Back in 2021, the Edmonton Poetry Festival responded to the pandemic by commissioning poets to create recordings of our work. This is my “virtual chapbook” (to quote Dr. Don Perkins):
This video was recorded on GarageBand and iMovie, using my own music (tracks 2 and 3) and open source Apple Loops arranged by me (all other tracks), and all inadequacies of mixing and EQ are mine; the visuals are from open source online library pixabay.com
Thank you to Edmonton Poetry Festival Artistic Director Shima Robinson/ aka Dwennimen, and to all the poetry community of Edmonton. You have long been inspiring, challenging, and delightful companions along the road of verse.
Track Listing:
- 0:00 – Before and After (prairiepomes.com, 2020) the opening poem from my latest collection, ‘For the One: Poems &Songs’ publication pending
- 0:33 – RaeAnn (words & music @AMSewell 1996), a song I wrote for a colleague who couldn’t break free from the web of addictions
- 5:21 – About the Ocean (Fifth World Drum, Frontenac House, 2009, all the voices are me; ”k’tan’ means ‘ocean’ in Mi’gmaq, ‘nibi’ means ‘water’ in Anishinaabemowin; these are my paternal ancestral languages.
- 7:15 – There is an Onion (prairiepomes, 2019), an ode to food with opinions.
- 10:15 – Constant, Transient, Permanent (prairiepomes, 2021), another ‘For the One’
- 11:19 – Do Not Send (2015) – I wrote this one while walking downtown enroute to perform with a bunch of other Edmonton poets at the CBC Centrestage.
Prairiepomes 