Sept
22
2006
Underground Gynos Rock the House
Last night was one of the most fun and exciting evenings of poetry and spoken word that I have ever experienced. It was the "Literary Pub Crawl" portion of The Roar Festival. I enjoyed my reading immensely - it felt so great to stretch out a bit and do an extended reading. Got some great feedback after the show. Always nice to hear that. My pal JD Lavender was his usual stirring self, and he put on a great and classy show (every time it rains I think of the opening lines to his poem Copper Napoleon: "I don't mind the rain, I don't mind the rain, I don't mind her rain"). He opened with an Al Purdy poem - very classy. And Mark Kozub on the bass. What can I say? It was fucking beautiful to have Mark there backing me up, a guy who has inspired me more than anyone. I actually got choked up at one point in my read - Mark's bass was just so damn gorgeous. In all it was a great "first gig" for The Underground Gynecologists.
By all accounts, the rest of the evening was amazing. I heard good things about all the performances - many bridges being built. For me, perhaps the finest part of the evening was seeing Shima Robinson (local poetess of amazing power and command of the word) at the Hip Hop show at the Red Star Pub. She just blew me away. Simply incredible. And her words of thanks to the Raving Poets for giving her a stage early in her career were humbling.
As the festival producer, it was immensely gratifying to see the first night of the The Roar come together so beautifully (a few snags, but hey, it wouldn't be real if there weren't a few minor crises). I felt that we were doing something truly worthwhile. Truly contributing to E-Town's arts scene. It feels fucking grand.
