Amazons of the Mediterranean

poetry ~ prose ~ comedy

in honour of Italian heritage month

Saturday, June 24, 2017

2:00 to 5:00pm

Black Swan Tavern (2nd Floor)

154 Danforth Avenue, Toronto

featuring

2-3pm

Gianna Patriarca is an award-winning author of eight books of poetry, one children’s book and a collection of short fiction. Her work is extensively anthologized in Canada, Italy and the USA and appears on University courses in all three countries. Her work has been adapted for stage and radio drama and featured in numerous documentaries. Her first book, Italian Women and Other Tragedies, is in its fourth printing and recently was translated into Italian and launched at the University of Naples Orientale and Bologna. Website: giannapatriarca.com

Darlene Madott is a Toronto lawyer and award-winning writer.  Author of seven books, her short fiction has garnered literary awards, including the title story of her seventh book, Making Olives and Other Family Secrets (Ripasso), which won the Bressani Literary Award in 2008, and also included Touching Calabria, a winner in an Accenti Magazine competition. Her collection of linked short-stories Stations of the Heart (Exile Editions, 2013) again won the Bressani Literary Award in 2014.  That collection included Waiting, short-listed for the Vanderbilt/Exile Short Fiction Competition 2011-12 in the established writer category. Website: www.darlenemadott.com

Tina Tzatzanis is a teacher-librarian at an elementary school in Toronto. She is currently on sabbatical, working furiously to complete the first draft of her first novel about a young woman in a small Greek village during the 50s, 60s, and 70s whose life, heavily influenced by patriarchal forces, the politics of the times, and fate, frays into three distinct paths. She is of Greek and Irish descent and lives with her husband, her two almost adult children and a cat that thinks she is theirs.

Sonia Di Placido is a poet and writer, completing her M.F.A. from UBC. A graduate of the Ryerson University Theatre School with an Honours B.A. in Humanities from York University, Sonia has experience as a Supernumerary with the Canadian Opera Company, is a member of the Association of Italian Canadian Writers and The League of Canadian Poets. She has published chapbooks, poetry, profile pieces, interviews and has written reviews for literary print/online journals and various anthologies: Poems and Reviews can be found in Carousel, The Puritan, Jacket2, Canthius and The California Journal of Women Writers. Exaltation In Cadmium Red, her first book was published in 2012. A second book of poetry is forthcoming with Guernica Editions in 2018. Website: www.diplacido.wordpress.com

Music by Nigel Barnes

Nigel Barnes began playing the guitar at a young age. He has played in multiple cover and original bands over the years and has gone on to share his talent with musicians such as Don Kerr, Rheostatics, Ron Sexsmith, Lester McLean, Ellen Carol and musical director and composer Andrew Craig.  In 2006, he released It Is What It Is.  He is currently recording new music. Music is his passion, his dream and his refuge.

3-4pm

Bianca Lakoseljac’s second novel, Stone Woman, is set in Toronto—and it relives Toronto's 1967 summer of love. Bianca is also the author of a novel, Summer of the Dancing Bear; a collection of stories, Bridge in the Rain; and a book of poetry, Memoirs of a Praying Mantis. Her work has been featured in various literary journals and anthologies such as 50+ Poems for Gordon Lightfoot, and Inanna Publications Literary Quarterly. She is the liaison for the National Reading Campaign of the Writers Union of Canada; and is past president of the Canadian Authors Association, Toronto. She has judged various national literary competitions. Bianca was the Open Book Toronto Writer-in-Residence for November 2016. She has taught at Ryerson University and Humber College. Website: biancalakoseljac.ca

Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni grew up in suburban Philadelphia, PA., and came to Toronto as a student at St. Michael’s College, UofT. Her studies concentrated on English language and literature, with a course in Italian grammar and a one-year course in Dante. She met Alberto Di Giovanni, and after graduate studies they married. She has lived and worked in Toronto ever since. She was elected as a school board trustee, and then as a city councillor. With support from Centro Scuola e Cultura Italiana she edited three anthologies of Italian Canadian poetry and prose; she also has produced two collections of her own poetry. She is the proud mother of three, and happy Nonna to three grandchildren. Her work includes Looking at Renaissance Paintings and Other Poems (Quattro Books, 2008) and Second Collection (LyricalMyrical, 2012). The anthologies are: Italian Canadian Voices, An anthology of Poetry and Prose (1946-1983) and (Mosaic Press, 1984); Italian Canadian Voices: A Literary Anthology (1946-2004) and (Mosaic Press, 2006) and Bravo! A Selection of Prose and Poetry by Italian Canadian Writers (Quattro Books, 2012).

Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews has written five collections of poetry: The Whispers of Stones, Sea Glass, The Red Accordion, Letters from the Singularity and A Jar of Fireflies. Nature and one's place in it, as well as memory and social justice are her muse. Her poems The Red Accordion and Emerald City were shortlisted for Descant's Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Prize and The Malahat Review's Open Seasons Award respectively. In 2015, her poem Ghost received first prize in Toronto's Big Pond Rumours Journal Contest. Josie is the author of two non-fiction books: How The Italians Created Canada and In the Name of Hockey. She is the host and co-ordinator of the Oakville Literary Café.

Isabella Colalillo Katz is a poet, writer, editor, translator and professor based in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of three books of poetry: Tasting Fire (Guernica), And Light Remains (Guernica) and Marlene Dietrich’s Eyes (Ekstasis, 2014). Isabella has translated Elio Vittorini’s prose poem novel, Conversazione in Sicilia/Sicilian Conversations parts of which were published in Sweet Lemon 2, (Legas, 2010). Her poetry, short stories, critical essays on writing and creativity and book reviews appear in numerous magazines, journals and anthologies, such as Exploring Voice (Italian Canadiana, 2016). She is the poetry editor for Braided Way journal. Website: www.astralsite.com/Isabella

Music by Nigel Barnes

4-5pm

After working for many years as a public servant in Ontario, Lucia Cascioli has returned to her love of creative writing.  Her books include: Struck (2011); Shifters (2011); Spiral (2011) – Finalist, Next Generation Indie Book Awards; From Scratch to Finish (2012); Letters to the Grave (2012) – Honourable Mention, Whistler Independent Book Awards; WTF? Tales from the Burbs (2013); The Getaway Book (2015); and Markers of Descent (2015). Her work has also appeared in Stile Magazine. Lucia enjoys participating in readings, lectures and book fairs and is currently working on her next book. Website: www.luciacascioli.ca

Carmela Circelli was born in Southern Italy and grew up in Montreal. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from York University and has been teaching in the Humanities and Philosophy departments of York University since 1990. She also has a private practice as a psychotherapist in Toronto. Recently she published a philosophical memoir called Sweet Nothing: An Elemental Case for Taking out Time with Quattro Books. She is currently working on a novel titled The Last of the Daydreamers.

Sandra Battaglini is an award winning stand-up comic, actor and writer. She is the 2013 Canadian Comedy Award winner for her solo show, Classy Lady, directed by Phil Luzi, that premiered in Toronto in 2012 and most recently was voted 'Best Female Standup’ by NOW Magazine. Past performances include, Hard Headed Woman (Canadian Comedy Award Winner, 2007), Small Battalion of Soldiers (Canadian Comedy Award Nomination, 2005). She tours with national comedy club chain, Yuk Yuks and co-hosts two of Toronto’s most alternative comedy nights, Family Slides and The Sal & Sandy Show with Phil Luzi. Sandra appears in David Cronenberg's latest feature, Maps to the Stars that premiered at TIFF in 2014, CBC's sketch show Humantown, NBC Seeso's flagship web series, The Amazing Gayle Pile and upcoming episodes of medical drama Saving Hope and Odd Squad. She is currently in development and on original concepts, including Knitterati and Family Slides with Phil Luzi. Not only has she performed throughout Canada, she has also been invited to perform in New York, Chicago and L.A. and was a semi-finalist in the She Devil Comedy Competition in NYC. Website: sandrabattaglini.net

Michelle Alfano is a former Associate Editor with the literary quarterly Descant and the co-organizer of the annual Love Poetry Festival. Her novella, Made Up Of Arias, was the 2010 winner of the Bressani Award for Short Fiction. Her short story “Opera”, on which the novella was based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology. Her fiction and non-fiction work has been widely published in Canada in major literary publications. She is currently at work on two projects: a personal memoir entitled The Unfinished Dollhouse (to be published by Cormorant Books in 2017) and the novel Destiny, think of me while you sleep. Blog: alitchick.blogspot.ca

Love Poetry Festival in Honour of Milton Acorn and Gwen MacEwen

Let us sing the praises of the wonderful Canadian poets Milton Acorn and Gwendolyn MacEwen ...

Poets Milton Acorn and Gwendolyn MacEwen

The Love Poetry Festival was the brainchild of the poet George Elliott Clarke, Canada's seventh national poet laureate. Co-organizers George and Michelle Alfano, Founder of the (Not So) Nice Italian Girls & Friends Reading Series, worked together to create the first annual Love Poetry Festival in honour of Milton Acorn and Gwen MacEwen to be held on Centre Island, where the couple lived for a few years in the 1960s, on August 6, 2016. 

The event was held at the historic St. Andrew by the Lake Anglican Church before a generous and appreciative crowd which filled the beautiful church.

Our venue, the beautiful
St. Andrew by the Lake

George Elliott Clarke, Canada's seventh national 
poet laureate, explains the origin of the Festival

The poet and essayist
Trevor Abes starts the first set ...

Karen Mulhallen, force majeure
and Canadian literary icon

Whitney French, writer, storyteller
and multi-disciplinary artist

Honey Novick, singer, songwriter & poet

A musical interlude with the
talented pianist Roger Sharp

Poet, singer/songwriter Robert Priest
leads the second set

Anna Yin, Mississauga's 
Inaugural Poet Laureate

George concludes the second set

Roger ends the reading with another beautiful set

An appreciative crowd

Rob Fujimoto, art director & Festival poster designer, and 

Michelle Alfano, Festival co-organizer & emcee,
sail into the sunset ... 

I Shout Love ~ Milton Acorn

I shout love in a blizzard's

scarf of curling cold,

for my heart's a furred sharp-toothed thing

that rushes out whimpering

when pain cries the sign writ on it.

I shout love into your pain

when skies crack and fall

like slivers of mirrors,

and rounded fingers, blued as a great rake,

pluck the balled yarn of your brain.

I shout love at petals peeled open

by stern nurse fusion-bomb sun,

terribly like an adhesive bandage,

for love and pain, love and pain

are companions in this age.

~

Poems In Braille ~ Gwen MacEwen

1

all your hands are verbs,

now you touch worlds and feel their names -

thru the thing to the name

not the other way thru (in winter

I am Midas, I name gold)

the chair and table and book

extend from your fingers;

all your movements

command these things back to their

places; a fight against familiarity

makes me resume my distance

2

they knew what it meant,

those egyptian scribes who drew

eyes right into their hieroglyphs,

you read them dispassionate until

the eye stumbles upon itself

blinking back from the papyrus

outside, the articulate wind

annotates this; I read carefully

lest I go blind in both eyes, reading with

that other eye the final hieroglyph

3

the shortest distance between 2 points

on a revolving circumference

is a curved line; O let me follow you,

Wencelas

4

with legs and arms I make alphabets

like in those children's books

where people bend into letters and signs,

yet I do not read the long cabbala of my bones

truthfully; I need only to move to alter the design

5

I name all things in my room

and they rehearse their names,

gather in groups, form tesseracts,

discussing their names among themselves

I will not say the cast is less than the print

I will not say the curve is longer than the line,

I should read all things like braille in this season

with my fingers I should read them

lest I go blind in both eyes reading with
that other eye the final hieroglyph

Love Poetry Festival honoring Milton Acorn and Gwen MacEwen

Trevor Abes is a poet and essayist with a penchant for conceptual art. As part of the Toronto Poetry Slam team (2015), he represented the city in both the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and the National Poetry Slam. He is currently theatre critic at The Theatre Reader.

George Elliott Clarke is Canada's seventh national Poet Laureate. From 2012-2015, he was Toronto's 4th Poet Laureate. Revered for his poetry, he has published fifteen volumes, including three that have won prizes. In addition, he has poetry books translated into Chinese, Italian, and Romanian.

Whitney French is a writer, storyteller and multi-disciplinary artist. She's been published in a couple of places and written a few collections but she takes more pride in the community she builds than the things she produces. She is the founder and co-editor and of the nation-wide publication From the Root Zine. She also created the successful workshop series titled: Writing While Black, an initiative to develop a community of black writers, which is presently on tour, travelling to audiences in Montreal, New York and Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Detroit, and Halifax.

Karen Mulhallen’s new book of poems, Seasons in the Key of J, will be published in Spring 2017 by Tightrope Books. Her most recent book of poetry is The Code Orange Emblazoned Suite (Black Moss Press, 2015). Code Orange was published in English and in French, with translations into French by Nancy Huston. It was launched in Toronto and in Paris in the Fall of 2015.

