I am one of those people that will tend to plan her day so much that I've forgotten to schedule in lunch. I do this all the time, actually, taking on as many projects as I can in between work, play, friends, and family. Boredom is the thing I fear absolutely the most. When I was a kid, I remember, I was so afraid of being bored that I made a list that I kept in my room of things I could do if i got bored. "Play with Barbies. Call a friend. Easy-Bake something. Smash head against wall." These were quite literally lifelines so that I never had to be still. When I was about 14, I had a summer off, and I was bored, so I made a play. I chose it ["The Ugly Duckling" by A.A. Milne], bought the rights to use it, cast it, directed it, rented a stage and rehearsal space, put it on, and made something like 24 bucks in profit.
It's pretty cool that I made a play when I was 14, but when I think about it, it's such a perfect example of how ridculously type A I am [you wouldn't have wanted to know me before yoga] but also, I think, this is indicative of the kind of world we live in all the time: a very Yang world, very active, fiery, and full of stress. Great fun indeed, but I often come home at the end of the day feeling like the end of a hungry, frayed rope.
Over the past week, I have been participating in a Yin Yoga Teacher Training with Bernie Clark at Semperviva on Granville Island. We wake up at the crack of 5:30 for a 2 hour Yin practice and then long lectures on anatomy, the energy body, meditation, the history of yoga and the religions that shaped it (Hinduism, Tantra, Buddhism, Zen etc). It's been delicious, and feeling absolutely indulgent. I have loved the meditative, passive practice of Yin since I discovered it a couple of years ago, but I have never had the chance to do it every single day for a week.
And man, my hips feel WEIRD. But also, I think, this training has been teaching me a lot about being still and resting. We need stress to live, says Bernie. The problem in the west is not that we have too much stress, but that we never rest.
I've taken the week off from Vinyasa yoga (excpet for teaching) so that I can experience softness and stillness for awhile in my own body. And if you read my last post, you may have noticed that I've been getting particularly frustrated with my practice recently and feeling like my chaturanga doesn't look right, my arms are not strong enough, and getting angry that I can't do certain poses. The whole point of Yin is to go where your body will go naturally, accept that place, and just be with it. We spent many hours talking about the innumerable variations within the human skeleton, and the major thing we learned is that you cannot know what someone is feeling by looking at them. And yoga is not about what you look like, it's what you feel like. Yin is empowering me in my practice again with these principles of stillness and acceptance, so I've been spending time walking more slowly, talking more slowly, eating thick, luxurious 10% yogurt and adding more butter to everything, sitting in meditation, watching Planet Earth with my man. Next week will be the real challenge: can I integrate more stillness and less compulsive filling of time into my daily life when 2 hours of Yin is not planned in?
Anyway I think this post is long enough for now--more later, but until then, I will leave you with this Yin/Yang Prayer:
“Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,
he courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.” -- St. Francis
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Why am I doing this?
This is a question I ask my students a fair amount in my yoga classes. Usually in this context: "If this is feeling good, try putting your foot behind your head. If that hurts, ask yourself why you are doing it!"
But this becomes a bigger question for me sometimes as well: why am I doing this? Why am I teaching yoga? And why do I practice yoga? This thing, this spiritual practice or exercise regime, whatever you want to think of it as, has become my entire life--everything I do is a part of my yoga, and that question comes up all the time, you know, like, a) why do I drink so much wine? Or b) why will I stay home tonight and watch movies instead of go to my friend's party? [answers include a) because I LOVE it and b) because I'd rather teach a good class tomorrow morning)
Well one of the reasons I am doing this is that yoga has helped me to deal with a lifetime of issues with anxiety and many difficult periods in my life. Yoga has made me feel strong when I haven't been, and its showed me that my body was capable of things that I didn't think were possible, so it gave me the hope that everything is possible. It's just yoga, sure, and that's important to remember when we as teachers worry too much about what our students think of us. But at the same time yoga has been a sacred thing to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.
And I think the direction yoga in Vancouver is going is kind of...interesting. There seems to be a lot of emphasis lately on what I've been calling 'celebrity poses': forearm stand, handstand, scorpion, crow pose and its variations, and all kinds of other arm balances. Now, don't get me wrong, I love those poses, I love inverting, and figuring out how to do them to the degree I have has afforded me a lot of self confidence. But everyone's body is different [and let's be honest, many of these poses are easier for a man's upper body strength and higher centre of gravity] and those aren't the poses that made me fall in love with yoga. I didn't even know what they WERE until about a year ago.
I should also be clear that I am no last bastion for classical yoga in the West--I'm a pretty Western yogi, and I'm all about doing whatever works for you. But I can't help but get the feeling that something is getting lost in some of these classes that have been about 5% core, 80% arm balancing, and 15% sun saluting, especially when I leave the room feeling...weak, small, skinny, powerless, and worse, injured from trying to do a pose my body wasn't ready for. I may be a teacher now, but I still offer myself up to my teachers as a student to create all that magic I've relied on for years now.
And then I realized something....love and compassion are really difficult to feel when you are angry at yourself and frustrated because you can't do something other people can! Love and compassion often are accompanied by a feeling of power, and powerlessness makes it a lot easier to be bitter and hateful.
Well THAT's interesting. And something I'm going to need to work on. And for this work, I will head to those teachers that have that amazing talent of making me feel awesome no matter what I can do. [Hey Ego! Oh, good to know you're still here!] And thank goodness, there are lots of those teachers in this city too. Love and compassion. And biceps. Here I come.
But this becomes a bigger question for me sometimes as well: why am I doing this? Why am I teaching yoga? And why do I practice yoga? This thing, this spiritual practice or exercise regime, whatever you want to think of it as, has become my entire life--everything I do is a part of my yoga, and that question comes up all the time, you know, like, a) why do I drink so much wine? Or b) why will I stay home tonight and watch movies instead of go to my friend's party? [answers include a) because I LOVE it and b) because I'd rather teach a good class tomorrow morning)
Well one of the reasons I am doing this is that yoga has helped me to deal with a lifetime of issues with anxiety and many difficult periods in my life. Yoga has made me feel strong when I haven't been, and its showed me that my body was capable of things that I didn't think were possible, so it gave me the hope that everything is possible. It's just yoga, sure, and that's important to remember when we as teachers worry too much about what our students think of us. But at the same time yoga has been a sacred thing to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.
And I think the direction yoga in Vancouver is going is kind of...interesting. There seems to be a lot of emphasis lately on what I've been calling 'celebrity poses': forearm stand, handstand, scorpion, crow pose and its variations, and all kinds of other arm balances. Now, don't get me wrong, I love those poses, I love inverting, and figuring out how to do them to the degree I have has afforded me a lot of self confidence. But everyone's body is different [and let's be honest, many of these poses are easier for a man's upper body strength and higher centre of gravity] and those aren't the poses that made me fall in love with yoga. I didn't even know what they WERE until about a year ago.
I should also be clear that I am no last bastion for classical yoga in the West--I'm a pretty Western yogi, and I'm all about doing whatever works for you. But I can't help but get the feeling that something is getting lost in some of these classes that have been about 5% core, 80% arm balancing, and 15% sun saluting, especially when I leave the room feeling...weak, small, skinny, powerless, and worse, injured from trying to do a pose my body wasn't ready for. I may be a teacher now, but I still offer myself up to my teachers as a student to create all that magic I've relied on for years now.
And then I realized something....love and compassion are really difficult to feel when you are angry at yourself and frustrated because you can't do something other people can! Love and compassion often are accompanied by a feeling of power, and powerlessness makes it a lot easier to be bitter and hateful.
Well THAT's interesting. And something I'm going to need to work on. And for this work, I will head to those teachers that have that amazing talent of making me feel awesome no matter what I can do. [Hey Ego! Oh, good to know you're still here!] And thank goodness, there are lots of those teachers in this city too. Love and compassion. And biceps. Here I come.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
how to be an adult
When exactly does one become an adult? I sort of think you are pushed into it on some level when you leave the soft comforting womb of school. When I moved away from Montreal and my Master's degree in English Literature, my plan was to become a bartender and a bellydancer. That was the plan. It failed pretty completely, but landed me somewhere else entirely--I am now a full time yoga teacher and I own half of an awesome yoga studio on Commercial Drive [www.eastsideyogastudio.com].
Last night I had this recurring dream again--that I was in the halls of my old high school. I can never remember my class schedule (this is similar to yoga teaching-thank Gs for google cal), so I wander around looking for the room I am supposed to be in. Each one looks like it could be my classroom--the faces and the material looks familiar, but I'm not entirely sure it's where I've been slotted, not sure it's the one I've chosen.
Now my dreams can be quite intense sometimes, and quite hilariously obvious in their metaphors. I once was going through a breakup, and I dreamt that someone put a steak knife in my heart. So.
This dream, I think, is about figuring out the difference between what you chose and what someone else chose for you. And going in a certain direction that seems right, but you are never really sure if you've made it to the right place.
School gives you this feeling like you have very specific goals to work towards and a very specific timeline on how it's all going to pan out. Life, adult life, I suppose, is not so much like that. When you have a job, even one you are lucky enough to adore, and you are just doing your best day to day, it's weird to think about what you should be doing in your downtime. Like, now that you don't have a math test on Tuesday and an English paper due in two weeks, what are you supposed to be preparing for? School is also a great way of not having to decide exactly what it is you want to do. People are always telling you who to be in that situation. In fact, I think a lot of us probably feel like people are telling us who to be all the time. I guess that decision, that Ultimate Question: who am I and what should i be doing? carries a hell of a lot of responsibility.
Well, luckily, my dream last night gave me a really good answer to these eternal questions. Through all the stress of what was going on in the dream, a cat appeared at a window and stared at me for a long time like it had something to tell me. Suddenly the curtain waved in the wind and the answer came to me...
BATMAN!
Seriously. I told you my dreams were obvious.
Last night I had this recurring dream again--that I was in the halls of my old high school. I can never remember my class schedule (this is similar to yoga teaching-thank Gs for google cal), so I wander around looking for the room I am supposed to be in. Each one looks like it could be my classroom--the faces and the material looks familiar, but I'm not entirely sure it's where I've been slotted, not sure it's the one I've chosen.
Now my dreams can be quite intense sometimes, and quite hilariously obvious in their metaphors. I once was going through a breakup, and I dreamt that someone put a steak knife in my heart. So.
This dream, I think, is about figuring out the difference between what you chose and what someone else chose for you. And going in a certain direction that seems right, but you are never really sure if you've made it to the right place.
School gives you this feeling like you have very specific goals to work towards and a very specific timeline on how it's all going to pan out. Life, adult life, I suppose, is not so much like that. When you have a job, even one you are lucky enough to adore, and you are just doing your best day to day, it's weird to think about what you should be doing in your downtime. Like, now that you don't have a math test on Tuesday and an English paper due in two weeks, what are you supposed to be preparing for? School is also a great way of not having to decide exactly what it is you want to do. People are always telling you who to be in that situation. In fact, I think a lot of us probably feel like people are telling us who to be all the time. I guess that decision, that Ultimate Question: who am I and what should i be doing? carries a hell of a lot of responsibility.
Well, luckily, my dream last night gave me a really good answer to these eternal questions. Through all the stress of what was going on in the dream, a cat appeared at a window and stared at me for a long time like it had something to tell me. Suddenly the curtain waved in the wind and the answer came to me...
BATMAN!
Seriously. I told you my dreams were obvious.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Well, it's been awhile..
And I feel like that has pretty much been the title of my last 5 or so posts. Its been a while indeed, but I think it's time to return to my blog because things have changed a lot since I last wrote in and, well, I sorta miss it. It's just nice to have a place to sort out your thoughts every now and then, and whether or not anyone reads it, well, let's live in a little self-indulgence for once.
So indeed things have changed. Let's start here--I am now a yoga teacher, and have been teaching yoga full time for over a year now. I also own a little studio on Commercial Drive with my lovely and amazing partner Coco [www.eastsideyogastudio.com]. I think about yoga a lot and maybe if I write about it here, my nearest and dearest will get a break from my yammering on. And there is SO MUCH I want to talk about!
I think I'll start, though, with a class I took yesterday with the lovely Sjanie McInnis, an Anusara Inspired yoga teacher at Yaletown YYOGA. She started off the class with this story--this weekend, she said, there were tons of great yoga events happening. And she didn't go to any of them. She went to the beach instead. SJanie went on to theme the class on desire, mature, adult desire, and the need to stop punishing yourself with 'shoulds' that just end up ruining your day. Because being at the beach with your partner is an awesome way to celebrate life, and what else are we here for? To follow some prescription of a life we are supposed to be living rather than the one we want? Well honestly I don't know.
I was lucky to run into Sjanie yesterday because I think I really needed to hear that message. I'm one of those people that likes to be busy all the time, have a million projects on the go, and be in a constant state of accomplishment. It gets stressful and I get tired, but i am actually a little afraid of what happens when I stop.
Sjanie was talking about how our culture is in this new paradigm now where we are richer and freer than we have ever been before, and a lot of us are filled with options in a way that even our parent's generation had no idea about. We are stuck with this anxiety of choice--how do we fill our time? Who do we really want to be? That is a hard question, actually, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I am in many ways exactly where I want to be right now--I am doing what I love and [i think] what I am good at, and I have an awesome little studio in a great neighborhood that is creating a community of people that are excellent. So what do I do with my time off, when I've done what I can for the studio and I've done my teaching for the day?
Um, start up my blog again, I guess.
So indeed things have changed. Let's start here--I am now a yoga teacher, and have been teaching yoga full time for over a year now. I also own a little studio on Commercial Drive with my lovely and amazing partner Coco [www.eastsideyogastudio.com]. I think about yoga a lot and maybe if I write about it here, my nearest and dearest will get a break from my yammering on. And there is SO MUCH I want to talk about!
I think I'll start, though, with a class I took yesterday with the lovely Sjanie McInnis, an Anusara Inspired yoga teacher at Yaletown YYOGA. She started off the class with this story--this weekend, she said, there were tons of great yoga events happening. And she didn't go to any of them. She went to the beach instead. SJanie went on to theme the class on desire, mature, adult desire, and the need to stop punishing yourself with 'shoulds' that just end up ruining your day. Because being at the beach with your partner is an awesome way to celebrate life, and what else are we here for? To follow some prescription of a life we are supposed to be living rather than the one we want? Well honestly I don't know.
I was lucky to run into Sjanie yesterday because I think I really needed to hear that message. I'm one of those people that likes to be busy all the time, have a million projects on the go, and be in a constant state of accomplishment. It gets stressful and I get tired, but i am actually a little afraid of what happens when I stop.
Sjanie was talking about how our culture is in this new paradigm now where we are richer and freer than we have ever been before, and a lot of us are filled with options in a way that even our parent's generation had no idea about. We are stuck with this anxiety of choice--how do we fill our time? Who do we really want to be? That is a hard question, actually, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I am in many ways exactly where I want to be right now--I am doing what I love and [i think] what I am good at, and I have an awesome little studio in a great neighborhood that is creating a community of people that are excellent. So what do I do with my time off, when I've done what I can for the studio and I've done my teaching for the day?
Um, start up my blog again, I guess.
Friday, May 22, 2009
links?
Hello loves,
Well allright, I have been neglecting this blog thing. It's hard for me to pay attention with facebook, twitter, and my new website, jcpeters.ca : please go there to see what I've been up to. I can upload audio tracks of sets around town, youtube videos of my poetry, articles and book reviews I've written, AND links to every single episode of AudioText that happens. Check it out.
In the meantime, I'm starting a new blog in honour of my wine club, Winos United. Check it out here: winosunited.blogspot.com
aight?
peace up
Well allright, I have been neglecting this blog thing. It's hard for me to pay attention with facebook, twitter, and my new website, jcpeters.ca : please go there to see what I've been up to. I can upload audio tracks of sets around town, youtube videos of my poetry, articles and book reviews I've written, AND links to every single episode of AudioText that happens. Check it out.
In the meantime, I'm starting a new blog in honour of my wine club, Winos United. Check it out here: winosunited.blogspot.com
aight?
peace up
Friday, April 10, 2009
News! Poetry! Life!
March 17th! Well that was a long time ago since my last post!
Things have been a little crazy on this end (tell me something new, right?) and I've been a little disorganized.
I'm writing this post from my parent's couch, on the first day off I've had in about 2 weeks. I just moved here from my old place because I wasn't able to find a place to live for April 1st. I did find a sweet one for May 1st, though, right near the Drive, that I'm pretty excited to move into pretty soon. My chaise lounge is already there, and I wonder how she likes it so far.
Anyway, this means it's me and the parents for a month. It's not so bad, we're never here at the same time, and I get to use the car a lot, which I like more than I'd like to admit. Getting to Burnaby is just so much easier in a vehicle, it's just true.
Anyway, I've been doing this thing called the Poem a Day Challenge for April, which is Poetry Month. Every day, Robert Brewer posts a prompt here: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/. You post your poem in the comments section every day, and there's going to be some sort of ebook at the end I don't quite understand yet.
Anyway, it's been amazing for me to be writing this much. It's busted me out of my usual writing box (sex, sex, sex, love, sex--boring!) and I've got a whole bunch of other stuff that's been on my mind out. I feel GREAT! Daily therapy. Love it.
On Tuesday night, I went to this event called Foundationradio.ca....'s open mic I guess. I'm not sure what the name of the night is, but it's every other Tuesday at Nyala on Main and 26th. It's amazing....i've never had such a good response from an audience. I read one of my (edited) poem a day poems on the open mic, and the response was really overwhelming. I recorded everything, of course, and I'm posting a recording of the new poem to my website as we speak. Check out the A/V section at jcpeters.ca to hear it.
I also read a poem a day poem on my radio show yesterday, which you can download and listen to here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090408-152500-to-20090408-160000.mp3
And if that's not immediate enough for ya, here's yet another one from the same well of creativity:
Outsider
I just wanted to know that you were in there somewhere.
I wanted to be sure that when your personality split
like a reproducing cell
two equally sized and shaped blobs of yourself at first,
then shaking, quavering into something else,
someone else I didn't recognize,
that you were still, somehow, the blob I used to know.
I wanted to know that from across this table, glass of wine in my hand
half full beer in yours
that you were still in there somewhere.
I can't feel anything but sorry.
I dreamt all last night of letting people down
of being late, of getting lost, of forgetting the safe combination
and being unable to speak the language where you are.
For all the words flying like artillery between us,
trying to understand, trying to make sense,
we're just not speaking the same tongue.
I could touch your hand from where I'm sitting,
but I don't.
And it's only April 10th. Stay tuned for more!
Things have been a little crazy on this end (tell me something new, right?) and I've been a little disorganized.
I'm writing this post from my parent's couch, on the first day off I've had in about 2 weeks. I just moved here from my old place because I wasn't able to find a place to live for April 1st. I did find a sweet one for May 1st, though, right near the Drive, that I'm pretty excited to move into pretty soon. My chaise lounge is already there, and I wonder how she likes it so far.
Anyway, this means it's me and the parents for a month. It's not so bad, we're never here at the same time, and I get to use the car a lot, which I like more than I'd like to admit. Getting to Burnaby is just so much easier in a vehicle, it's just true.
Anyway, I've been doing this thing called the Poem a Day Challenge for April, which is Poetry Month. Every day, Robert Brewer posts a prompt here: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/. You post your poem in the comments section every day, and there's going to be some sort of ebook at the end I don't quite understand yet.
Anyway, it's been amazing for me to be writing this much. It's busted me out of my usual writing box (sex, sex, sex, love, sex--boring!) and I've got a whole bunch of other stuff that's been on my mind out. I feel GREAT! Daily therapy. Love it.
On Tuesday night, I went to this event called Foundationradio.ca....'s open mic I guess. I'm not sure what the name of the night is, but it's every other Tuesday at Nyala on Main and 26th. It's amazing....i've never had such a good response from an audience. I read one of my (edited) poem a day poems on the open mic, and the response was really overwhelming. I recorded everything, of course, and I'm posting a recording of the new poem to my website as we speak. Check out the A/V section at jcpeters.ca to hear it.
I also read a poem a day poem on my radio show yesterday, which you can download and listen to here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090408-152500-to-20090408-160000.mp3
And if that's not immediate enough for ya, here's yet another one from the same well of creativity:
Outsider
I just wanted to know that you were in there somewhere.
I wanted to be sure that when your personality split
like a reproducing cell
two equally sized and shaped blobs of yourself at first,
then shaking, quavering into something else,
someone else I didn't recognize,
that you were still, somehow, the blob I used to know.
I wanted to know that from across this table, glass of wine in my hand
half full beer in yours
that you were still in there somewhere.
I can't feel anything but sorry.
I dreamt all last night of letting people down
of being late, of getting lost, of forgetting the safe combination
and being unable to speak the language where you are.
For all the words flying like artillery between us,
trying to understand, trying to make sense,
we're just not speaking the same tongue.
I could touch your hand from where I'm sitting,
but I don't.
And it's only April 10th. Stay tuned for more!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Marginalia by Billy Collins
I don't know who Billy Collins is, but I just found this poem in an archive of stuff from my old computer, and thought YES! This is amazing! I can't remember who gave it to me, but thanks, person I forget. This poem is awesome.
Marginalia
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have manage to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
Billy Collins
Marginalia
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have manage to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
Billy Collins
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Sistahood Slam on YouTube!
For those of you who missed the Sistahood Slam this past Monday, i am really sorry for you. The good news is that Warren Dean Fulton was lovely enough to compile a teaser from the evening similar to the one from the WOWPS playoffs, so you can see what you missed.
Never fear though, more poetry is always to come. I remind you to check out my radio show, AudioText, to get your fix (which you can access through my website, jcpeters.ca) and to keep an eye on Cafe Deux Soleils, Cafe Montmartre, and the Cottage Bistro for events coming up. Tonight, for example, there is a poetry event featuring Afua Cooper down at Raw Canvas in Yaletown. It's one of my favourite places to read poetry, so I'll most likely be there on the open mic, recording everything at the same time. So stay tuned.
here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wte3pbcYquA
Never fear though, more poetry is always to come. I remind you to check out my radio show, AudioText, to get your fix (which you can access through my website, jcpeters.ca) and to keep an eye on Cafe Deux Soleils, Cafe Montmartre, and the Cottage Bistro for events coming up. Tonight, for example, there is a poetry event featuring Afua Cooper down at Raw Canvas in Yaletown. It's one of my favourite places to read poetry, so I'll most likely be there on the open mic, recording everything at the same time. So stay tuned.
here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wte3pbcYquA
News! Yoga! Life!
Hello everyone!
It's been a little while, and I've been slack with keeping up on this here blog. Lots has been going on. Lots.
One thing is that I've been working on my website a fair bit: jcpeters.ca. Check it out if you like and you can read poems, listen to and watch perfomances, even read my academic articles! Crazy I know!
Now, onto the news portion of the evening:
I've been spending a lot of time doing things like meditating and yin yoga, getting massages and trying to get back to my roots and figure all my shit out. Things like, what do I want out of life? What direction should I be going in? As it turns out, you can get this kind of perspective without escaping to a cabin in the woods (though that helps)--the magic is in not dating for a while. Or just getting rid of whatever is cluttering your thinking to give yourself some space. I can't recommend this 40 day revolution thing enough--i'm on day 39 and I feel like my whole life has changed. I think we all know what we need to do to get that kind of perspective, we just have to figure out how to tap into it.
In any case, the obvious solution presented itself to me: teach yoga! Of course! I'm starting an intensive certification course at the end of May, and then I'm gonna be a YOGA TEACHER!
On that note: check out this awesome picture of me and my biceps made out of fighter jets! This was from an excellent Anusara workshop with Chris Chavez, by the way.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
hi!
Hey! Hey bloggers!
Nice to see ya. I never get comments from you, so I forget to check back, but I hear you guys are listening: look: 48% or so of people who saw my stuttering poem on youtube heard it here first, apparently. How awesome! Hey thanks for reading great people! I like you a whole lot.
In any case, I have lots to say, and will do over the next little while, but first I just wanted to say thanks for listening. I remind you all, too, to check out jcpeters.ca for updated a/v like they used to say in high school and news that's happening in the world. And by world I mean around Julie Peters. That's Julie Peters. Got it? Yes you do. I like you.
More soon, I promise!
and thanks, sincerely, as always.
Nice to see ya. I never get comments from you, so I forget to check back, but I hear you guys are listening: look: 48% or so of people who saw my stuttering poem on youtube heard it here first, apparently. How awesome! Hey thanks for reading great people! I like you a whole lot.
In any case, I have lots to say, and will do over the next little while, but first I just wanted to say thanks for listening. I remind you all, too, to check out jcpeters.ca for updated a/v like they used to say in high school and news that's happening in the world. And by world I mean around Julie Peters. That's Julie Peters. Got it? Yes you do. I like you.
More soon, I promise!
and thanks, sincerely, as always.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Apologize: a poem on YouTube
Friday, February 06, 2009
blog blargh
So it's come to my attention, again, that people do, in fact, read my blog. I got in trouble for this today, for giving out some confidential information about a certain government institution. Oops. um. Confidential information edited out. I have to be more careful about this kind of thing now that i'm a big celebrity.
As a side note, a friend of mine recently told me he could see me becoming a minor celebrity, a big fish in a small pond, and then moving to New York. ...Then what? I asked. Then nothing: apparently I just get to be a big fish in a small pond. That's a depressing fortune, don't you think?
Anyway, I'll take it.
Have you been listening to my radio show, by the way? AudioText is on every Wednesday on CITR, 101.9 FM in Vancouver, or online at citr.ca. You can also get the links to the podcasts through my brand spanking new (and still kink-full, so be warned) website: jcpeters.ca. I promise I won't give out any of your confidential information on it. Or on the blog. You can comment. It's okay.
As a side note, a friend of mine recently told me he could see me becoming a minor celebrity, a big fish in a small pond, and then moving to New York. ...Then what? I asked. Then nothing: apparently I just get to be a big fish in a small pond. That's a depressing fortune, don't you think?
Anyway, I'll take it.
Have you been listening to my radio show, by the way? AudioText is on every Wednesday on CITR, 101.9 FM in Vancouver, or online at citr.ca. You can also get the links to the podcasts through my brand spanking new (and still kink-full, so be warned) website: jcpeters.ca. I promise I won't give out any of your confidential information on it. Or on the blog. You can comment. It's okay.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
AudioText podcasts!
Hey y'all,
It feels like ages since I've posted here. I've been really busy lately, with the new radio show, the yoga reception job, interviews, and writing projects. I got a little panicky yesterday, but now all is good again. There's time.
In other news, AudioText is up and running, and it's going GREAT. I'm having so much fun. And now, the moment you've been waiting for: the podcasts are working! It was all my fault they weren't actually, but I've figured it out, and now it seems to be working.
You can listen to the most recent show here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090128-180000-to-20090128-183500.mp3
It was an interview with Kevan Cameron AKA Scruffmouth, and a reading from Jordan Scott's blert. It was amazing. But don't take my word for it....
It feels like ages since I've posted here. I've been really busy lately, with the new radio show, the yoga reception job, interviews, and writing projects. I got a little panicky yesterday, but now all is good again. There's time.
In other news, AudioText is up and running, and it's going GREAT. I'm having so much fun. And now, the moment you've been waiting for: the podcasts are working! It was all my fault they weren't actually, but I've figured it out, and now it seems to be working.
You can listen to the most recent show here: http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20090128-180000-to-20090128-183500.mp3
It was an interview with Kevan Cameron AKA Scruffmouth, and a reading from Jordan Scott's blert. It was amazing. But don't take my word for it....
Thursday, January 15, 2009
wax poetic
Hey all,
Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a guest on RC Weslowski, SR Duncan, and Diane Laloge's poetry show on CFRO 102.1, COOP radio. It was really wonderful for me to get to read some of my poetry on the air and be able to talk about it too, in terms of my influences, theories about what poetry is and means, and even some of the gnarly gender stuff i've been dealing with lately. I have this chunk of archive here, so you can just scroll to about halfway through and hear the interview. I'll make it into an mp3 somehow soon, but in the meantime:
http://cfro.virishi.net/mp3/t1231972558.mp3
Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a guest on RC Weslowski, SR Duncan, and Diane Laloge's poetry show on CFRO 102.1, COOP radio. It was really wonderful for me to get to read some of my poetry on the air and be able to talk about it too, in terms of my influences, theories about what poetry is and means, and even some of the gnarly gender stuff i've been dealing with lately. I have this chunk of archive here, so you can just scroll to about halfway through and hear the interview. I'll make it into an mp3 somehow soon, but in the meantime:
http://cfro.virishi.net/mp3/t1231972558.mp3
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
show on COOP radio
Also, this Wednesday Jan 14 (tomorrow) I'll be reading some of my own poetry on RC and Steve Duncan's poetry show Wax Poetic () http://poetryradio.blogspot.com/2009/01/upcoming-january-14-julie-peters.html
If you want to listen live, it's at 2pm on 102.7 CFRO or online streaming at http://www.coopradio.org/
Talk to ya then
If you want to listen live, it's at 2pm on 102.7 CFRO or online streaming at http://www.coopradio.org/
Talk to ya then
Monday, January 12, 2009
AudioText at last!
Dear friends,
Good news! The long-awaited new poetry show exists! In the real world! You can even podcast it!
AudioText is a show about Canadian writing. I will be playing interviews, spoken word cds, and recordings of poetry, short story readings, and whatever else I can think of. Check it out at 6pm every Wednesday at 101.9FM, or listen online at citr.ca, or podcast it at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/xml/audiotext.xml
This week: an interview with Bonnie Nish from Pandora's Collective, some spoken word from the poetry slam, and a delicious reading (of my choice) by your lovely host, me.
Good news! The long-awaited new poetry show exists! In the real world! You can even podcast it!
AudioText is a show about Canadian writing. I will be playing interviews, spoken word cds, and recordings of poetry, short story readings, and whatever else I can think of. Check it out at 6pm every Wednesday at 101.9FM, or listen online at citr.ca, or podcast it at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/xml/audiotext.xml
This week: an interview with Bonnie Nish from Pandora's Collective, some spoken word from the poetry slam, and a delicious reading (of my choice) by your lovely host, me.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Last night, at Cafe Deux Soleils, I and 7 other of the top women poets from this season competed to represent the VanSlam at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Detroit in March. It was a great night--Sasha Langford was the very deserving winner (she was freaking fantastic) and I won third. It was a great night for women's poetry. The lovely Warren Dean Fulton did this 'montage' of highlights from everyone--check it out here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc3a28gdsMg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc3a28gdsMg
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Intentions for 2009
Intentions for 2009
1. AudioText--make a great radio show
2. Make a chapbook for my myriad fans
3. Make a CD for my myriad fans
4. Complete my website.
5. Do yoga as close to every day as possible
6. Feel joy.
7. Get laid.
8. Spread the love.
9. Find the strength in vulnerability.
10. Get published (more).
11. Follow my path(s). Trust.
12. Lose the ego. For my myriad fans.
And you?
1. AudioText--make a great radio show
2. Make a chapbook for my myriad fans
3. Make a CD for my myriad fans
4. Complete my website.
5. Do yoga as close to every day as possible
6. Feel joy.
7. Get laid.
8. Spread the love.
9. Find the strength in vulnerability.
10. Get published (more).
11. Follow my path(s). Trust.
12. Lose the ego. For my myriad fans.
And you?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Third place!
One more slam past, and I've apparently moved up the ranks from fourth to third, a spot I like well, especially when I win excellent prizes like my brand new nose- and ear-hair trimmer.
Also, scoring third tonight and last time secured me a place in the Women of the World Poetry Slam finals. Next Monday, Jan 5th, at Cafe Deux Soleils, me and 7 other top female slam poets will compete to be the representative of the Vancouver Poetry Slam in Detroit in March. It guarantees to be a good show, because the girls we've got are amazing, and they will show you the best they've got. You'll love it. You should go.
Last night I read two poems, the first of which was quite sexy and a bit sentimental. I wrote it for a certain ex-boyfriend, and it was just a little bit painful to memorize it and speak it on the stage. Still, every single time I slam I get nervous. It's such a beautiful exercise in vulnerability, and that's a quality I am trying to explore more in my life. The kind of vulnerability that has strength in it, of course, and the way slam poetry can empower you is, I think, a good way to get there. Anyway, it scored quite well, and I wondered for a moment if I shouldn't do another sexy, sentimental one for the second round. But I just didn't want to. And the thought of doing something I didn't want to do in order to score better at the slam went against all my better judgments. So I stuck to the one I wanted to read, and it felt good. It was a bit of a sadder one, and in the moment I was feeling it. It didn't score quite as well, but I have good reasons to be happy with third place.
Here's one of the poems:
Your poem
I’m trying to write you a poem.
I’ve been trying to write you a poem.
But all I can come up with is—
The scent of wet flowers
Or
That vibrating, lurching, earthquaking thing that happened when I put your hand on my breastplate and I gave you my heart
in beats like measured spoonfuls.
Or
That first day when we talked
over the café counter about
Poetry and philosophy and then you
Forgot your sandwich
Or when your friend told us about the ecstasy of Xtasy
and i could feel your story like the drug was on the tip of my tongue
Or that night when we saw
Stars, living stars and the space between them, negative space between
Binary stars
Or how I dreamed I was dancing and woke up like I was dancing because I could feel you in my
forearms
But that’s all wrong, I can’t write you that poem, that just sounds like poetry.
My vicious and voluptuous vocabulary
Betrays a dearth of words, a wealth of blanks, a lack of lexicon, a grammar that gurgles and garbles when I try to make sense of this
Make this non-sense!
But still
I want to write it all down.
I want to revel in remembering
To pretend this paper is your skin, to be inscribing this onto your body, until you can feel it, until it hurts, until you come in long, shuddering splashes of inky ecstasy.
I want you to hear this and feel me
In your inner ear
Pounding out beats on your eardrum till you are dizzy from
Spinning with me inside your head
So I’ll keep spinning with you, with your eardrums, your forearms, writing poetry on your body with my vocabulary.
I can’t write you this poem, I could never write you this poem,
Where would I put the commas, the semicolons; or worse, the full stops?
I’d just have to keep writing it, running off the page, spilling the ink, tearing up the pages.
This could never be your poem. I could never write you this poem. To tell you how I feel or who I am or what this means to me.
Cause a poem like that
Would never end.
Also, scoring third tonight and last time secured me a place in the Women of the World Poetry Slam finals. Next Monday, Jan 5th, at Cafe Deux Soleils, me and 7 other top female slam poets will compete to be the representative of the Vancouver Poetry Slam in Detroit in March. It guarantees to be a good show, because the girls we've got are amazing, and they will show you the best they've got. You'll love it. You should go.
Last night I read two poems, the first of which was quite sexy and a bit sentimental. I wrote it for a certain ex-boyfriend, and it was just a little bit painful to memorize it and speak it on the stage. Still, every single time I slam I get nervous. It's such a beautiful exercise in vulnerability, and that's a quality I am trying to explore more in my life. The kind of vulnerability that has strength in it, of course, and the way slam poetry can empower you is, I think, a good way to get there. Anyway, it scored quite well, and I wondered for a moment if I shouldn't do another sexy, sentimental one for the second round. But I just didn't want to. And the thought of doing something I didn't want to do in order to score better at the slam went against all my better judgments. So I stuck to the one I wanted to read, and it felt good. It was a bit of a sadder one, and in the moment I was feeling it. It didn't score quite as well, but I have good reasons to be happy with third place.
Here's one of the poems:
Your poem
I’m trying to write you a poem.
I’ve been trying to write you a poem.
But all I can come up with is—
The scent of wet flowers
Or
That vibrating, lurching, earthquaking thing that happened when I put your hand on my breastplate and I gave you my heart
in beats like measured spoonfuls.
Or
That first day when we talked
over the café counter about
Poetry and philosophy and then you
Forgot your sandwich
Or when your friend told us about the ecstasy of Xtasy
and i could feel your story like the drug was on the tip of my tongue
Or that night when we saw
Stars, living stars and the space between them, negative space between
Binary stars
Or how I dreamed I was dancing and woke up like I was dancing because I could feel you in my
forearms
But that’s all wrong, I can’t write you that poem, that just sounds like poetry.
My vicious and voluptuous vocabulary
Betrays a dearth of words, a wealth of blanks, a lack of lexicon, a grammar that gurgles and garbles when I try to make sense of this
Make this non-sense!
But still
I want to write it all down.
I want to revel in remembering
To pretend this paper is your skin, to be inscribing this onto your body, until you can feel it, until it hurts, until you come in long, shuddering splashes of inky ecstasy.
I want you to hear this and feel me
In your inner ear
Pounding out beats on your eardrum till you are dizzy from
Spinning with me inside your head
So I’ll keep spinning with you, with your eardrums, your forearms, writing poetry on your body with my vocabulary.
I can’t write you this poem, I could never write you this poem,
Where would I put the commas, the semicolons; or worse, the full stops?
I’d just have to keep writing it, running off the page, spilling the ink, tearing up the pages.
This could never be your poem. I could never write you this poem. To tell you how I feel or who I am or what this means to me.
Cause a poem like that
Would never end.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
the cruelty of weather
Happy Holidays, blog readers. As you may have noticed, if you live in Vancouver, it SNOWED. Big time. Bigger time, actually, than it has in 40 years. i think this is mean.
I just left Montreal to escape the claustrophobia of snow, and the nightmare way it makes every step forward move back in space like you are trying to run but you can't. I literally moved to greener pastures for a reason. As you may remember from a much earlier post back when I was getting ready to leave Montreal, I saw the old girl as a relationship gone sour. Montreal was a crazy bitch who would rain on me, burn me with heat, dump snow on me, and whatever else she could pull out of her repertoire, and just as I was leaving her weather went as wild as it possibly could in fits of breakup rage. Well, I feel like she followed me all the way to Vancouver for one last fight. Well, i've refused to participate, and have been sitting on my parent's couch for the past three days.
I did take one break, however, to go cross country skiing around a park with my mom. It was actually empowering--if snow conflicts with walking, slide on it. Besides, Montreal is melting outside, and my new lover, Vancouver, is washing her away.
I just left Montreal to escape the claustrophobia of snow, and the nightmare way it makes every step forward move back in space like you are trying to run but you can't. I literally moved to greener pastures for a reason. As you may remember from a much earlier post back when I was getting ready to leave Montreal, I saw the old girl as a relationship gone sour. Montreal was a crazy bitch who would rain on me, burn me with heat, dump snow on me, and whatever else she could pull out of her repertoire, and just as I was leaving her weather went as wild as it possibly could in fits of breakup rage. Well, I feel like she followed me all the way to Vancouver for one last fight. Well, i've refused to participate, and have been sitting on my parent's couch for the past three days.
I did take one break, however, to go cross country skiing around a park with my mom. It was actually empowering--if snow conflicts with walking, slide on it. Besides, Montreal is melting outside, and my new lover, Vancouver, is washing her away.
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