VERSeFest 2024 : a report from the ground,

Our fourteenth annual poetry festival, VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival, happened last weekend, four venues across four nights, with more than two dozen poets [including Monty Reid, left, being introduced by Jennifer Baker], and was a resounding success, I don't mind saying. The festival got knocked around a bit across the Covid-era, so this is the first festival with myself as Artistic Director, with a brand-new board of directors for VERSe Ottawa, the organization that looks after the whole thing. And did you hear that three of our four nights held capacity crowds? Every night held incredible readings, without a low point across the board (although there were frustrations about accessibility across a venue or two).

Thursday, March 21, 2024: Avant-Garde Bar, 7pm
Anita Lahey, Monty Reid, Marjorie Silverman, Laila Malik
    hosted by Jennifer Baker / Arc Poetry Magazine,
Daniel Groleau Landry, nina jane drystek + MayaSpoken
    hosted by Allison Armstrong

Opening night held some strong readings, with returned-to-Ottawa poet Anita Lahey reading from her latest collection, offering an Ottawa poem or two. Ottawa poet Marjorie Silverman [above] not only offered a reading from her debut, and a Billings Bridge Mall poem, but her debut as a reader at VERSeFest! Laila Malik [left], another poetry and VERSeFest debut [see the recent interview here], startled the crowd with the strength of her reading (it is such a good book). And Monty Reid, longtime Artistic Director, anchored the whole first set with his own debut reading at VERSeFest (if you're staff or on the board you can't be scheduled, so we had to wait until he left, don't you know).

As part of the second set: it was good to hear new work from returning VERSeFest performer Daniel Groleau Landry; nina jane drystek did some very cool looped sound work (I know nina is shopping a full-length manuscript; once that is out, it is going to be incredible); and MayaSpoken is simply remarkable.

Friday, March 22, 2024 : Happy Goat, Laurel, door 7/reading 8pm
Amanda Earl, DS Stymeist, IAN MARTIN, Mary Lee Bragg
    hosted by Stephen Brockwell
Susan McMaster, Sneha Madhavan-Reese, Shane Rhodes
    hosted by rob mclennan

Amanda Earl, of course, is a stellar reader, and her new book is grand. DS Stymeist [above], also read from a new book, and, akin to Monty Reid, was also debuting as a VERSeFest reader, having spent time as President of the VERSe Ottawa board (and thus, unable to read until after he stepped down). MaryLee Bragg read from her own newly-published book, but the highlight of the entire event (sorry, everyone else) had to be Ottawa poet IAN MARTIN [left] (yes, the upper case is deliberate), who really did provide surreal humour and a quiet, odd warmth through their set. You should be paying attention.

The second set held a reading by the very sparkly Ottawa poet Susan McMaster, who has a new book as well. Sneha Madhavan-Reese provided a sharp and curled straight-lined performance for her latest title (which I've been hearing some very good things about). Hopefully this isn't Shane Rhodes' [left] final Ottawa performance before he and his family move to Australia later on this year (you knew about that, didn't you?). I've really been enjoying his settler-work, playing off the novel (and subsequent film) that provided him his name. (Don't go, Shane! Shane, don't go!)

Saturday, March 23, 2024 : Redbird, 8pm
Stephen Brockwell, Jaclyn Piudik, Chris Turnbull, Derek Webster
    hosted by rob mclennan
Sandra Ridley, David O’Meara, Madeleine Stratford
    hosted by Zishad Lak

Board member (and Ottawa poet) Stephen Brockwell [above] provided a shorter set as last-minute fill-in, reading for Mark Goldstein, who wasn't able to make the event (he's doing fine, but just couldn't make it). Chris Turnbull [see the recent interview here] opened her reading, launching her latest book, with some poems by Phil Hall, to acknowledge the new book Goldstein edited and published, celebrating Hall and his work. It was interesting to hear Jaclyn Piudik [left] read, a poet I've only started reading lately. She has a new book as well, and made a point of opening with some poems by Mark Goldstein. And Derek Webster was just great. He read a poem that played off the work of Al Purdy. Who wouldn't love that?

