Hello loves,
Well allright, I have been neglecting this blog thing. It's hard for me to pay attention with facebook, twitter, and my new website, jcpeters.ca : please go there to see what I've been up to. I can upload audio tracks of sets around town, youtube videos of my poetry, articles and book reviews I've written, AND links to every single episode of AudioText that happens. Check it out.
In the meantime, I'm starting a new blog in honour of my wine club, Winos United. Check it out here: winosunited.blogspot.com
aight?
peace up
Friday, May 22, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
News! Poetry! Life!
March 17th! Well that was a long time ago since my last post!
Things have been a little crazy on this end (tell me something new, right?) and I've been a little disorganized.
I'm writing this post from my parent's couch, on the first day off I've had in about 2 weeks. I just moved here from my old place because I wasn't able to find a place to live for April 1st. I did find a sweet one for May 1st, though, right near the Drive, that I'm pretty excited to move into pretty soon. My chaise lounge is already there, and I wonder how she likes it so far.
Anyway, this means it's me and the parents for a month. It's not so bad, we're never here at the same time, and I get to use the car a lot, which I like more than I'd like to admit. Getting to Burnaby is just so much easier in a vehicle, it's just true.
Anyway, I've been doing this thing called the Poem a Day Challenge for April, which is Poetry Month. Every day, Robert Brewer posts a prompt here: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/. You post your poem in the comments section every day, and there's going to be some sort of ebook at the end I don't quite understand yet.
Anyway, it's been amazing for me to be writing this much. It's busted me out of my usual writing box (sex, sex, sex, love, sex--boring!) and I've got a whole bunch of other stuff that's been on my mind out. I feel GREAT! Daily therapy. Love it.
On Tuesday night, I went to this event called Foundationradio.ca....'s open mic I guess. I'm not sure what the name of the night is, but it's every other Tuesday at Nyala on Main and 26th. It's amazing....i've never had such a good response from an audience. I read one of my (edited) poem a day poems on the open mic, and the response was really overwhelming. I recorded everything, of course, and I'm posting a recording of the new poem to my website as we speak. Check out the A/V section at jcpeters.ca to hear it.
I also read a poem a day poem on my radio show yesterday, which you can download and listen to here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090408-152500-to-20090408-160000.mp3
And if that's not immediate enough for ya, here's yet another one from the same well of creativity:
Outsider
I just wanted to know that you were in there somewhere.
I wanted to be sure that when your personality split
like a reproducing cell
two equally sized and shaped blobs of yourself at first,
then shaking, quavering into something else,
someone else I didn't recognize,
that you were still, somehow, the blob I used to know.
I wanted to know that from across this table, glass of wine in my hand
half full beer in yours
that you were still in there somewhere.
I can't feel anything but sorry.
I dreamt all last night of letting people down
of being late, of getting lost, of forgetting the safe combination
and being unable to speak the language where you are.
For all the words flying like artillery between us,
trying to understand, trying to make sense,
we're just not speaking the same tongue.
I could touch your hand from where I'm sitting,
but I don't.
And it's only April 10th. Stay tuned for more!
Things have been a little crazy on this end (tell me something new, right?) and I've been a little disorganized.
I'm writing this post from my parent's couch, on the first day off I've had in about 2 weeks. I just moved here from my old place because I wasn't able to find a place to live for April 1st. I did find a sweet one for May 1st, though, right near the Drive, that I'm pretty excited to move into pretty soon. My chaise lounge is already there, and I wonder how she likes it so far.
Anyway, this means it's me and the parents for a month. It's not so bad, we're never here at the same time, and I get to use the car a lot, which I like more than I'd like to admit. Getting to Burnaby is just so much easier in a vehicle, it's just true.
Anyway, I've been doing this thing called the Poem a Day Challenge for April, which is Poetry Month. Every day, Robert Brewer posts a prompt here: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/. You post your poem in the comments section every day, and there's going to be some sort of ebook at the end I don't quite understand yet.
