Black History in 1880s Vancouver
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
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • New Page

Five poems by Jan Figurski, London Open Mic's Oct. 2nd featured poet

9/24/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jan Figurski is London Open Mic Poetry Night’s Oct. 2nd featured poet. 

Figurski is a London poet/musician with a degree in English literature from Carleton and a Masters from Western. His poetry has been published in three collections and in numerous literary journals. He has also edited a poetry journal and books by James Reaney Sr. and Thomas Nashe. As a musician, Figurski has played in a number of London bands and his work has been recorded on 6 CDs.

Asked about the evolution of his poetic style and what he generally tries to accomplish in his poetry, Figurski says:

“Like most poets, I started out by imitating those poets and writers I liked, and admired. This was the early 70’s. I wrote mostly free verse about the things I experienced using a language that was more or less self-consciously “poetic”. But writing is also a craft. I deliberately tried writing in many different forms: rhymed metred poetry, prose poems, haiku, automatic writing, surrealism, writing in the first person as a character who isn’t me, experimenting with vocabulary, line breaks, punctuation; all as a way of consciously developing my craft. Along the way, I began to find it easier to express myself in a voice that felt natural to me, but that deliberately embodied elements of craft. Sometime later, maybe around the same time as I discovered abstract art, I discovered sound poetry, and began to incorporate more abstract forms: performance poetry, concrete poetry, and just using sounds. I see now that I started writing poetry because I was attracted to engaging in a creative process and the main form of expression I had to bring to that process in the beginning was language. If I try and accomplish anything in my poetry, it has been that in the process of writing I discover something about myself and my relationship to what I’m experiencing and have been able to communicate that in a way that is striking, original, and true.”


1.     Night in the Virgin Forest

My ears are full of its hymns,
this gloomy cathedral

In this forest, leaning to an ocean
on the backs of mountains,
swaying giants crack in the wind

In me, long secure
in the womb of civilization, 
shudders the uncurled animal

The moon, become a thurible
swung above the trees, 
glows like burning incense
through their outstretched arms

Fear lies in wait
sniffing the air
Sleep too lies waiting
to smother me
in dream

©Jan Figurski, ‘Windows’, Equinox Press, 1978


2.    Rite of Passage

Walking home at dawn
in the rain
still drunk
the daisy you gave me
wilting in my lapel

My head feels like a cathedral
the choir still singing,
although hoarsely now,
preludes to the morning

Thank you for all the commotion
I’ve had to blow my nose twice
and the pencil I am writing this with
has sprouted leaves
and threatens to flower

©Jan Figurski, ‘Heavy Seasoning & Heavenly Bodies’, SWOP, 1985


3.     Images From Huron And The Bruce

hawk gliding on a hot gusty day
a span of silence imposed by the eyes’ hunger
the shadow of grace and guillotine poise

trees under gathering clouds
storm immanence in leaf-tips
fluttering silver-green omens

island, the texture of elephant skin
windworn, wearing its last disguise
alone before the horizon

paper moon hovering at the lake’s edge
an orange smudge behind cloud wisps
tiger’s eye blinking at the liquid horizon

the sure feeling of spring uncoiling
april hills smothered under grey blanket sky
there is thunder in the caves

©Jan Figurski, ‘Heavy Seasoning & Heavenly Bodies’, SWOP, 1985


4. The Moon Swells Inside You

O love your eyes
Your eyes are silver apples

Silver apples laughing
Laughing at the nets I cast

Crescent moon rising on the sandy beach
Goldfish swarming in the crested wave

Goldfish swarming in the crested wave
Impaled on a sliver of light

Playing in the sea like an otter
You let down your hair

You let down your hair
And catch the growing moon

Nourished by the sea
The moon swells inside you

The moon swells inside you
Your eyes full of light

O love, your eyes are silver apples
Laughing, at the nets I cast.

©Jan Figurski


5.   Black Dance

How you do it.
How you do it.
How you do it in Somalia
   black dance, black dance.

How you do it. 
How you do it. 
How you do it in Africa
   black dance, black dance.

To the rhythm of bones on hollow logs
coloured plumage added to a black body’s grace
supple hips swaying to wild beat of drums?

   black dance, black dance.

Or the bolt/click/clank
of a child’s tin cup
on the refugee
compound
fence?

   black dance.

©Jan Figurski


Jan Figurski Biography
Jan Figurski Interview 


THE EVENT

WHERE: The Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.

WHEN: October 2nd, the first Wednesday of the month, as with most of our events. 

LIVE MUSIC will begin at least by 6:30. There is also an intermission with live music and (usually) more at the end of the event. This month we have a surprise, to be announced soon.

THE FEATURED POET: Jan Figurski begins reading shortly after 7:00, followed by a Q&A.

OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, there is about 1.5 hours of open mic, ending about 9:00 pm. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). NOTE: FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE WILL NOT BE SELECTING NAMES AT RANDOM, BUT, AS IS TRADITIONAL AT MOST POETRY OPEN MICS, POETS WILL WRITE THEIR NAMES IN A SPOT OF THEIR CHOOSING ON A LIST AT THE DOOR. They will also be asked for their email addresses and whether or not we can photograph and videotape them reading.

RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates to London Open Mic Poetry Night receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by Brick Books and The Ontario Poetry Society. Donations are our only source of income. We still haven't paid off our initial debt.

EBOOK ANTHOLOGY: Our annual ebook is an anthology of the poets who have read during the year, including both the featured poets, with one or two poems by each, and the open mic readers, with from one to a few, depending on length, from each of those who wish to participate, no matter how many times they read. The ebook will then be available on Amazon at the end of the season, at a few dollars each, used to help offset expenses. If anyone gives us more than several poems, we will select from them. All poems that are included must have been read at the events during the season. The ebook will include a short biography (up to seven lines) of each poet. This must be included with the poems. We may also add a photo of the poet reading at the event. This hasn’t been decided yet. To keep transcription errors from creeping into the poems, the preferred way to get them to us is by email. Those who don’t use email can give us a copy at the events. A cautionary note: Some poets may not want certain poems to be included in the ebook because it would make them unacceptable for later publication in certain poetry journals. Erik Martinez Richards will edit and publish the anthology. His email address is erikf1944@hotmail.com
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All
    Christine Thorpe
    David J. Paul
    D'vorah Elias
    Frank Beltrano
    Frank Davey
    Jan Figurski
    Susan Downe
    Tom Cull

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly