Annual Garden Party raises more than $35,000 for the Ottawa Humane Society

Pearl Pirie (blog/Twitter) is an Ottawa Arts enthusiast. She has two poetry collections: Been Shed Bore (Chaudiere, 2010), Thirsts (Snare, 2011). She coordinates the Tree Seed Workshop Series which runs at Arts Court 6:45-7:45pm every second and fourth Tuesday of the month.

This past Sunday (Aug. 26th) about 250 people made it out in perfect weather and good humour to the Ottawa Humane Society’s Summer Garden Party Fundraiser. Together, the people of Ottawa raised more than $35,000, which sounds like a lot and is, but it costs more than $4 million per year to run and provide shelter and medical care for thousands of animals until they can find their forever homes.

Here is a visual play-by-play of the event: 

Colarneri Estate Winery, white or red on offer.

Cheerful directing volunteers like Rachelle, Marielle and Lise helped keep everyone on track as the 250 or so guests came through to sample food from more than 20 of the city’s top chefs. Each chef made about 400 appetizers.

A great entry point at the door is from from Restaurant International, the student restaurant of Algonquin School of Hospitality and Tourism. This is port-marinated strawberries in a phyllo cup with a ginger foam. They were being made fresh all afternoon.

It’s worth noting that the first party was held in 2001 at Chef Kurt Waldele’s home. This event was in memory of Waldele, who served as executive chef of the NAC for more than 30 years and was a strong supporter of the OHS. Most of the chefs taking part in the event were friends of Waldele or influenced by the man.

A nice touch was from Le Café’s dessert, which used the drunk cherries inherited from Waldele.

My favourite main dish hands down was this: A lovely Catalina gazpacho with herbs and croutons filled to order from Back Lane Cafe.

Back Lane doled out their goodness with cheer. They had their brunch, lunch and dinner menus of the day out for those interested.

Home Sweet Home does decorative sugar.

The Cake Shop on Wellington had a few varieties of pretty cupcakes and cookies.

The ladies of the Cake Shop who handed out the take-home sacks filled with goodies.

Everyone who attended got a take-home sack with $30 off at Vivianna Day Spa, these shortbread cookies…

…and a treat for the pets.

As the afternoon went on, more and more descriptions of dogs got replaced by a “Hold” sign. The “rabbitat” cage still had a cutie.

Toward the end of the day was the live auction for things like chefs at your house, or B&B weekends, a year of carte blanche hairstyling, or a dozen $200 gift certificates to area restaurants. The first item was a dry run. The auctioneers said it’s traditional for everyone to raise their hands and bid a $1 to start it off. The second item started at $400.

Congratulations on a successful event! For more, check out Ron Eade‘s slideshow of what he saw.The next fundraiser will be Sept 9 with the Wiggle Waggle Walkathon. 

Building community here and abroad: Pearl attends the last SLOWest monthly coffeehouse

Part of the crowd during SLOWest's last monthly coffeehouse (Photo credit: Brian Pirie)

Pearl Pirie is an Ottawa arts enthusiast. Her last poetry collection was Thirsts from Snare Books (2011). She coordinates the Tree Seed Workshop Series, the second and fourth night of each month at the Arts Court, 6:45-7:45. It is a free drop-in space provided with the Tree Reading Series for people to explore poetry.

This past Saturday night marked the last of SLOWest’s monthly coffeehouses with us after 2 years of bringing musicians, artists, a choir and poets. It brought a good turnout of around 20 which filled the back corner of Bridgehead, with a few snagged from the coffee shop who were leaning and listening in at the side, now and then. 

SLOWest — which is short for Sustainable Living Ottawa West — will continue other sustainability/community-building activities, including The Great River Project on April 19 (with Ottawa Riverkeeper Meredith Brown,who did a summer-long expedition that traveled 900 kilometres of the 1,271 kilometers of the Ottawa River), a Community garden gathering May 3 and a guided cycling tour of solar panel installations on May 12.