Sandra Ridley [left; see the recent interview here], launching her latest from Bookhug Press, was her usual evocative, coiled calm, enough to quiet any room. Working in both English and French (as well as translation, Madeleine Stratford's performance had a liveliness and humour across hushed tones. And Ottawa poet David O'Meara, another former VERSeFest Artistic Director (before Monty), reading a handful of new poems, was the anchor that held all in place.

Sunday, March 24, 2024: Spark Beer, door 7pm/8pm
AJ Dolman, Myriam Legault-Beauregard, Nduka Otiono,
    hosted by Madeleine Stratford
Rhonda Douglas, Jason Christie, Klara du Plessis + Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi,
    hosted by rob mclennan

Our closing night! It was great to hear Ottawa poet AJ Dolman [above; see the recent interview here] launching their long-awaited debut full-length collection, a box of which landed in just enough time to catch our event (there will be a proper, full launch coming up). And great to hear poet and Carleton University prof Nduka Otiono [left] for the first time! He had a critical selected poems not long back from Wilfrid Laurier University Press that was quite interesting. And lovely to catch a reading blending English and French from poet Myriam Legault-Beauregard from her new book, already leaning into a second printing!

Rhonda Douglas was good enough to provide a short opener of new poems (and curious for me to realize I've known her longer than I've known anyone else around here, having participated in a poetry workshop at the University of Ottawa alongside her and Joseph Dandurand, among others, during 1992-3). It was very nice to celebrate Ottawa poet Jason Christie's [left; see the recent interview here] last fall bpNichol Chapbook Award win through his reading, both from the award-winning chapbook as well as through a handful of new poems. I would think he's but the second Ottawa-based bpNichol winner, after Chuqiao Yang (I presume we'll have more, soon enough). And then, Montreal-based Klara du Plessis [see the recent interview here] and Toronto-based Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi [see the recent interview here] closed out the event, and the festival, through a stellar collaborative set, which included their own individual works, as well as them reading from their recently-published book-length collaboration. There's an incredible amount of activity going on with those two, both individually and combined, that is worth paying attention to. Wow.

You probably also saw the new issue of The Peter F Yacht Club that was launched as part of the festival, holding poems by numerous of our readers and performers? I also had copies of the soon-to-release tenth anniversary issue of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], given there were poems within by Amanda Earl and Conyer Clayton. We also had a basket of books leftover from our fundraiser, offering for the sake of donations (although it took two days, unfortunately, to discover that the QR codes we printed didn't actually work).

Given our hugely successful fundraiser, it didn't seem right to ticket all of the events, so three of our four nights were unticketed (honestly, so much of the fundraiser, whether time, books, chapbooks or cash came from at least half that crowd), but there were plenty of folk donating, still, across those four days, which is hugely appreciated by everyone on the board. Thank you so much to The City of Ottawa, Arc Poetry Magazine and The League of Canadian Poets for their ongoing support, and to Spark Beer, RedBird [left], The Happy Goat and Avant-Garde Bar for allowing us the use of their spaces. As many of you know, events such as these don’t occur in a vacuum, and I must thank the help of our current VERSe Ottawa board: Allison Armstrong, Frances Boyle, Stephen Brockwell, Éric Charlebois, David Currie (who really went above and beyond across the course of this entire thing, so thank you) and Zishad Lak for their ongoing and essential work. And Helen Robertson, who ran our book table! Helen is a delight. Of course, an essential thank you to outgoing director Avonlea Fotheringham for keeping the festival alive across the Covid Era, and Rod Pederson, who began this festival in the first place.

[left: Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, Chuqiao Yang + Cameron Anstee mid-break, Closing Night] With our rebuilding year, this was a smaller and more Ottawa-localized festival than prior years (unable to cover hotels and travel, for example), so we are hoping to do another version of this in the fall ("fall into versefest," or something akin to that), as well as hopefully announce our next round of poets laureate at the same time. With luck, we can return next spring with a fully-rebuilt festival! And in case you are wishing to donate, you can catch the donate page on our website. Maybe we'll see you at our next event! Otherwise, you know you should be checking out www.bywords.ca for all Ottawa-area literary events, yes? Monthly calendar! New poems!