Honey Novick is a singer/songwriter/voice teacher/poet. A full member of the League of Canadian Poets and 2015 Member of the Year of the Ontario Poetry Society. Sanguine Encounters with Greatness (2016), was published for the Spring Pulse Poetry Festival, Cobalt. Please visit www.honeynovick.com.

Poet and singer/songwriter, Robert Priest  has performed his exciting mix of poems and songs all over the world. His words have been debated in the legislature, turned into a hit song, posted in the Transit system, released on numerous CDs, quoted by politicians and widely published in text books and anthologies. "The content is frank and often erotic, but the leaven of laughter is never far away.... Magnificent, profound, religious and challenging.” Canadian Book Review Annual 

Anna Yin is Mississauga’s Inaugural Poet Laureate and has six poetry books, the latest entitled Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac (Black Moss Press, 2015). Anna won the 2005 Ted Plantos Memorial Award, two MARTY Awards and the 2013 Professional Achievement Award from CPAC etc. Her poems have appeared on Arc Poetry, New York Times, CBC Radio, China Daily, etc ...

With emcee ...

Michelle Alfano served as an Associate Editor with the literary quarterly Descant until 2015. Her novella, Made Up Of Arias, was the a winner of the Bressani Award for Short Fiction. Her short story “Opera” was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology. Her fiction and non-fiction work has been widely published in Canada in major literary publications. She is currently at work on two projects: a memoir entitled The Unfinished Dollhouse and the novel Destiny, think of me while you sleep.

With music by ...
Roger Sharp has been playing piano in churches since he was a church-going lad, as well as playing in a jazz band with his friends since they were teens. But for the last five years, he has had a home here at St Andrew-by-the-Lake doing the only job he's ever loved, and mostly restricts his jazz-playing to the island as well, be it here or at the Rectory Café.

Amazons of the Mediterranean

Michelle Alfano (also known as A Lit Chick) served as an Associate Editor with the literary quarterly Descant until 2015. Her novella, Made Up Of Arias, was the 2010 winner of the Bressani Award for Short Fiction. Her short story “Opera”, on which the novella was based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology. Her fiction and non-fiction work has been widely published in Canada in major literary publications including Descant, Prairie Fire, The Capilano Review, The Antigonish Review, Event, A Room of One’s Own and in seven anthologies. She is currently at work on two projects: a memoir entitled The Unfinished Dollhouse and the novel Destiny, think of me while you sleep.

Sandra Battaglini is an award winning stand-up comic, actor/writer and made her directorial debut with Chinatown. She is the 2013 Canadian Comedy Award winner for her solo show, Classy Lady, directed by Phil Luzi, which premiered in Toronto in 2012. Past performances include, Hard Headed Woman (Canadian Comedy Award Winner 2007), Small Battalion of Soldiers (Canadian Comedy Award Nomination). She's toured with Yuk Yuks and Absolute Comedy and co-hosts one of Toronto’s most alternative comedy nights, Family Slides and The Sal & Sandy Show with Phil Luzi. Sandra appears in David Cronenberg's latest feature, Maps to the Stars that premiered at TIFF in 2014. Her and comedy partner Phil Luzi are developing a new web series with CBC and Frantic Films called Knitterati. See more here: sandrabattaglini.net/videos

Carmela Circelli was born in Southern Italy and grew up in Montreal. She moved to Toronto in 1976 to study philosophy. She has been teaching, on contract, in the Humanities and Philosophy departments of York University, since 1990.  She also has a private practice as a psychotherapist in Toronto. Recently she published a philosophical memoir called Sweet Nothing with Quattro books.  And currently she is working on a novel, tentatively titled, The Last of the Daydreamers.

Erika de Vasconcelos is the author of two novels, My Darling Dead Ones and Between the Stillness and the Grove, both published by Knopf. Her work has appeared in various publications across  Canada, and been translated into several languages. She lives in Toronto.

Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews has written five collections of poetry: The Whispers of Stones, Sea Glass, The Red Accordion, Letters from the Singularity and A Jar of Fireflies. Nature and one's place in it, as well as memory and social justice are her muse. Her poems "The Red Accordion" and "Emerald City" were shortlisted for Descant's Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Prize and The Malahat Review's Open Seasons Award respectively. In 2015, her poem "Ghost" received first prize in Toronto's Big Pond Rumours Journal Contest. Josie is the author of two non-fiction books: How The Italians Created Canada and In the Name of Hockey. She lives, teaches and writes in Oakville.

