Feb
21
2007
Kerry Wins The Face Off!
Wow! Kerry Mulholland, my wife-to-be, has won the CBC's poetry face-off! The competition was pretty tight. Ian Letourneau gave a compelling read (I'd love to read his piece on the page). Daniel Poitras crushed out a helluva tribute to Canadian men. Kathy Fisher delivered a stirring and rousing piece on the Canadian beaver. And I shot out a piece on the great Canadian game. But Ker's was the one that roused the most. An expertly crafted, beautiful, and ostensibly humorous poem about Canada, her piece held a damning undercurrent that said, "we aren't as good as we think we are." It was truly deserving of the title.
Kerry's poem now moves on to represent Edmonton in the National Poetry Face Off, to occur in April of 2007. She'll have some stiff competition to be sure, but I believe the poem's got the chops to make it. I'll be rooting for her all the way.
Fucking awesome, Kerry!
me
I hope next year they allow everyone to read again instead of a select chosen few.
# Feb 22 2007 · 14:00
thomas
I’m hoping the Raving Poets are going to play a bigger role in the selection process in the coming year. Allan Boss, the producer of the the Alberta CBC Poetry Face-offs, and I will hopefully be sitting down once it’s all said and done….to discuss the role Raving Poets could possible play in the coming year…a series of competitive nights culminating in the selction of some of the poets in the competition? Who knows. I, for one, do not want to go back to the “American Idol” style of “everyone is welcome” and then a five-hour marathon of incredibly bad verse….with a few shining moments. My two cents.
# Feb 22 2007 · 15:29
Mike Gravel
I don’t think an open-call, free-for-all is the answer for this type of thing. Staging an exhaustive, multi-hour reading with judging isn’t fair to anyone – especially the poets at the end of the list (trust me, I have experience with this sort of thing). It’s just not a realistic way of doing it.
Some sort of elimination process would be appropriate.
Having said that, I also don't think that every single poetry event has to be "fair" and open to everyone.
# Feb 22 2007 · 17:37
ink slinger
@Thomas: I’ve only met him once, and spoken to him only briefly, but I get the impression that Allan Boss is the kind of guy who would be open to the sort of things you seem to have in mind.
# Feb 22 2007 · 21:21