Tom Lips, Karen Second, Pearl Pirie

During the evening, Karen Second gave a description of what she saw and experienced while seeing stoves being installed in Guatemala as part of the Guatemala Stove Project — the happiness and pride of a Maya woman setting up the stove in her home. Second, a freelance writer, has an article on Tom Clarke, who started the project, coming up in the May edition of 55-Plus. Clarke has seen both a Perth and Ottawa branch of the project established. Since 1999, the Guatemala Stove Project has seen about 4,000 stoves built, including two through the efforts of SLOWest’s own group. But more on that later.

The reading evening started with some poetry by Montreal-area’s Czandra, who played in sound and interstitial spaces before reading a tan renga with Grant Savage. Shai Ben-Shalom put on his poet hat (literally, although those photo turned out blurry) and brought us some witty poems of cats and men and the holy grounds of the body. Over the break, John DeMers, who just came to listen, was volunteered to get his guitar from his car and play us some musical interludes.

Czandra, Marilyn Irwin, John DeMers

People from various directions of community got a chance to chat before we came back with coffee or treats and heard some excerpts from Czandra’s chapbook, In Air/Air Out. Poems of rob mclennan, Kevin Spenst and Danielle Susi were read by Marilyn Irwin. Jorge Etcheverry read from some work in English, and then, to give a taste of the language, he read a poem of his in Spanish as well. So much of language is intonation and in the body. We forget that when we only listen to English when we think we can understand every word.

Following him, Monty Reid read from Flat Land, a series of poems from La Gunilla, Mexico, where he was working on development projects, watching the people move stone with homemade shovels:

“the women/who built the road, who left their flesh in the ditches, who/insisted then that to walk is to remember”.

He recounted watching kids at an orphanage play baseball where it was a kind of collaborative agreement on what all the plays were:

“Every pitch is invented. There is no equipment, no ump, no one keeps/ the stats. Here everybody hits.”

In Guatemala, it’s a similar scene. The sixty percent of Guatemalans who are members of indigenous Mayan groups own only six percent of the land. Most live on less than $2 a day. Basic resources, such as health care, electricity and potable water are extremely scarce in the highlands, where the majority of the Maya live. The Guatemala Stove Project was started by Tom Clarke in 1999 to address some of the gap. The stoves burn wood more efficiently than open fires, freeing time for looking for wood and/or freeing money towards other uses. They make a safe cooking surface with kids running around. Each stove, costing $225 CDN, increases life expectancy of the women who cooks by 15 years, allowing the (average) family of five to get more healthy hands continuing to work without breathing smoke and without living in creosote covered walls.

Monty Reid, Shai Ben-Shalom, Jorge Etcheverry

As a sort of sweat-equity in the project, those receiving stoves are trained and assisted as masons and are given materials to add these cinder-block stoves and chimneys to their homes. A simple step but it leverages the communities and lives forward. In fact, after this past weekend, we have now tipped the third stove — enabled through local poetry! Thanks to everyone who put us over the edge, including this project of  In Air/Air Out chapbooks, the reading on the weekend, SLOWest passing the hat (as well as giving all their donations), book sales of the evening donated by Jorge Etcheverry and Monty Reid, the sale of chapbooks, and a couple donors who topped up the total.

Here’s the whole group who were part of that last reading at SLOWest Coffeehouse: those who were the planned readers, organizers of SLOWest, and people who got roped in by coming to either read or play music. (Back row, L-R) Monty Reid, Jorge Etcheverry, John DeMers, Shai Ben-Shalom, Grant Savage, Tom Lips (Front Row, L-R) Czanda, Pearl Pirie, Marilyn Irwin and Donna Colterman.

The whole gang

Thanks for sharing this memorable night, Pearl! SLOWest and the Guatemala Stove Project are both great ways to get involved with the local community.