Silvia Falsaperla is a graduate of the University of Toronto and teaches English to international students. She lived in Florence, Italy for many years where she worked as an English teacher, travel journalist, translator and assistant to a literary agent.

Eufemia Fantetti is a graduate of the University of Guelph’s MFA in Creative Writing. Her book, A Recipe for Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love, was runner up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and a winner of the 2014 F.G. Bressani Prize.

Michelle Ferreira is a writer and editor of Portuguese descent currently living in Toronto. In the past, she has worked for Dandyhorse Magazine and Descant Magazine and continues to write and edit as a freelancer. She obtained her honours B.A. from York and her M.A. from Ryerson, where her studies centered around the works of the modernist Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

Carole Giangrande is the author of eight books, including the award-winning novella A Gardener on the Moon and her new novella Here Comes The Dreamer. She's also worked as a radio journalist for CBC and her poetry has been published in Grain and Queens Quarterly. Her novel All That Is Solid Melts Into Air will be published in 2017.

Bianca Lakoseljac is the author of a novel, Summer of the Dancing Bear, a collection of stories, Bridge in the Rain (Guernica Editions, 2012, 2010), and a book of poetry. She has taught at Humber College and Ryerson University, is the recipient of the Matthew Ahern Award in literature, and holds an M.A. from York University. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Canadian Woman Studies, York University; and 50+ Poems for Gordon Lightfoot. She is past president of the Canadian Authors Association, Toronto, and has served as juror for various literary contests. She sits on the National Council for the Writers Union of Canada. Her second novel, Stone Woman, a family saga of five women whose lives are bound by a Vietnam-War draft dodger, set in Toronto, is being published by Guernica Editions in the fall, 2016. guernicaeditions.com or biancalakoselac.ca.

Darlene Madott is a family-law lawyer and award-winning writer of 7 books, whose fiction celebrates family in anarchic ways.  She has twice won the Bressani Literary Award, once for the title story of Making Olives and Other Family Secrets, (Longbridge, 2008), and in 2014, for her collection Stations of the Heart (Exile Editions). “Waiting: An Almost Love Story,” was shortlisted for the Gloria Vanderbilt/Exile short-fiction prize, 2012.  “Vivi’s Florentine Scarf”, widely anthologized, won the 2008 Paolucci Prize of the Italian American Writer’s Association, 2012.

Tina Tzatzanis is a teacher-librarian at an elementary school in Toronto. She is taking next year off to complete the first draft of her first novel about a young woman in a small Greek village during the 50s and 60s whose life, altered by the Fates, frays into three distinct paths. She is of Greek and Irish descent and lives with her husband, her two almost adult children and a cat that thinks she is theirs.

Our musical accompaniment

Nigel Barnes

I've known him since he was a teenager growing up in Hamilton. He's 5'9" but tells everyone that he's 6'3". Most people are polite and don't disagree, which he finds disappointing. He's always ready to argue the point, even though he can't get the tape measure to agree either. These days he spends as much free time as he can  with his grandson, his companion (which, as we've learned from The DaVinci Code, literally means spouse), and his music. I hear there's  a recording in the works, but nothing concrete yet. He may play a few of the songs that are up for consideration for us today.

A Roman Style Bacchanalia ...

In Roman times, Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry was celebrated at events called Bacchanalias. Some historians think it originated in the south of Italy (southerners know how to par-tay). At this Bacchanalia, eleven writers and poets and one singer were invited to read, recite and sing ... to celebrate ecstasy, revelry and intoxication. Here''s how they did it ...

Dom Capilongo, poet & co-emcee

We start with a bang ... with slam poet Trevor Abes

Trevor

The writer Arif Anwar, travelling
from the wilds of Mississauga

The ever expressive poet Valentino Assenza

Val

John Calabro, author of
An Imperfect Man

John

Dom Capilongo leads the second set 

Dom

The poet Rocco De Giacomo

The inestimable Paul Fowler
reading his short story

Paul

Poet, publisher, force majeure ...
Luciano Iacobelli

Luc

Paul Salvatori, reggae singer

Paul

Poet & Lexical.ca founder Justin Lauzon 

Justin

La Poetessa (and pinch hitter) Cathy Petch 

Cathy

There is a Sicilian expression you use when someone special
comes into the room: "Ca sono i sordi (Here comes the money)..."
That's Toronto poet laureate George Elliott Clarke

GEC

An appreciative crowd ...

Emcee and organizer Michelle Alfano

I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings,

I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;

I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I begin to know them.

That Music Always Round Me ~ Walt Whitman.