Anyway, it's been amazing for me to be writing this much. It's busted me out of my usual writing box (sex, sex, sex, love, sex--boring!) and I've got a whole bunch of other stuff that's been on my mind out. I feel GREAT! Daily therapy. Love it.
On Tuesday night, I went to this event called Foundationradio.ca....'s open mic I guess. I'm not sure what the name of the night is, but it's every other Tuesday at Nyala on Main and 26th. It's amazing....i've never had such a good response from an audience. I read one of my (edited) poem a day poems on the open mic, and the response was really overwhelming. I recorded everything, of course, and I'm posting a recording of the new poem to my website as we speak. Check out the A/V section at jcpeters.ca to hear it.
I also read a poem a day poem on my radio show yesterday, which you can download and listen to here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090408-152500-to-20090408-160000.mp3
And if that's not immediate enough for ya, here's yet another one from the same well of creativity:
Outsider
I just wanted to know that you were in there somewhere.
I wanted to be sure that when your personality split
like a reproducing cell
two equally sized and shaped blobs of yourself at first,
then shaking, quavering into something else,
someone else I didn't recognize,
that you were still, somehow, the blob I used to know.
I wanted to know that from across this table, glass of wine in my hand
half full beer in yours
that you were still in there somewhere.
I can't feel anything but sorry.
I dreamt all last night of letting people down
of being late, of getting lost, of forgetting the safe combination
and being unable to speak the language where you are.
For all the words flying like artillery between us,
trying to understand, trying to make sense,
we're just not speaking the same tongue.
I could touch your hand from where I'm sitting,
but I don't.
And it's only April 10th. Stay tuned for more!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Marginalia by Billy Collins
I don't know who Billy Collins is, but I just found this poem in an archive of stuff from my old computer, and thought YES! This is amazing! I can't remember who gave it to me, but thanks, person I forget. This poem is awesome.
Marginalia
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have manage to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
Billy Collins
Marginalia
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have manage to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
Billy Collins
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Sistahood Slam on YouTube!
For those of you who missed the Sistahood Slam this past Monday, i am really sorry for you. The good news is that Warren Dean Fulton was lovely enough to compile a teaser from the evening similar to the one from the WOWPS playoffs, so you can see what you missed.
Never fear though, more poetry is always to come. I remind you to check out my radio show, AudioText, to get your fix (which you can access through my website, jcpeters.ca) and to keep an eye on Cafe Deux Soleils, Cafe Montmartre, and the Cottage Bistro for events coming up. Tonight, for example, there is a poetry event featuring Afua Cooper down at Raw Canvas in Yaletown. It's one of my favourite places to read poetry, so I'll most likely be there on the open mic, recording everything at the same time. So stay tuned.
here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wte3pbcYquA
Never fear though, more poetry is always to come. I remind you to check out my radio show, AudioText, to get your fix (which you can access through my website, jcpeters.ca) and to keep an eye on Cafe Deux Soleils, Cafe Montmartre, and the Cottage Bistro for events coming up. Tonight, for example, there is a poetry event featuring Afua Cooper down at Raw Canvas in Yaletown. It's one of my favourite places to read poetry, so I'll most likely be there on the open mic, recording everything at the same time. So stay tuned.
here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wte3pbcYquA
News! Yoga! Life!
Hello everyone!
It's been a little while, and I've been slack with keeping up on this here blog. Lots has been going on. Lots.
One thing is that I've been working on my website a fair bit: jcpeters.ca. Check it out if you like and you can read poems, listen to and watch perfomances, even read my academic articles! Crazy I know!
