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Arts by Harry Vandervlist It doesn't take long for sheri-d wilson to start turning heads at Caffe Beano, where we met to discuss sweet taste of lightning, the CD she's just completed with Calgary guitarist Russ Broom. Perhaps it's the bird-noises she's making to demonstrate the duets she sometimes conducts with her parrot while she works. The bird-calls aren't just Pythonesque outrageousness – though wilson's capable of that at any moment. We're having a serious literary chat here, about the way birds have displaced salmon as her favourite animal image. Look at the poems on the new CD: they move from "Crow Fusion" to "Spinsters Hanging in Trees," a poem that gives a raucous comic middle-finger to stereotypes about childless single women over 40. (wilson sees those "barren dead ends" in the family tree taking flight as never before.) Birds represent many of her fascinations, wilson agrees. "The bird is the voice that sounds off and calls out. They're very social animals but they like to be alone. They like flight, they like freedom, they like going places, and they like squawking all the time." (After a few more good-natured squawks the Beano staff can't help laughing along with the poet and performer turned birdwoman.) sweet taste of lightning was born of eight months of intense collaboration between poet and musician. wilson approached Broom because, "I wanted the music to be as strong as the poetry," she says. "People don't have to listen to my words, they can just listen to how great the the music is." Broom threw himself into the project in a way few musicians might have done. "He read all my work and then said `These are the poems I hear mixing well together,'" wilson says. "He really understands poetry, too," she adds. "He's one of those rare, rare birds." He crafted drum and guitar grooves that build on the intrinsic rhythms of the poems, then he and wilson went into the studio to "play, and play, and play," until they achieved the final track. Finally, she re-recorded the vocal performances over the finished instrumentals. wilson says working with Broom added something to the poetry that's never been heard before. It's certainly true that the rhythm and guitar work, while infectious enough to be enjoyed on their own, also underscore the spookiness of a poem like "Crow Fusion" or the comedy of "From Bunhead to Bard." Meanwhile, "Melting Into Strings" creates a seductive call-and-response in which Broom's always tasty notes blend perfectly with the rich sauce of wilson's voice. Creating a genuine fusion of words and music is, wilson recognizes, a very hard task to achieve. "And I think Russ did it. He's brilliant." While Calgary audiences will recognize some of the work on the CD, it's undergone a sea-change as a result of the collaborative process. It's also been ordered into a 10-track package that suggests, to me, a narrative of a creative woman's journey through love, magic, dance, surreal cities, men, age and creation. Sometimes the journey's hilarious, sometimes it's anguished – and the mood can flip on the cusp of a syllable. When I ask wilson whether she'd planned the CD this way, her response demonstrates what she calls her "improvisatory, in the moment" approach to her work. She concentrates, then delivers a riffing, incantatory summary of the vision that runs through many of the poems. "Here you are, this fun dame, and you're searching for something. And then what do you get, you get your own work, you get to work hard. And then from that you get free in your body, you're experiencing things in your body, and you fill out every part of your skin and your bones to the ends of your fingers. You're in your body, and from within your body you find love. And then... the breakup. And the breakup is fun – it's no longer tragic. And out of that you totally understand independence." Hard work and independence – these continue to be wilson's themes. Even as she launches the CD, she's already working on a raft of new projects. There's a fiction anthology entitled the Gift of Birth, which she's editing for Arsenal Pulp Press; a play project entitled The Eternal Eyes of Laetitia Knight, about a female surrealist; and a video of her poem "Airplane Paula" being created by Calgary filmmaker Julie Trimmingham, which should air on Bravo! this December. And then there are performances in Vancouver and Edmonton and at PanCanadian WordFest and the Vancouver International Author's Festival. "You get to work hard," indeed. (sweet taste of lightning will be launched at Quincy's showroom, September 22 at 8 p.m. Tickets via Ticketmaster or at the door. wilson also performs at PanCanadian WordFest on October 13 and 15 – see the WordFest schedule for venues.)

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