Michael Ondaatje’s poem in a live, bilingual performance by Hakola, Paola Comis, Anne Steffens, Bénédicte Villain and Simon Texier in Paris, 2004. Part of Hakola’s musical rendering of Ondaatje’s work in his show “Une Dizaine de morts”.

A crowded ballroom, an orchestra, the master of ceremonies approaches the microphone and asks if anyone has ever forgotten a urine sample at the post office. A man hides his face in his hands and leaves the dance floor with his partner. This is how the elimination dance works: an embarassing situation is mentioned and the couple to whom it has really happened is eliminated.

It isn’t just a game for everyone. It is something serious. It is the dance of life.

Directed and written by Bruce McDonald, Michael Ondaatje and Don McKellar. 9 minutes. 35mm. 1998.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHpum8XCNw

Part of a review by Tom McSorley in Take One, March 22, 1999. “Dreamy and deluxe, this collaborative effort is an absorbing confection of archival images, live-action drama, still photography, spoken word and narration. Deftly stitched into nine rich minutes exploring the seductive and subversive possibilities of dance as social ritual and political powder keg are Ondaatje’s allusive and densely layered writing, McKellar’s penetrating view of the comic possibilities of social life and McDonald’s visually playful film sense. Set in a crowded dance hall where the Iguana Cafe Orchestra swings and sways, the film revolves around an …”

“I was attracted to the work because it’s rife with incredible powerful imagery right from the first page,” states Justin Simms, St. John’s-based Director of “Night Work: A Sawchuk Poem” by long-time Corner Brook resident and poet Randall Maggs. “For ten years, Randy immersed himself in the cult and culture of hockey in the early days of the sport, before they wore much equipment, before a goalie wore a mask. What kind of man puts himself in the path of a rubber missile travelling straight to his head at the velocity of a Bobby Hull shot? That’s what we explore in the film.”

Director Justin Simms called on his colleague, award-winning talent Greg Spottiswood to adapt the screenplay from the book. For the BookShort film, they delve into the mythology of the man as sports legend, but also touch upon the very human side of Sawchuk, who suffered from untreated depression and died at the age of 40 after a scuffle with a teammate.

Featuring Des Walsh as Gerald; Phil Churchill as young Randall; Lois Brown as the voice of reason.

Shot entirely on location in Beachy Cove, Newfoundland – close to one of the towns that the real Terry Sawchuk visited during the 1956 exhibition tour arranged for the Boston Bruins that year. With thanks to Beachy Cove Cafe.

David Gray, original music; Chris Darlington, Editor / Graphics; Nigel Markham, Director of Photography.

Produced by Justin Simms and Judith Keenan. Judith Keenan is the founder of BookShorts. For more information, visit www.bookshorts.com

A first book of poetry is usually a collection gathered from the poet’s entire life output. Not so Steven Price. Anatomy of Keys is an ambitious project part poetry, part biography and all wonderful.

A poetic biography of Harry Houdini.

Interviewer: Craig Rintoul, Executive Producer, Bookbits – September 2007 at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, Eden Mills, Ontario

Anne Szumigalski, the Saskatoon poet and 1995 winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, died in 1999. Her editor and literary executor Mark Abley has produced a posthumous collection of new poems When Earth Leaps Up.

Interviewer: Craig Rintoul, Executive Producer, Bookbits – September 2007 in Toronto

Agnes Walsh is the poet laureate of St. John’s, Newfoundland. She is also the author of Going Around with Bachelors, a wonderful collection of poetry largely inspired from her life on Placentia Bay. She spoke to Bookbits just before a recent poetry reading at a Toronto bookstore.

Interviewer: Craig Rintoul, Executive Producer, Bookbits – March 2008 at Ben McNally Books, 366 Bay Street, Toronto

Lorri Neilsen Glenn only ‘came out’ as a poet in 2001. Before that she had been an academic. Now she is poet laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The reasons for her rapid rise are clear. She is a stunning new writer who can stir laughter and tears with equal skill. Lorri Neilsen Glenn spoke recently about her new collection Combustion as she prepared for a reading at a Toronto book store.

Interviewer: Craig Rintoul, Executive Producer, Bookbits – March 2008 at Ben McNally Books, 366 Bay Street, Toronto