The Single Onion reading series presents an evening of poetry with Lorna Crozier, Kirk Ramdath, and Midnight Yoga for Alcoholics. The featured readings will be preceded by an open mic. Please come early to sign up if are interested in reading for the open mic. This event kicks off the exciting fall season.
WHEN: Thursday, September 15th, at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: The Auburn Saloon, #163 115 9th Ave SE
Lorna Crozier was born in 1948 in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. As a child growing up in a prairie community where the local heroes were hockey players and curlers, she “never once thought of being a writer.” After university, Lorna went on to teach high school English and work as a guidance counsellor. During these years, Lorna published her first poem in Grain magazine, a publication that turned her life toward writing. Her first collection, Inside in the Sky, was published in 1976. Since then, she has authored 14 books of poetry, including The Garden Going on Without Us, Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence, Inventing the Hawk (winner of the 1992 Governor-General’s Award), Everything Arrives at the Light, Apocrypha of Light, What the Living Won’t Let Go, and most recently Small Mechanics. Whether Lorna is writing about angels, aging, or Louis Armstrong’s trout sandwich, she continues to engage readers and writers across Canada and the world with her grace, wisdom and wit. She is, as Margaret Laurence wrote, “a poet to be grateful for.”
Kirk Ramdath is a mainstay among Calgary’s poets and spoken-word artists. His “Passion Pitch” poetry series has brought together a wide range of writers to share their words and music, drinks and discussion in an era when the open mic reading, so fertile a ground for many writers practicing today, has been abandoned. He has organized poetry-in-the-park readings, as well as some of the readings in the Single Onion series. Kirk’s poetry has appeared in chapbooks, journals, and on stage – he was one of the first readers in the Calgary Spoken-Word Festival’s “Smart Men, Hot Words” readings. His poetry is noted, appropriately, given the reading series he founded, for its passion and sensuality. His first collection, Love in a Handful of Dust, was published this spring by Frontenac House.
Midnight Yoga for Alcoholics (Kirk Miles & Ken Sinclair): To enrol for classes take these three simple steps. Step One: Grab a back-porch gut-bucket of blues – the kind that creeps out of the Mississippi delta like a snake-tongued slide guitar. The label should read old-school and include equal chunks of stone hoodoo, nightshade, and ghost trains. Step Two: Into the bucket, blend the modern cadences of incisive spoken word. Make sure that you can taste the city. Step Three (How to serve): Garnish with a jazzed penny whistle. Age for at least five decades and serve cold. You are now enrolled in sound fusion. You are making the culture with words. As old as the poet and as new as the microphone.
