Lillian Allen at the LCP AGM

I happened to come into the panel discussion on Dub poetry and Spoken Word at the LCP AGM just as Lillian Allen started to speak. I've seen her perform a number of times before, and always found her to be really neat, a great performer with a lot of depth, warmth, & humour. I love listening to her Caribbean lilt, and after a few hours would probably start adopting her intonations (I doubt if she would pick up on mine if she listened to me for any length of time -- nor would I wish that on her!).

Here, only slightly expanded upon for coherency, are my notes:.

-- poets (dub) fighting to open up sacred spaces, lost roots

-- alienation from the language of dominent culture, it's supression of vernacular

-- private spaces of communication: you feel it in your body, in who you are, as you express... leads to flow, transformation.

-- perfection (ism?) in language is an excuse for abuse

-- why tenses? Isn't the present tense all we really need?

-- varieties of English (so-called high, low) used for social demarcation, to create heirarchies (convenient way to shut out the underprivileged, stigmatize users of so-called slang & varient forms...) : Lillian's response:

"The Queen's language is her own,
& she should speak it from her throne."

(audience laughs)

Dub:

-- forming collectives, rehearsal space
-- going back to language, words; & words back to roots in music.
-- not done to make money
-- poet as speaker for community: everyman cultural leader, inspiration for others
-- asks people to consider what is important in their lives
-- turning information into knowlege (inner truth, conviction)
-- political agenda: underprivilged rise up, throw aside fetters, claim what is theirs, birthright
-- akin to liberation theology. Dub poetry is liberation theology.

-- we need these voices, they are not superior or inferior, but a necessary part of the spectrum
-- do we prefer them cut out, ignored, to go back underground?

Lillian of course read/recited a couple of her poems... poems I would imagine would be half alive on the page, but which performed were as fully, truly alive. Following her was a young fellow who goes by the name of Spin. He did a remarkable recitation (more hip-hop influenced of course than Lillian), so did a younger protege of about 15. Spin emphasised poetry as a means by which the underprileged can not only to tell others what's wrong, but share what has empowered them to overcome their difficulties (including heavy stuff like substance abuse, doing time in prison, etc.), become an example for others. He promotes dub poetry in the Ontario school system.

If you want a good capsule definition of Dub Poetry, check this link. Interesting... Lillian is listed there as one of the notable practitioners of the art...

LEAGUE OF POETS AGM

Back I am from Toronto and here as promised... The LCP AGM (otherwise known as the League of Canadian Poets Annual General Meeting), which took place this year at University of Toronto's Hart House, will certainly be remembered, among other things, as the Meeting Where We Practically Sweltered To Death. Hart House, gorgeous though it may be architecturally, is not air conditioned, and those few days Toronto was about as hot & muggy as it gets, with temperatures soaring to 33 degrees C. and heavy smog warnings in effect. Pretty hard to listen to readings and discussion without falling into a slumber and slithering in sweat out of one's chair!

Last year it so happens I also went to the AGM, which took place in Montreal, my other home town. Below are comments I made at that time. A number of them apply to this year so for ease and speed I cut, paste, & compare. Here goes:

... It was enjoyable, hearing the readings, book launches, speeches, and sitting in on committee meetings, awards ceremonies and the like. Tempting though it is, I won't be too sardonic: the polite-old-ladies-in-pearls-and-flowered-dresses contingent was pretty prominent among the hundred or so present, as were the grey-professor-poets. In fact I felt like one of the younger ones there. Where was the young blood? I could have counted younger poets on one hand. My partner wondered if it reflects on poetry as a dying art in our society, that very few young people are writing it anymore. Actually it reflects on poetry funding as ... well... a dying industry. Travel/accommodation costs to the AGM aren't subsidized anymore, so any out-of-towners have to shell out of their own pockets to be there. That pretty well cuts out anyone but the well-heeled and tenured. Since arts funding is so poor right now - the entire budget for poetry readings (for 500-odd members) from Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, the Heritage Ministry, etc. is $80,000 (think of it -- it's the salary of an average city bus driver or traffic cop) -- things are rather limited.

Ibid for this year, except that younger poets were somewhat more in evidence, partly because Torontonians in the organization could attend without incurring outlandish travel costs, partly because the meeting featured a panel discussion on Dub Poetry and Spoken Word, and a handful of younger representatives of Poetry Dub- & Slamdom were among the more prominent participants in the AGM as a whole.

To its credit, this overly WASP organization (one friend calls it the League of Canadian Anglo Poets With Money; a number of leading members have drawn attention to the problem of lack of diversity) is making a concerted effort to embrace minority poets and attract them into its fold. This year, for instance, Lillian Allen (a longtime member, by the way) and the Slam poet Spin participated in the panel discussion mentioned above; George Elliott Clarke, who at the age of 45 is already perhaps our most distinguished Afro-Canadian poet, conducted the Anne Szumigalski Memorial Lecture, focussing on nature of black poetics in Canada and how black poets and writers have been consistently dismissed and overlooked by our traditionally all-white literary establishment.

More on these panel discussions, etc. in posts to come. . .