5-star review for White Shirt

Posted on by laurie macfayden

Nice to know that, more than a year after its publication, new readers are still trying White Shirt on for size. Lovely review posted on Amazon.com a couple of weeks ago by Rob Jacques of Puget Sound; here are just a few snippets:

Poems about an implacable determination to experience joy
Laurie MacFayden’s poems are bright, colorful splashes of language with highlights of rhyme and meter that capture human angst about love, youth, and yearning — boisterous, roughhousing, tomboyish poems. But for all of their energy and muscle-flexing, they have a wonderful, carefully crafted artistry that contains and balances their zesty play on words, zany metaphors and sexual exuberance.

“The collection opens with a poem that’s going to be anthologized for the next couple of centuries: ‘My Date With Jackson Pollock.’ MacFayden probably spent a year working out the absolutely magnificent, colorful linguistic twists and curls that exactly duplicate a Jackson Pollock painting, the poet bursting with the same highly charged, only partially contained life-energy of the painter. The provocative socio-sexual interplay between the narrator and the painter is an intense thing of beauty in itself, and the poem rewards discerning re-reading with fresh connections between paint and language.

“Poetry and humanity both need her lusty, never-give-up, never-stay-down spirit wrapped in masterfully executed poems.”

You can read the whole blessed thing here.


Wet Your Eyes

Posted on by laurie macfayden

The Poetry of Water

Consider what water represents to you – symbolically, elementally, metaphorically – when viewing The Poetry of Water, a solo exhibition of 24 of my paintings currently on display at the Kaasa Gallery, lower level of Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium.

flower petal lagoon, acrylic on wood panel

Water refreshes. It has the power to calm us, cleanse us, mesmerize us and, literally, buoy us. Fundamentally, it quenches our thirst; we could not survive on this planet without it.

We talk of healing waters, and of still waters running deep. Water can also have powerful negative/destructive connotations: drowning, flooding, the turbulence of stormy seas, tidal waves, etc.
In Jungian dream analysis,
water represents intuition, emotion and the depths of the unconscious.
Water can also symbolize the womb, amniotic life, the fetal period.
In alchemy terms, it is the source of everything: prima materia. The source of water is the source of Life.

The wetness continues through mid-August.

God loves a parade, and pool parties, and rainbows and revolution, baby

Posted on by laurie macfayden

Busy, busy weekend ahead!
I’m now involved with the board of Exposure, Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival, and will be helping staff the Exposure booth at Churchill Square tomorrow afternoon following the annual Pride parade.

(The parade has a new route this year, btw – along 102 Avenue instead of Jasper, and starts at noon.)

I’m also donating a painting for a silent auction fundraiser … bids will be accepted at the Celebration on the Square as well as at Sunday evening’s All Bodies Pool Party at Fred Broadstock Pool. The painting, ‘Somewhere Under The Rainbow It Gets Better’ (acrylic on canvas, 40×60) is one of two panels I created for last year’s Exposure Arty Carnival at the Jubilee.

In between I’ll be reading with Vivek Shraya at Leva Cafe at 2 p.m. Sunday. We’re taking the opportunity to celebrate our 2011 Lambda Literary Award nominations – Vivek’s for God Loves Hair (Young Adult category) and mine for White Shirt (Poetry). GOD LOVES WHITE SHIRTS is a multi-media presentation featuring special guests Derek Warwick and MC Joshua Carter/Teen Jesus Barbie.

Happy Pride … Viva La Revolucion

Lambda Awards: Spotlight on White Shirt

Posted on by laurie macfayden

The good folks at the Lambda Literary Awards have posted one of my white-shirted poems, when lust and prayer collide, in the run-up to next week’s gala ceremony.

I’m still pretty much pinching myself at the thought of being in the same room as Edward Albee and Stephanie Powers. Kate Clinton and Katherine Forrest might not be household names to a straight audience, but Forrest’s Curious Wine is a coming-out classic to those of us of a certain generation; and many of us cut our lesbian literary teeth on her Kate Delafield detective mysteries. Clinton, meanwhile, describes herself on her website as a “faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer” … who has “worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and eight presidential inaugurals.” She believes humour “gets us through peacetime, wartime, scoundrel time and economic down times.”

SPY LUST: In 1967 I had a crush on every person in this photo. Just sayin'.

