AroarA w/ Christine McNair, Mark Goldstein and the Dreamachine Exhibit
Niagara Artists Center, St Paul Street
St Catharines, Ontario
April 26th, 2013.
Hosts Eric Schmaltz and Craig Dodman closed a proud chapter
in the Grey Borders Reading Series with a stacked bill that brought poetry,
music and a Dreamachine (!!) to downtown St Catharines. Narrowly making it to the
event on time, I was feeling less than prepared, having loaned my camera and
succumbing to anxiety as soon as I stepped inside. (It happens, and explains in part why I didn't hurry to tidy up and post this recap a month sooner... Apologies.)
The evening commenced with Christine McNair, who was reading
from her recent BookThug collection Conflict. I’m always in awe of McNair’s
delivery, the way her tone and diction protect words that might otherwise
sound like fragile leaps in composition. Such is the case in “Risk
Assessment”, where McNair places more emphasis on the feeling of words than
linear narrative. That solemn clarity underlines the title of her book by
grouping ideas like white blood cells around a theme like the damaging of vital
organs, or insistently repeating a word that roots itself in unresolved
emotion. Elsewhere, during “Problem With Orchids”, the analysis of a flower
seems to embody a rush of causes for irreconcilable relationship breakdown,
with McNair choosing tributaries of action – domestic abuse, unkept promises –
over cautious deliberation. Hearing McNair read provides an entirely unique
perspective to poems one might respond differently to on paper. I strongly recommend experiencing them both ways.
Mark Goldstein read new, so far unpublished work; some “last
poems” on decaying health but mostly writing about the “form of forms” - creation, surrogacy and birth. In “Separation”, Goldstein counted one-thousand-and-one through one-thousand-and-four, creating a verbal heartbeat
and the potential for some hiccup or defect. Along with new beginnings came
adopted legal phrases (i.e. “fake
forgery of unrelated family”) that attached themselves to what Goldstein referred to as “a family of problems”. Yet his ruminations on personal bonds, often
whispered to great effect during key phrases, superseded obligatory rites of
passage and made for a greatly satisfying listen.
While many spent intermission indulging in extra drinks and
conversation, I opted to check out Johnny Smoke’s Dreamachine exhibit. Under a
red tent decorated with a Persian rug and sham pillows sat a spinning cylinder
containing light. I closed my eyes and let its light cross my eyelids like
flickering frames of an old film. I encountered no hallucinations, no
transcendence. However the warm hues gradually turned green, then blue, and the
frames seemed to slow each time my mind began to drift. My anxiety appreciated the time-out.
The exhibit not only added a curious element to
intermission, it provided ideal mood lighting for AroarA; the husband and wife
duo of Andrew Whiteman (of Broken Social Scene, Apostle of Hustle) and Ariel
Engle (Moufette). Given the group’s lyrical preoccupation with Alice Notley’s
In the Pines, I anticipated a more cerebral performance than anything tunefully
engaging. I anticipated wrong. Having approached their set as a curious
why-not, I found myself increasingly aware that I was two yard-sticks away from
an amazing merger of poetry and raw musicianship. Whiteman’s showmanship was on
full evangelical display and Engle’s voice, rich with soul, pulled emotion from
repeated phrases over slow atmospherics and bluesy guitar licks. Their hypnotic
grooves and dual vocal harmonies were consistently jaw-dropping.
As madly as I’d raced the clock to attend the final Grey
Borders Reading Series event, I left to host a last-minute family function at
home. But not before stopping by the merch table and collecting some
must-haves... Can’t say I’ve ever left a poetry reading with a CD in hand but
AroarA clearly set out to re-write some rules that evening. Congratulations to
Grey Borders Reading Series on a stellar season.
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