‘A confluence of what’s happening in Ottawa poetry’: VERSeFest draws to a close

Ottawa's VERSeFest ran from Feb. 28 - March 4 (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

Pearl Pirie (blog/Twitter) is a local arts enthusiast who blogs about the city’s literary events in both word and image. Her most recent poetry collection came out last year. Thirsts (Snare, 2011) launches at Tree on Jan. 24. She will be one of the readers at VERSeFest in March.

Rachael Simpson at VERSeFest (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

Evan Thornton at Sneezers said: “Gain a sense of scale: In one fell swoop, you’ll get a feel for the astounding level of poetry activity in Ottawa. Not just a one-time festival, VERSeFest is actually a confluence of what’s happening in Ottawa poetry every month of every year, all the time.”

Ben Ladouceur said of Rachael Simpson’s reading: “Her work and her reading voice both brim with an unadorned kind of insightfulness. Never mind that her name is probably the least-known of the four.”

Suzanne Buffam at VERSeFest (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

Jenica Reid ‏tweeted: “Mike McGee, OpenSecret and Ursula Rucker just blew my mind. I don’t think I have it anymore.”

In Brenden McNally’s column, he quoted Suzanne Buffam, who came up from Chicago to read. She said she thought VerseFest is fantastic, adding, “It’s nice to see a festival that’s not about networking, it’s just about poetry.”

Outside, our ladies of posters directed pedestrian traffic to venues. (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

And it’s about enthusiasm.

Today is the finale, when VERSeFest welcomes Ursula Rucker to give a workshop at Mercury Lounge. (A slim chance of a spot if someone doesn’t show up to take their reserved tickets.)

At 4:30 pm, Vermont poet and novelist Paige Ackerson-Kiely and west coast Canadian poet, Barry McKinnon. At 8 pm at the NAC: Mexico poet Pura López-Colomé’s, former U.S. poet Laureate Philip Levine Governor General award-winning poet Phil Hall do the summit reading. (Tickets are still available.)

Last chance to check out VERSeFest tonight! Get out there, Ottawa!

Sustainable living: Pearl explains why SLOWest is best

Pearl Pirie is a local arts enthusiast who blogs about the city’s literary events in both word and image. Her most recent poetry collection came out last year. Thirsts (Snare, 2011) launches at Tree on Jan. 24. She will be one of the readers at versefest.ca in March.

Alise Marlane was the feature performer at this month's SLOWest

Alise Marlane was the feature this month at 1277 Wellington St. She sang her own compositions from Wakefield theatre productions and her album, Room for Less, talking about living more and having less. She also sang in French about uniting despite different political positions. She did Pete Seeger covers on her mandolin and guitars. For a couple pieces, a bit of guest starring happened with some harmonicas.

It was a cozy atmosphere and good music. A hat was passed.

How did the event come to be? The SLOWest is a group organized to create a space for meeting minds on ways to build a sustainable community, specifically Sustainable Living in Ottawa West (SLOWest). The group has an events listing of Local Music, Dance, Storytelling, Art.

For those pining for planting season, there’s a gardening talk on January 22. They’re gearing up for partnership with the RightBike.org bike-sharing program. Their January newsletter lists some of the green ideas they have cooking and other collaborations underway.

Tony Turner plays a harmonica at the last SLOWest

The next Coffeehouse will be February 11 with poets Blaine Marchand and Miche Kohler. The evening of March 10 will be a Coffeehouse with singers/storytellers Gail Anglin and Neville Miller.

April 14 will be a night of poetry with a spring launch of a chapbook entitled: In Air/Air Out: 21 Poets for the Guatemala Stove Project. The proceeds all go to the charity of clean air through the Guatemala Stove Project which has a Perth chapter and an Ottawa chapter. They have been building stoves with the Maya people since 1999. This poetry for air project so far has built stoves for two households.