Now, onto the news portion of the evening:
I've been spending a lot of time doing things like meditating and yin yoga, getting massages and trying to get back to my roots and figure all my shit out. Things like, what do I want out of life? What direction should I be going in? As it turns out, you can get this kind of perspective without escaping to a cabin in the woods (though that helps)--the magic is in not dating for a while. Or just getting rid of whatever is cluttering your thinking to give yourself some space. I can't recommend this 40 day revolution thing enough--i'm on day 39 and I feel like my whole life has changed. I think we all know what we need to do to get that kind of perspective, we just have to figure out how to tap into it.
In any case, the obvious solution presented itself to me: teach yoga! Of course! I'm starting an intensive certification course at the end of May, and then I'm gonna be a YOGA TEACHER!
On that note: check out this awesome picture of me and my biceps made out of fighter jets! This was from an excellent Anusara workshop with Chris Chavez, by the way.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
hi!
Hey! Hey bloggers!
Nice to see ya. I never get comments from you, so I forget to check back, but I hear you guys are listening: look: 48% or so of people who saw my stuttering poem on youtube heard it here first, apparently. How awesome! Hey thanks for reading great people! I like you a whole lot.
In any case, I have lots to say, and will do over the next little while, but first I just wanted to say thanks for listening. I remind you all, too, to check out jcpeters.ca for updated a/v like they used to say in high school and news that's happening in the world. And by world I mean around Julie Peters. That's Julie Peters. Got it? Yes you do. I like you.
More soon, I promise!
and thanks, sincerely, as always.
Nice to see ya. I never get comments from you, so I forget to check back, but I hear you guys are listening: look: 48% or so of people who saw my stuttering poem on youtube heard it here first, apparently. How awesome! Hey thanks for reading great people! I like you a whole lot.
In any case, I have lots to say, and will do over the next little while, but first I just wanted to say thanks for listening. I remind you all, too, to check out jcpeters.ca for updated a/v like they used to say in high school and news that's happening in the world. And by world I mean around Julie Peters. That's Julie Peters. Got it? Yes you do. I like you.
More soon, I promise!
and thanks, sincerely, as always.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Apologize: a poem on YouTube
Friday, February 06, 2009
blog blargh
So it's come to my attention, again, that people do, in fact, read my blog. I got in trouble for this today, for giving out some confidential information about a certain government institution. Oops. um. Confidential information edited out. I have to be more careful about this kind of thing now that i'm a big celebrity.
As a side note, a friend of mine recently told me he could see me becoming a minor celebrity, a big fish in a small pond, and then moving to New York. ...Then what? I asked. Then nothing: apparently I just get to be a big fish in a small pond. That's a depressing fortune, don't you think?
Anyway, I'll take it.
Have you been listening to my radio show, by the way? AudioText is on every Wednesday on CITR, 101.9 FM in Vancouver, or online at citr.ca. You can also get the links to the podcasts through my brand spanking new (and still kink-full, so be warned) website: jcpeters.ca. I promise I won't give out any of your confidential information on it. Or on the blog. You can comment. It's okay.
As a side note, a friend of mine recently told me he could see me becoming a minor celebrity, a big fish in a small pond, and then moving to New York. ...Then what? I asked. Then nothing: apparently I just get to be a big fish in a small pond. That's a depressing fortune, don't you think?
Anyway, I'll take it.
Have you been listening to my radio show, by the way? AudioText is on every Wednesday on CITR, 101.9 FM in Vancouver, or online at citr.ca. You can also get the links to the podcasts through my brand spanking new (and still kink-full, so be warned) website: jcpeters.ca. I promise I won't give out any of your confidential information on it. Or on the blog. You can comment. It's okay.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
AudioText podcasts!
Hey y'all,
It feels like ages since I've posted here. I've been really busy lately, with the new radio show, the yoga reception job, interviews, and writing projects. I got a little panicky yesterday, but now all is good again. There's time.
In other news, AudioText is up and running, and it's going GREAT. I'm having so much fun. And now, the moment you've been waiting for: the podcasts are working! It was all my fault they weren't actually, but I've figured it out, and now it seems to be working.
