Lit Live Worth The Trip To The Hammer
It was exhausting but worth it. Yesterday’s trip to Hamilton was a pretty cool experience, and for someone who missed one of the best Superbowls ever as I am hearing, I felt that what distracted me was just as awesome.
Kevin Fortnum was cool enough to accompany me to the gig. We caught the GO bus at 3:30pm, and ended up getting to Hamilton in about 50 minutes. On the way there, as luck would have it, we struck up some cool conversation with this girl named Nicole who happened to be the bartender at the Sky Dragon Centre where the, she also runs her own open mic there called “The Seen.” When we arrived in Hamilton we walked to the spot where the gig would be as it was not open yet, and then decided to get something to eat. We found out that Hamilton is a barren deserted place on Sunday afternoon, as most restaraunts in the vicinity were closed. There was nobody to be seen, the spot that we saw the most people ironically was a mall that was closed. So we did end up eating, the only restaurant in the vicinity that was open was a fine dining Italian restaurant called “Capri.” It looked like someone’s living room that was turned into a restaurant. There was only one woman working who was waitressing, bartending, and hosting. I had Squid and Penne, and Kevin ended up having Gnocchi, the food was damn good.
Kevin wanted to grab a coffee, and because I was feeling Sunday exhaustion with a gig on the horizon, I was actually wanting one too even though I haven’t had one in a few weeks. Our search for a cafe was just as aimless as our search for a restaurant, but we came upon this cool little Portuguese bakery called “Ola.” Kevin had an espresso, I had a latte and the two of us ended up co-writing a stanza by stanza poem that we were actually somewhat satisfied with.
We headed over to the Sky Dragon centre, also known as Bread And Roses Cafe. Definitely a very cool space. There was a section for zines, and a merch table where I laid my books. The cafe itself served organic food, cool juices, and teas. I was a little nervous to begin with because Litlive is a lot like the Artbar, a lot of literati and academics populate the feature contingent of that series. I got even more nervous when I didn’t see as many younger people, and didn’t know how they’d take to my performance poetry. However, it was a fresh audience, and it was a good crowd. Superbowl Sunday never hurt this series at all. When the host asked me when I would like to go up, I said that I didn’t care, I was just grateful to be there, so he ended up putting me first.
I have to say, I delivered an awesome set, I was really pleased with myself. Everything was tight, and if I stumbled it was slight with instant recovery. Kevin came on stage with me to do our team piece, and it went over amazingly well, it was good that we performed that piece as second last to my set list cause it really helped to win over the crowd. I did the fall, but had to scout out the dimensions of the stage as there was not a lot of space. I was very well received, complimented by several people, and sold a few books to boot. I actually also enjoyed the other writers that read, and they were all very distinctive, and wonderful people to talk to. We ended up staying late until the place was only populated with Kevin, Nicole the bartender, and myself, as we went on to have some more quirky and cool conversation.
For any of my poetry friends that are setting up gigs in Ontario, I heartily recommend Litlive. They haven’t had many slam or performance poets, so like the Artbar, it’s another venue that could easily warm up to our genre. For contact and more info, they have a blog:
http://www.litlive.blogspot.com
We caught the second last GO bus at 11pm,(the last one is 11:30pm) and ended up in Toronto at midnight. I didn’t get home until 12:30am, and was completley fried when I got in. Still though, it was a damn good day, and so far Litlive has been the best feature of the year.
Set List For LitLive – Sunday February 3, 2008
A Good Night To Go Home With Someone
That Morning
This Funk
Swearing You In
How Beautiful/19 Candlesticks (team piece with Kevin Fortnum)
Variations In The Sea
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