Luminita Suse performs at Bywords Warms the Night for the Cornerstone Women's Shelter

Luminita Suse (right) is one of the poets in the chapbook. The photo was taken at the January 15′s ByWords Warms the Night:, the ninth annual ByWords fundraiser for the Cornerstone Women’s Shelter. It is fabulous when art and poetry and the community can come together to do social good locally or internationally.

A spring launch of the chapbook will happen this Thursday evening, January 19 across the street from Bridgehead at Collected Works. Allison Armstrong, Amanda Earl, Mike Montreuil, Luminita Suse and rob mclennan will be the readers in this round.

Thanks, Pearl! Be sure to check out the chapbook launch this Thursday!

Mapping ourselves: You Are Here and counter mapping ‘adds the messy details’

Photo credit: Agoasi via Flickr

Pearl Pirie is a local arts enthusiast who arrived in Ottawa about 20 years ago for university. She blogs about the city’s literary events — in both word and image.  Her second full-length poetry collection is coming out this fall.

It is a great city for walking, especially as fall colours show off to each other. Want another reason to hit the streets? Did you know that there are Naughty Haunted Walks that include political life? Did you know that there are self-guided foodie walks? Cheap Eats Ottawa has a google map with pop up pics of food photos.

What about literary life? How do we fit onto our own maps? Toronto has the Coach house stroll of literary history. Did you know that there’s a Poet’s Walk in Ottawa on the 35 km of Poet’s Pathway? It commemorates the Confederation Poets and the poets of the Mouvement littéraire, the literary equivalent of the Group of Seven. What about a literary self-guided map of the poetry that is everywhere?

What does a map not include? Sounds of a space, tastes, smells, experiences. What about a map that covers more memories and meaning? What gives a space significance? Memories and history. What was experienced there subjectively that made the space feel yours? What makes the place distinct? What writer came or comes to what cafe to compose or perform? Who was born and died where?

Some of the participants at the last session look at each other's counter-maps.

Germaine Koh did a map project for Vancouver, adding photos of the pedestrian landmarks and experiences we have in the city to make maps differently meaningful. The Push Festival out there invited all kinds of participants to make Counter Mapping. Counter mapping goes against the strict just-the-street-grid approach to maps and adds the messy details that makes a place distinctive.  

And now Ottawa has its own version — You Are Here — brought to you by the Tree Reading Series.

If you want to join in, come out to the Arts Court, 2nd floor at 6:45 pm on the next few second or fourth Tuesdays of the month. (That’s TONIGHT!) Monty Reid is leading the way. What does one associate with a place? These maps would have photos, audio clips, video clips, poems, memories to show a deeper meaning of place. People are invited to add their knowledge and short poems to what will become an online resource of what is Literary Ottawa, to eventually make a rich walking tour.

So that means You Are Here runs Oct 25, November 8th and 22nd at Arts Court Building. This is what local tourism is all about!

Sweet wonder: Pearl gets a taste of Lowertown’s Maison Chaloin

Pearl Pirie is a local arts enthusiast who arrived in Ottawa about 20 years ago for university. She blogs about the city’s literary events — in both word and image.  Her second full-length poetry collection is coming out this fall.

It’s been a good summer for Ottawa foodies – two exceptional businesses opened – Luna Gelato Cafe in Old Ottawa South and Maison Chaloin in Lowertown.

Apt 613 gave the lowdown on Luna, which has possibly the creamiest texture of gelato in town and the best presentation, but my money’s more often on another sweet spot.

I’d been watching the spot near Dalhousie and Gigues since their Chocolatier sign went up in mid-June. I suggested to friends that we welcome them by a sleep over on the sidewalk on their opening day to welcome the new business to town, except I had no takers. On July 19th we went by and the Ottawa location of Maison Chaloin was open.

It’s a fourth generation chocolatier from Creste, in Provence, near Avignon with a three-year-old shop in Gatineau at 546 Saint-Joseph. The Quebec location has been getting good reviews on The Urban Spoon.

