Hutchman, Burfield, Kemp Our National Poetry Month reading on April 16th at Landon Library was a success with 33 in attendance even though we didn`t have those great tables to sit around at our usual venue, Mykonos Restaurant, and we missed the food and wine that goes with them. Nevertheless, we had two great featured poets, Penn Kemp and Laurence Hutchman. Their honorariums were paid for by Canada Council for the Arts and The League of Canadian Poets (with the proviso that the event be held in a library, not a restaurant).
Bernie Koenig, familiar to many in the audience, bounced those riffs of bright notes that he`s famous for off his vibraphone before the poetry began, and again during the intermission. A highlight was his demonstration of how one tune sounds when played in the manner of different genres of music.
Penn Kemp, who has a natural performing flair, began her reading with straight lyrical works, beautiful, but not too dramatic. However, as her reading progressed, she became more and more expressive until we were all fully open and ready to hear her final, climactic, poem, a true `sound poem`. It was the big experience of the night for many of us.
Laurence Hutchman, who has lived and taught elsewhere in Canada, mostly Moncton, NB, since his initial education in English literature in London, brought a completely different feeling into the room, less of the inner world and the overtly artistic and more of the people and the land and its history. In his Q&A he even gave us an unexpected and very comprehensive description of all the kinds of rhyme that fill every good poem. He had us all running down our own checklists in our minds.
We had time for six of the twelve hopeful open-mic readers who dropped their names into the randomly-chosen Ballot Bowl before closing time. Our next event, on the first Wednesday of May (the 7th), will be back to normal, with a full slate of fifteen open-mic readers at Mykonos Restaurant.
Bernie Koenig, familiar to many in the audience, bounced those riffs of bright notes that he`s famous for off his vibraphone before the poetry began, and again during the intermission. A highlight was his demonstration of how one tune sounds when played in the manner of different genres of music.
Penn Kemp, who has a natural performing flair, began her reading with straight lyrical works, beautiful, but not too dramatic. However, as her reading progressed, she became more and more expressive until we were all fully open and ready to hear her final, climactic, poem, a true `sound poem`. It was the big experience of the night for many of us.
Laurence Hutchman, who has lived and taught elsewhere in Canada, mostly Moncton, NB, since his initial education in English literature in London, brought a completely different feeling into the room, less of the inner world and the overtly artistic and more of the people and the land and its history. In his Q&A he even gave us an unexpected and very comprehensive description of all the kinds of rhyme that fill every good poem. He had us all running down our own checklists in our minds.
We had time for six of the twelve hopeful open-mic readers who dropped their names into the randomly-chosen Ballot Bowl before closing time. Our next event, on the first Wednesday of May (the 7th), will be back to normal, with a full slate of fifteen open-mic readers at Mykonos Restaurant.
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