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| Jeanette Kelly |
CBC arts reporter Jeanette Kelly has run away and joined the Circus. Ringmistress of the Greatest Show on Earth, she will be hosting the 6th annual Circus of Words / Cirque des mots taking place on Saturday May 1st at 8:00 PM at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts. This year’s lineup features Paul Van Dyck, Jessica Rose, Franklyne, Monk-E, Groupe de poésie moderne and Meryem Saci.
“CBC, Poetry Quebec and Circus of Words have joined forces to promote National Poetry Month,” explains poet and producer Endre Farkas. “The creative brain trust of the CBC Homerun crew decided to celebrate this important event by running a poetry contest asking listeners to submit original poems about their favourite Montreal place. Parks, landmarks, cafés, restaurants, hotdog joints, hangouts – the sky is the limit.”
Farkas says that it was fortuitous that Circus of Words / Cirque des mots, Montreal’s premiere annual poetry performance event, is scheduled for the tail end of National Poetry Month. He and co-producer Carolyn Marie Souaid were approached by CBC just a few days ago to join forces and offer their event as part of the prize. Not only does the winning poet win a pair of tickets to the Circus, he or she gets to recite and/or perform the poem live at the show. “We were delighted by the idea,” says Souaid. “It fits in perfectly with our mandate of reaching out to the public.” To top it off, the winning entry will be published in a the next issue of PQ (Poetry Quebec), an online magazine published by Farkas, Souaid and a third poet, Elias Letelier. “With PQ getting over 60,000 hits a month, from all over the world, this means that the winning entry will get world-wide exposure,” says Farkas. “The standard print run of a book of poetry is only about 500 copies and a poet is lucky if he sells 300 over a number of years.”
Until April 23, poems will be read on CBC Radio, Montreal will be poeticized, and the muses will be pleased! Don’t miss Homerun on Monday, April 26 when the winner will be announced.
We encourage Montrealers to celebrate their city by putting pen to paper, or fingers to keys, as the case may be. You can enter two ways, either call 514-597-7222 and record your poem on their talk back machine or send it to homerun@cbc.ca.
And, as the quintessential Montreal poet A.M. Klein once wrote:
“O city metropole, isle riverain!
Your ancient pavages and sainted routes
Traverse my spirit’s conjured avenues!
Splendour erablic of your promenades
Foliates there, and there your maisonry
Of pendant balcon and escalier’d march,
Unique midst English habitat,
Is vivid Normandy!
(from the poem “Montreal”)