They bring their patisseries to this side of the river each morning. They have local gelato using organic brown sugar, sundaes, truffles of various kinds, meringues and macaroons in various colours and flavours, as well as bottled goodnesses like lavender-apricot jam or salted caramel. There’s a crepe menu too. They are open for breakfast.

What they do different than some is a linen tablecloth and a plating of french pastries. You can buy them to go, or just singly or you can get a display with a sample of sorbet and a mini meringue, fruit reductions and the pastry of your choice. It looks and tastes luxurious. I’ve taken a few friends there to verify it.

On our most recent visit, hubby and I tucked into their lemon crepe:

They vary from just over $5 for a plain crepe to $11.80 for one with Grand Marnier and tropical fruit.

We tried the triple chocolate mousse pyramid as well. It was airy and rich, not overly sweet with a mix of textures of the fresh base and the chocolate shell.

You can get all kinds of gift boxes of truffles but this time we managed to just have two to take with us?

One even got all the way home.

It’s a small place but friendly. It seats 15 at small cafe tables. The food is a treat because it is done so well and presented so well.

For more photos of Maison Chaloin, click here.

Yum. Thanks Pearl!

Go for Baroque: Pearl Pirie recounts Music at Noon concert series

Photo Credit: Michele Gavazza via Flickr

Pearl Pirie is a local arts enthusiast who arrived in Ottawa about 20 years ago for university. She blogs about the city’s literary events — in both word and image.  Her second full-length poetry collection is coming out this fall.

There’s something unavoidable about music coming at us from stores and radios and ads but music up close and performed live is special.

Steeple of the First Baptist Church (via Vince Alongi on Flickr)

Last Thursday, we heard the Music at Noon concerts at First Baptist off of Elgin. For $5, each Thursday in June, you can hear people moonlight their musical expertise. It was Kevin James on Baroque Violin and James Calkin on a Harpsichord.

James Calkin plays a number of series around town on organs. This time he played a harpsichord made for him in 1989 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. It was recently retuned by a specialist in Montreal.

Having never seen that type of instrument before, it looked surprisingly like a piano with wooden keys but sounded more gentle. The strings are plucked with wood instead of struck. It is a far more pleasant sound than a piano or more pleasant to my ears than even a harp.

The baroque violin is a different instrument than one often used now with a heavier-ended bow and played across the strings going down only, not back and forth.

Harpsichord (via @chris on Flickr

They played Sonata quinta by G.B Fontana (c. 1571-c.1631), Sonata quarta by J.H. Schmelzer (c. 1620-1680), Sonata in G (BWV 1019) by J.S. Bach (1685-1750) and Sonata seconda by Dario Castello (c. 1590-c. 1630). The first I very much enjoyed but the last one was my favorite. There was such a range in it and it sounded so much more lively and fresh than anything I’d heard in music in some time. Both according to the notes were in “stile nuovo” where composers where playing with polyphonic rules, exploring dissonance and improvisations.

Giovanni Battista Fontana was a violin virtuoso and Dario Castello has almost no biographical information recorded for time but although his music which went into reprints and collections showed a primary love for the violin but he worked as a leader of a wind ensemble in Venice. Some things never change. Find your passion but work where work is.

What struck me in the concert was how directly music could communicate. It’s like time travel without the bother of trying to secure a time-space portal.

Photo credit: Paul Clark Images via Flickr

People centuries later could play the same instruments, not know the first language of the composers — if that could be said to be Italian rather than music itself — and communicate directly. How much more would we stumble to try to directly hear the word from the 1600s? The poetry seems more obscured than the sound. Perhaps the music too would have resonated more fiercely with that time than now. I don’t know but what a marvelous town that we can just dip into a bit of history so it lives.

This Thursday the Music at Noon concerts at the First Baptist Church on Elgin near the NAC will be Karen Holms & Damian Rivers-Moore on Organ & French Horn. There is also a Tuesday series starting September 18th with an organist and trumpeter in the St. Luke’s Recital Series. Admission is free will donation.

Thanks, Pearl! Anyone checking out today’s concert? It’s just a short stop from the National War Memorial, where the Royals will be laying a wreath at 2:35 p.m.

Sound and furiously good times: Pearl Pirie reviews the AB Series

Koichi Makigami (vocalist, and player of various instruments from Japan), Bolot Bairyshev (traditional Altaic throat singer from Russia) and Massa Sato (percussionist from Japan) make up Tokyo Taiga.

Pearl Pirie is a local arts enthusiast who arrived in Ottawa about 20 years ago for university. She blogs about the city’s literary events — in both word and image.  Her second full-length poetry collection is coming out this fall.

Tokyo Taiga was the guest of the AB Series at the National Arts Centre’s Fourth Stage, May 19, 2011. The AB Series, launched in November 2007, offers some unique international and local performances of international standards. There is music, experimental poetry and lectures.

This performance was unique in its excellence, and in that this Ottawa treat was one of very few North American engagements. The Ottawa gig was before their appearance at the 27th Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Québec.

Japanese percussionist and guitarist Massa Sato

Each member has an incredible amount of skill. For example, Massa Sato is a Japanese percussionist and guitarist. He plays in his own bands Massa’s Jammer and Creole a massA as well as Hikashu. In addition to his work as a music producer and composer, Masaharu has participated in major international music projects, such as Drumsique in Singapore and JapanFest in Atlanta, U.S. What he was playing in the top photo was a sort of thunder can.

‎Koichi Makigami

The musicians moved together like jazz. There was some mix of electronic play and some of the instruments were western traditional and others traditional from other regions. Here ‎Koichi Makigami plays the cornet. He did sound poetry of vocalizing a range of sounds and played various instruments. Bairyshev is playing a topshuur, a traditional stringed instrument. By times he did throat singing. A clip of that is here. It is like our Inuit throat singing in that it uses part of the throat we don’t often use for speech. It’s quite a striking sound. A bunch of fellows after the show were trying to learn how to do it.

Koichi Makigami

Here Koichi Makigami is at the theramin, the only instrument that you play by not touching it, and stop playing by touching it. It was very cool to see this played in person after seeing documentaries on it and hearing it in recordings. (You might know its sound from the Beach Boys’ Wipeout.) Makigami is part of Hikashu, a renowned Japanese underground “avant-pop” band.

Each musician did a solo and combinations of pairs and all of them. It was wholly absorbing and with little runs of joy thru the music. A mix of transcendent and comedy and sustained mood. They played songs back to back without any banter to break up the sounds. 

The next show for The AB Series is international sound poet Jaap Blonk and Playback on May 25.

Playback: (L-R) Michele Provost, Carmel Purkis, Glenn Nuotio, Christine McNair, Sean Moreland, Grant Wilkins, Stephen Ross Smith and Sandra Ridley.

Playback at their March 2011 engagement. Michele Provost is the visual artist from Gatineau whose work is being responded to with sound. Stephen Ross Smith was a guest poet in town at the last engagement. The rest of the performers are all local poets, musicians and can be found at the literary hotspots.

The March show was a very satisfied and happy crowd to see the absorbing skill of sound timing. It was hard to photograph since for some of the pieces had people moving around the room. It gave a you-had-to-be-there depths of sound and surprise. I look forward to seeing them perform again.

Blonk

Blonk, a musician for 40 years, has performed all over Europe, as well as in the US, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and Latin America. He was in town a few years ago and gave an excellent show of precise and impressive sound gymnastics to a sold out crowd. Catch him in Ottawa on the 25th, or else zip to Toronto as his other engagement in Canada is at the Toronto New School of Writing on the 26th.

Blonk and Playback will the at the NAC’s Fourth Stage on May 25th at 7:30 p.m. You can find more details here!

Giving green artistic life: Pearl partakes in Eco-Jest-Us

Glenn Nuotio performs at Eco-Jest-Us

Pearl Pirie is a local arts enthusiast who arrived in Ottawa about 20 years ago for university. She blogs about the city’s literary events — in both word and image.  Her second full-length poetry collection is coming out this fall.

Eco-Jest-Us, a multi-art variety show put on by BearAmI Theatre to anticipate Earth Day (April 22), had two shows last Saturday, featuring afternoon and evening events. The 2 pm matinee featured films by teens, improv and music performances. There was also a craft table set up for kids to make art — which was put to use before the children showed up.

Photo Credit: Pearl Pirie

Did you know that these ladies at the Ottawa Art Gallery have Creative Sundays each week from 1-3 pm? Behind them is art for sale by the Manotick Art Association, who had a show of art on various media including acrylic, glass and ceramic. Between shows there was a photo show with music.

Photo Credit: Pearl Pirie

Here, a picture of A Hundred Foot Line, is one of the Dendroid series of scultures by Roxy Paine.

“For him, the Dendroids represent an attempt to observe trees as a language governed by rules and structures and reflect his thoughts on human encroachment on the environment. “

In the evening, from 7 pm to nearly 11 pm, there was a packed-schedule of musicians, dramatic readings, poems, improv comedy and, in the entry room, an art show, tables about theatre groups, books for sale, displays by groups including WaterCan and a silent auction. Hosting was Sterling Lynch of Ottawa Sneezers.

There were dozens of performers in all including a few musicians, about a dozen readers and two speakers, including Beatrice Olivastri. She talked about the conundrum of the local, how it can impede our information flow on common issues — when laws affecting Halifax could collaborate with comparable conflicts in Victoria. She has been working for environmental responsibility for 40 years in the public discourse. She now looks at it from the position of CEO of Ecojustice.

Jennifer Vallance

And as a new Ottawa transplant who came to town and joined Sanita’s Playback Theatre in 2009, Jennifer Vallance gave a dramatic monologue about the perplexing puzzle of how to make people attend to small things. Do we only have an eye trained for catastrophe?

LM Rochfort

Local writer LM Rochefort lent some poems to the stage, including a poem about these plastic islands the size of Texas floating around our oceans. That poem was selected for one of the prizes in the Jackpine sonnet contest. She also read a surreal poem about an iceberg and tear in time space in the fridge. What time does a busy suburban working mom have for dealing with such an environmental rupture?

Carol Stephen, read her poem about the expansion of Hwy 7, Alligators — No Swimming, which starts:

You could call it swamp, you could call it “Wetlands” — that small stand of trees bulrushes and water. A sign said, “ Alligators — No Swimming.” It was an inside joke.

Phil Genest’s troupe, Insensitivity Training also brought comedy to the stage including audience participation for their improv. And Alastair Larwill gave a high-energy reading.

Insensitivity Training, a comedy troupe

Alastair Larwill

He’ll be next on stage in a sound poetry performance as part of Messagio Galore VIII at the Writers Festival on May 1. Glenn Nuotio closed the show resoundingly with some light and poking songs, covered in more detail on my own blog.

David Chernushenko

And there’s a lot going on all April for Earth Month. The Ottawa International Writers Festival is bringing in Tim Flannery to talk about a natural history of our planet on April 14. And on April 23-24, at the R.A. Centre, the Eco Expo takes place with a focus on green, local and healthy living. (Entrance by donation. Open from from 10 am – 4 pm.)

David Chernushenko’s film, Powerful: Energy for Everyone, is a hundred-mile film about people grabbing some empowerment with the hydro power and bringing some living lightly to the environment. A short version airs with a discussion time on April 27 at the Mayfair Theatre.

Going green has never been so fun — or beautiful! Thanks, Pearl. And don’t forget to check out the 1st annual cupcake challenge, with Hilary Duff, at the upcoming Eco Expo!