You can listen to the most recent show here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090128-180000-to-20090128-183500.mp3
It was an interview with Kevan Cameron AKA Scruffmouth, and a reading from Jordan Scott's blert. It was amazing. But don't take my word for it....
It feels like ages since I've posted here. I've been really busy lately, with the new radio show, the yoga reception job, interviews, and writing projects. I got a little panicky yesterday, but now all is good again. There's time.
In other news, AudioText is up and running, and it's going GREAT. I'm having so much fun. And now, the moment you've been waiting for: the podcasts are working! It was all my fault they weren't actually, but I've figured it out, and now it seems to be working.
You can listen to the most recent show here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090128-180000-to-20090128-183500.mp3
It was an interview with Kevan Cameron AKA Scruffmouth, and a reading from Jordan Scott's blert. It was amazing. But don't take my word for it....
Thursday, January 15, 2009
wax poetic
Hey all,
Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a guest on RC Weslowski, SR Duncan, and Diane Laloge's poetry show on CFRO 102.1, COOP radio. It was really wonderful for me to get to read some of my poetry on the air and be able to talk about it too, in terms of my influences, theories about what poetry is and means, and even some of the gnarly gender stuff i've been dealing with lately. I have this chunk of archive here, so you can just scroll to about halfway through and hear the interview. I'll make it into an mp3 somehow soon, but in the meantime:
http://cfro.virishi.net/mp3/t1231972558.mp3
Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a guest on RC Weslowski, SR Duncan, and Diane Laloge's poetry show on CFRO 102.1, COOP radio. It was really wonderful for me to get to read some of my poetry on the air and be able to talk about it too, in terms of my influences, theories about what poetry is and means, and even some of the gnarly gender stuff i've been dealing with lately. I have this chunk of archive here, so you can just scroll to about halfway through and hear the interview. I'll make it into an mp3 somehow soon, but in the meantime:
http://cfro.virishi.net/mp3/t1231972558.mp3
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
show on COOP radio
Also, this Wednesday Jan 14 (tomorrow) I'll be reading some of my own poetry on RC and Steve Duncan's poetry show Wax Poetic () http://poetryradio.blogspot.com/2009/01/upcoming-january-14-julie-peters.html
If you want to listen live, it's at 2pm on 102.7 CFRO or online streaming at http://www.coopradio.org/
Talk to ya then
If you want to listen live, it's at 2pm on 102.7 CFRO or online streaming at http://www.coopradio.org/
Talk to ya then
Monday, January 12, 2009
AudioText at last!
Dear friends,
Good news! The long-awaited new poetry show exists! In the real world! You can even podcast it!
AudioText is a show about Canadian writing. I will be playing interviews, spoken word cds, and recordings of poetry, short story readings, and whatever else I can think of. Check it out at 6pm every Wednesday at 101.9FM, or listen online at citr.ca, or podcast it at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/xml/audiotext.xml
This week: an interview with Bonnie Nish from Pandora's Collective, some spoken word from the poetry slam, and a delicious reading (of my choice) by your lovely host, me.
Good news! The long-awaited new poetry show exists! In the real world! You can even podcast it!
AudioText is a show about Canadian writing. I will be playing interviews, spoken word cds, and recordings of poetry, short story readings, and whatever else I can think of. Check it out at 6pm every Wednesday at 101.9FM, or listen online at citr.ca, or podcast it at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/xml/audiotext.xml
This week: an interview with Bonnie Nish from Pandora's Collective, some spoken word from the poetry slam, and a delicious reading (of my choice) by your lovely host, me.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Last night, at Cafe Deux Soleils, I and 7 other of the top women poets from this season competed to represent the VanSlam at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Detroit in March. It was a great night--Sasha Langford was the very deserving winner (she was freaking fantastic) and I won third. It was a great night for women's poetry. The lovely Warren Dean Fulton did this 'montage' of highlights from everyone--check it out here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc3a28gdsMg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc3a28gdsMg
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