A Day in Calgary

Thursday night I went to a slam poetry/hip-hop/surrealist play/poetry reading event. All of the readers/actors were accompanied by a band which flipped me into reveries about how we process the sounds of music and the sounds of language and how the two function together. Why don't more poets, prose writers read with accomplaniment?



Friday morning I hung out at the hospitality suite for a short time. On each floor's lobby are these great phones. I had no reason to use one, so I picked up the receiver and pretended, no one looking.

This is the roof of the Hyatt's lower wing.



Poet/Fiction Writer Stuart Ross, author of "I Cut My Finger" gamely poses beside the Hyatt buffalo. (I will be linking these folks to their websites when I finish my tutorial so check back in!)



There is a wonderful indie bookstore in Calgary, Pages on Kensington, and Gil Adamson and I "signed stock" there. I am amazed when I see my book in bookstores and to find it in a Canadian bookstore is really incredible. Gil and I went upstairs to the Prairie Ink coffee shop and talked agents until it was time for me to head back to the hotel, get my luggage and catch the shuttle to Banff. In the elevator I saw Lisa Moore (Alligator) a fellow Black Cat author and introduced myself. She looked a little off-put but shook my hand and then went back to her business with her associates.

At the hospitality suite people were collecting in groups. Misunderstanding the call to leave, I trailed after a group, including poet Dennis Lee, the incredible Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy, and Lisa Moore down sixteen floors, across the lobby until I wondered why I was the only one with luggage. They were heading off to perform at an Anansi Press 50th Anniversary reading, and to go to the Anansi press party afterward. Not a little embarassing. Later thinking about it I cringed further. I had sent Lisa a short note before I left in what I thought was a breezy tone (we both have one word titles and Elizabeth for a publicist!) But thinking about now, it it was probably not breezy but idiotic and may have made her think I was a wierd stalker person especially with me bumping along behind them with my rolling suitcase...