2013)
  • Couplets: Poets in Dialogue
  • Future Events
  • Past Events
    • 5th Season: 2016-2017
    • Season 4: 2015-2016
    • Season 3: 2014-2015
    • Season Two: 2013-2014
    • Season One: 2012-2013
  • Who we Are
  • Testimonial
  • Our Mission
  • Links
  • Contact us

Sonia Halpern: May 1st 2013

4/28/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Sonia Halpern will be the featured poet at the May 1st London Open Mic Poetry NIght at Mykonos Restaurant,  starting at 6:30.

Born in Hamilton, Ms Halpern attended UWO and Queen’s in Kingston. She is an art historian who has taught at Western since 1990. Sonia teaches in the Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research and in the Department of Visual Arts, and has won three major teaching awards at Western, including the recent 2012 Arts & Humanities Teaching Excellence Award. She has also been voted one of Western’s most “Popular Profs” by the Maclean’s Guide to Canadian Universities for five consecutive years (2000-2005). Sonia is very active in the London community as a published author, local theatrical actor, and musical composer. Her book, The Life and Times of Transition Girl (South Western Ontario Poetry, 2005), is her first published collection of poetry, and has been dubbed “Dorothy Parker meets ‘Sex and the City.’”

The interviewer is Stan Burfield, London Open Mic Poetry Night organizer.

Burfield:     Why did you start writing poems that January morning in 2002? What caused that initial impulse? Did you have a relative who wrote poems?

Halpern:      This sounds rather
anti-intellectual, but I have no idea what caused my initial impulse to start
writing poems! I can say that I was feeling rather down at that time, and felt a
need to express my feelings through written words. I’m not a diary or journal
person, so I needed another way. As an academic, I always loved writing, but I
never would have imagined poetry as my medium of choice! Unlike academic
writing, however, poetry has an immediacy that attracted me on that morning in
January 2002. I do come from a long line of writers, although not poets in
particular. My father certainly loved writing stories, and taught me the love of
words.

Burfield:     Your poems are mostly
light and breezy, humourous with a serious side. Is that a reflection of your
personality?

Halpern:      Absolutely!
This notion perfectly describes my personality! I think it’s a great challenge
to express complex ideas simply and succinctly, and humour plays a big part in
this practice; it’s comical to me when heightened, urgent, and multi-faceted
emotions are reduced to a few lines that pack a punch!

Burfield:
    Are there any poets you like? Any you would say are
influences?

Halpern:      When I gave my
first poetry reading many years ago, I was told that my poems are reminiscent of
Dorothy Parker’s. I regret that I didn’t know who she was at the time, so I did
some research. Of course, after reading her work, I was very flattered by the
comparison! We both like a good play-on-words and biting, edgy content --- all
presented in a tidy little package! I also love the lyricist Jim Steinman who
has a witty turn-of-phrase in virtually all of his songs! “You took the words
right out of my mouth. It must have been while you were kissing me” is
genius!

Burfield:     Many of your poems are
about the difficulties in relationships with men. A feeling of resentment recurs
in some of them. Does this come from your own life or from
observation?

Halpern:      Both! I see
the poems as a collection of shared feelings. While I do understand that readers
will see resentment in some of the works, I never like it to exist on its own!
For me, any “negative” emotion in my poems always has to be accompanied by
intelligent humour. I like to think that it’s this successful amalgamation that
characterizes my work.

Burfield:     Some
include little ways you’ve gotten back at domineering, insensitive males. It
would seem you could easily get a following for these. Would you like to be the
Ann Landers for subjugated women? 

Halpern:  
  
I thought I already was!

Burfield:
 
  Can you tell us the most interesting or humourous
situation that resulted in one of your poems.

Halpern:
     I think the fact that men and women are encouraged
to share their lives when they’re so different from one another is inherently
funny. This dynamic is essentially the premise of all of my
poetry!

Burfield:     Has writing poems had a
beneficial effect on your life in any way?

Halpern:
    Yes! Writing poems has given me the opportunity to share my ideas,
feelings, and humour. As a writer, my goal is to have an impact on people’s
lives by making them think and feel. When someone tells me that my book has
helped get them through a bad break up, what could be more gratifying? They
could have opted for a tub of chocolate ice-cream
instead!

Burfield:     Will you be doing a
followup to this book.

Halpern:      This
may come as no surprise, but I’m presently writing a relationship
guide!


The
Event


WHERE:     Mykonos
Restaurant terrace, 572 Adelaide St. N., London. Cover is by donation. Overflow
parking available across the side street and in the large lot one block
north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
  
Live Music:      will open the
event at 6:30, featuring local pianist  Don
Baker. 
 Baker is an Elmira-born, 29-year-old
musician living in London and currently attending Fanshawe
College's Television Broadcasting program. Inspired from a young age by the
talents of Elton John, Billy Joel and Burton Cummings and a student of
Royal Conservatory Piano for 10 years, he is an enthusiast of numerous
musical styles. Samples of Arrowhead Band, a rock-oriented project
featuring Don and London guitarist  Matthew Brown can be found at
soundcloud.com/arrowheadband. To hear Don Baker.

Open Mic:      Following
the featured poet, there will be about 1.5 hours of open mic, ending at 9:00 pm.
Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry
- but time yourself at home). They are selected at
random.

Raffle Prizes:   
  
Anyone who donates to London Open Mic Poetry Night receives
a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the
intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by Brick Books.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Interviewer

    Organizer Stan Burfield of London Open Mic Poetry Night, and any guest interviewers who are into  it. 

    Archives

    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012

    Categories

    All
    Christine Thorpe
    David J. Paul
    D`vorah Elias
    Frank Beltrano
    Frank Davey
    Jan Figurski
    John Tyndall
    Kathryn Mockler
    M. NourbeSe Philip
    R L Raymond
    Sonia Halpern
    Susan Downe
    Tom Cull

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly