FFWD Weekly
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| BOOKENDS Louise Erdrich once described a dandelion as "a buried root... a globe of frail seeds that's indestructible." That sums up hardy Dandelion magazine, the Calgary semi-annual that's bloomed and scattered literary seeds through a quarter-century of Calgary freeze-ups, droughts and hailstorms. Along with sister publication blue buffalo and youthful, independent filling station magazine, Dandelion is throwing a celebratory party called Twenty-Five Years of Weed. The party is your chance to hear Claire Harris, if you missed her at the PanCanadian Wordfest's Poetry Bash last fall. Blake Brooker, known for his years of work with One Yellow Rabbit, will bring another dimension to the night's reading. (At least a couple of other very well known readers still have to be confirmed.) Those Plaid-Tongued Devils will provide tunes for the rest of the evening. Dandelion's back issues read like a who's who of Albertan and Canadian literature. Since Joan Clark, Edna Alford and Velma Foster started Dandelion in 1975, people like Robert Kroetsch, W.P. Kinsella, Eli Mandel and Christopher Wiseman have served on the editorial board. Poets like Patricia Young, b.p. nichol and Don McKay have been published in Dandelion's pages, along with far too many others to mention. (Even Calgary's Peter Stockland, in an earlier incarnation, published a short story in 1986.) Dandelion's celebrating true grassroots literary history here. "The Dandelion Society has faced some tough times recently," explains blue buffalo board member Kirk Miles. "Canada Council funding has been cut in half, for one thing." The non-profit group publishes both Dandelion and blue buffalo. While many of Canada's literary outlets are attached to institutions like universities, "We've always had to manage on our own," he says. Still, both publications continue to survive. According to Miles, "The future looks good," partly because "an event like this helps show that Calgary arts groups can come together and support one another." And because some elements of Calgary's arts crowd are known for staying up later than others, "This way we're likely to have more people sticking around to party well after midnight." You could be one of those people. Twenty-Five Years of Weed takes place Saturday, February 7. Advance tickets are available at Pages on Kensington, or call 252-8185. Tickets will also be available, at a higher price, at the door of the Carpenter's Union Hall, 301 - 10 Street NW Doors open at 7 p.m. This week, there's a difficult choice to be made between two promising events on Friday, January 30. Persimmon Blackbridge reads from her novel Prozac Highway at 7:30 p.m. at Pages on Kensington. Meanwhile, also at 7:30 p.m.on the 30th, a fundraising event for the Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter sees playwrights John Murell and Sharon Pollock, along with Pamela Boyd, Gisele Villeneuve, Sandra Dempsey and Lorena Gale, all reading at the Engineered Air Theatre in the Performing Arts Center. Jeanne Rokosh will sing as well. Admission is by donation. Call 269-8564 to reserve tickets. |