As for Powers … what can I say? She’s mostly known as half of the TV show Hart To Hart, but long before that, right around the time I was becoming acquainted with Louise Fitzhugh’s fictional tomboy extraordinaire, Harriet the Spy, Powers starred in The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. as a girl spy (GIRL SPY!) named April Dancer. Swoon.

Here’s the full scoop on the 2011 Lammys:

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Edward Albee and Gold Dagger Award-winning crime fiction writer Val McDermid will be special honorees at the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony to be hosted by comedienne Lea DeLaria on Thursday, May

26 in New York City at the School of Visual Arts Theater. Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally will introduce Albee, and pioneering lesbian mystery writer Katherine V. Forrest will introduce McDermid.

Historically one of the most glamorous LGBT literary events in the country, this cer

emony brings together over 400 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBT literature.

“At this year’s ceremony, the Foundation has the incredible honor of bestowing its Pioneer Awards on the greatest living playwright of our time, Edward Albee, and on one of our great crime writers, Val McDermid, who will be coming to New York all the way from her home in the U.K.,” says LLF Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela.  “Lambda’s Pioneer Awards are important because they pay tribute to those who, through their considerable achievements and passionate commitment, have contributed to our literary community in significant and tangible ways.”

The Lambda Awards glamour quotient will reach a new high with this year’s stellar roster of presenters who represent a diverse cross section from the worlds of film, television, theatre, politics, religion, sex, and of course literature. Gracing the stage will be film and television actress Stefanie Powers, former New Jersey Governor and Episcopal priest in training Jim McGreevey, comedienne Kate Clinton, transgender photographer Amos Mac and feminist porn actress and director Tristan Taormino, to name just a few.

Immediately following the awards ceremony will be a VIP after-party at Chelsea’s Cheim & Read, the legendary art gallery that has exhibited Robert Mapplethorpe, Don Barchardy, and Diane Arbus. Louise Burgeois: The Fabric Works will currently be on exhibit. The performance troop Unitard (Mike Alboof the Underminer, Nora Burns, of the Nellie Olesons, and David Ilku, of the Dueling Bankheads) will provide their twisted and sardonic brand of entertainment.

“Everyone’s talking about Terrence McNally presenting a Pioneer Award to Edward Albee, but wait until they see Stefanie Powers present Best Gay Fiction wearing Alexander McQueen,” says Chris Shirley, New York City Host Committee Co-Chair.  “Our host, Lea DeLaria is a riot, and where else can you see Miss New York and Mr. Gay USA walk the red carpet then appear on the same stage? For the safety of our audience members, we may install seatbelts.”

Indeed.

I can’t wait.

I will also try to remember the words of a legendary football coach, who advised his players: “If you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.”

A Goldie Opportunity

Posted on by laurie macfayden

White Shirt has been shortlisted for another literary award.

Last month my debut poetry book was named a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. Today I received an email from the Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS), informing me that the book is also a finalist for the “Goldies” in the lesbian poetry category.

The GCLS is a literary and educational organization “for the enjoyment, discussion, and enhancement of lesbian literature. Our goals are to support and strengthen quality lesbian literature by providing places for readers and writers to interact, to encourage and assist new writers and established authors, and to recognize and promote lesbian work.”

The winners of the Goldie Awards will be announced at a conference in Orlando, Florida, on June 11. I am unable to attend, sadly, because my presence is needed right here in E-Town that weekend at GOD LOVES WHITE SHIRTS — a reading featuring the two Lammy-nominated authors from Edmonton — Vivek Shraya (God Loves Hair) and myself. That’s on Sunday, June 12 (the front end of Pride Week) at Cafe Leva, starting at 2 p.m.

I WILL, however, be attending the gala Lammy Awards ceremony in New York City on May 26 with my lovely and talented partner. Thanks to the overwhelmingly generous support of our awesome friends, neighbours and loved ones, we earned enough at Saturday’s ‘Big Apple or Bust’ art sale to feed and shelter ourselves during our stay in Chelsea, and to even get ourselves back home again.
Heartfelt thanks again to everyone who helped make the fundraiser a huge success.

black, er, pink tie occasion for white shirt

Posted on by laurie macfayden

Great news today – just learned that White Shirt made the shortlist for the Lambda Literary Awards in the Lesbian Poetry category:

White Shirt - Lammy finalist

“Finalists for the Lambda Literary Award were announced today by the Lambda Literary Foundation in Los Angeles.  Books from major mainstream publishers and from academic presses, from both long-established and brand new LGBT publishers, and even from emerging publish-on-demand technologies, make up the 114 finalists for the ‘Lammys.’  The finalists were selected from a record number of nominations.

“The awards, now in their 23rd year, celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing for books published in 2010. Winners will be announced at a May 26 ceremony in New York at the School of Visual Arts Theater (333 West 23rd Street).

“Lambda set a record in 2009 for both the number of LGBT books nominated (462) and the number of publishers participating (about 200), reports Lambda Awards Administrator Richard Labonté. But that record has been surpassed this year, with more than 520 titles represented from about 230 publishers.”

The other four lesbian poetry finalists, from 17 titles submitted, are Jen Currin’s The Inquisition Yours; Money For Sunsets, by Elizabeth J. Colen; The Nights Also, by Anna Swanson; and The Sensual World Re-Emerges, by Eleanor Lerman.

Other Canadians who made the Lammys shortlist include Edmonton’s Vivek Shraya for God Loves Hair (LGBT Children’s/YA category); and Zoe Whittall, whose Holding Still For As Long As Possible is a finalist in two categories: Transgendered Fiction and Lesbian Fiction.

Read the full story here. And you can order White Shirt by clicking here.

the gospel according to kandinsky

Posted on by laurie macfayden

Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and … stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to walk about into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want? 

The more frightening the world becomes … the more art
becomes abstract.

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.

— Wassily Kandinsky

 

Q the Arts … and hop on the bus, gus

Posted on by laurie macfayden

portrait/self/framed

The last couple of months
have been bittersweet.
My 2010 ended with the sad, sudden death of a dear artist friend. Around the same time,
an injury to my dominant (painting+ writing) hand, followed by four weeks of a tenacious flu, forced me to endure a frustrating period
of creative dormancy — but also allowed me to stay inside and cocoon through more than a month of harsh, cold weather.
(Meh; the universe has its reasons.)

Thankfully, the paint pots
are flowing again; the pen has resumed its infernal messin’ with the integrity
of the blank page. 2011 has been very good to my inner crayon so far.
As the new year dawned, I was selected to be part of Q the Arts, Calgary’s first
queer arts & culture festival, being staged by FairyTales Presentation Society
and Swallow-A-Bicycle Theatre at the Arrata Opera Centre (March 5, 8 p.m.).
I’ll be reading about 15 minutes of poetry, including some of the queerer bits
from my 2010 book, White Shirt.
Other ‘Q’ performers include the Backyard Betties, Chantal Vitalis, Jessica McMann, Lindsay Brandon, Emanuel Ilagan, Travis McEwen, the Orton Sisters, Jamie Tognazzini/James Tea, Brianna Strong, and the electro-soul band Light Fires (a collaboration of Reginald Vermue/Gentleman Reg and James Bunton of Ohbijou).

A few days after all of that sunk in, I learned an exhibition proposal I’d submitted to the jury at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (henceforth to be referred to as the Jube, for reasons of brevity) was accepted. Which means several of my paintings will hang in the Kaasa Gallery this summer (exact dates TBD, but my show will partly coincide with the Jube’s run of the hit broadway musical Wicked — ‘the untold story of the witches of Oz’ — which seems totally appropriate.)

POETRY IN MOTION: I have just been appointed co-ordinator for the latest round of the Edmonton Poetry Festival’s Take the Poetry Route project, which involves installing panels of poetry fragments inside Edmonton transit vehicles. As a car-less (by choice) poet who’s been bumping around in the ETS barges for more than 10 years, I’m happy to be steering this puppy. We’re throwing everything into high gear to get the first batch of verse circulating well in advance of PoFest 2011, which commences April 25.

KISSES AND KUDOS: In case you missed it, some fabulous writer and musician friends and I teamed up on Gypsy Valentine, an afternoon of steamy verse and jazz-hot/bohemian tunes, at Leva Cafe on Sunday. Mandie, Kelly, Amy, Karen, George and Lindsay deserve huge bouquets of long-stemmed roses and cinnamon hearts for keeping things on a sultry, sexy, slow burn all afternoon.
We’ve already lit the fire on a sequel (stay tuned).
And the days are getting longer.
Life is good.

ONE LAST THING: The lovely and talented Michelle Boudreau is opening for Cris Derksen at the Empress Ale House this Saturday (Feb. 19) afternoon starting at 4 p.m.  What’s not to love about that?