SARS-CoV-2 at the Cadence Video Poetry Festival
April 21, 2022 § Leave a comment
My poetry film SARS-CoV-2, with sound scored by Hazel Fairbairn, will be screening in person and virtually as part of “As the wind is breathing” showcase at the Cadence Video Poetry Festival:
Explorations and exploitations of sound—the sound of words, the sound of anxiety, the sound of abstraction. This showcase features works that bring ancient poetic traditions of musicality and rhythm to a contemporary foreground across Super 8 footage, paintings, performance, and animation. Some skim the surface of music video buoyancy, some are a discordant choreography of the senses, all use audio as integral to the experience of language.
Watch online, 21 April through 1 May; watch in person, 11 April through 29 April (Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm), at Jack Straw Cultural Center, Seattle, WA.
First performance of Ledi for the Assembly exhibit, New Media Gallery, New Westminster
October 23, 2021 § Leave a comment
First performance of Ledi (Book*hug 2018) as response to Assembly exhibit, New Media Gallery, New Westminster. Here, we are inside the Zimoun tower, a construct of cardboard boxes and cotton balls, drumming. Pt.1, “Wrenched from the cold earth,” was performed inside Zimoun. As Herodotus described the burial practices of the Scythians, we exited the grave/kurgan, circling the tower, and moved onward into the dark of the Tan archival exhibit. 
First gig at New Media Gallery — Performance of Ledi
September 13, 2021 § Leave a comment
This is the first of possibly 3 performances of my poetry-film assemblage of Ledi (Book*hug 2018) with fiddle/composer Hazel Fairbairn. Our performance is a response to the Assembly exhibit at the New Media Gallery, New Westminster, featuring Fiona Tan, Zimoun, and Turner-prize-winning artist Elizabeth Bishop: “A collection, a set of instructions, an archive, a regime, a system. This is the Assembly. We recognize the power of an assembly that works, moves and thinks together, with apparent order and regularity. There is a potent force in the impressions and sounds of order; be they utopian or dystopian.
We have an innate desire to control a world in chaos. The will to order is considered one of the essential forces driving human behaviour, leading to such things as laws and institutional systems, rational and scientific thought, educational systems, political and public health orders….war. Art itself can be understood as a desire to order; in the development of systems, rules and organizations. At the same time creative thought can be a powerful force with the ability to break down ordering systems And when the assembly breaks down what follows? Out of the chaos new orders are swiftly born. ” (New Media Gallery). Two more performances possibly to be scheduled on the 22nd and 23rd.
f
9th International Video Poetry Festival | Ghost
June 2, 2021 § Leave a comment
The 9th International Video Poetry Festival will begin this Sunday 6th June: an online platform due to the current pandemic restrictions. Normally it is hosted by +the Institute [for Experimental Art] in Athens, Greece. There will be a screening of Ghost, one of my poetry films based on Ledi. Musical score by Hazel Fairbairn.
Debuts this Sunday! You can check out the program here and the online screening platform here.
Shoutout to fellow Canadian film makers whose work will appear at the festival, amongst the 206 video artists from 44 countries!
Marco Joubert.
Sam Luk.
Mironel de Wilde.
Shirley Camia.
Ross Belot.
Helene Matte.
Lina Ramona Vitkauskas.
Archna Sahni.
“Tardigrade”: One Minute Poem @ Poets Corner
May 16, 2021 § 2 Comments
Ecopoetry at Poets Corner, Wed. 19th May @7:30pm Pacific via Zoom
May 15, 2021 § Leave a comment
I’m one of the 2 featured readers for our ecopoetry evening at Poets Corner, this Wednesday 19th May @7:30pm. I’ll be screening some new ecopoetry films with original musical scores by Hazel Fairbairn, including “Tardigrade.” [Check out an excerpt from “Tardigrade” on the One Minute Poem feature on Poets Corner’s YouTube channel!].
Our other featured reader will be Adam Dickinson, whose latest book, Anatomic (Coach House Books, 2018) concerns the results of chemical and microbial testing on his body and won the Alanna Bondar Memorial Book Prize from the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada.
You can register now for our Zoom virtual poetry reading at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qcu-oqTwiHN3Y2F1CmZYgIChv8Gmz7Mto
Tact, Distance, Excavation: An Evening with Jason Camlot, Avleen K. Mokha, and Kim Trainor
June 4, 2020 § Leave a comment
I’ll be reading from Ledi next week, Thursday 11th June, from 6 to 7:30pm EST, with Jason Camlot and Avleen K. Mokha for McGill University’s POETRY MATTERS. Part of my reading will include the first instalment of a poetry film of Ledi, “Integument,” with original music by Hazel Fairbairn.
To register for this event, please visit: https://www.mcgill.ca/poetrymatters/registration.
The Radio People by Sleeping Ducks
December 1, 2019 § Leave a comment
1 December 2019.
Below zero. Frost on the ground. Bog sheathed in ice. A dark eyed junco dead at the edge of the forest, ice crystals growing on head and wing.
Listening to this ethereal recording by my friend Hazel and her UK poet friend Moff.
The Radio People Sleeping Ducks
Moff Skellington – vocals, noises and percussion
Hazel Fairbairn – strings and fx
German Shepherd Records
Recorded in Vancouver and Abstercot
Release Date: 29 November 2019
kim trainor 