Aspiring poet laureate wanted in St. Albert
St. Albert is seeking its first poet laureate — a two-year position the city and the St. Albert Public Library are dubbing “the people’s poet.”
Poet laureate programs are increasingly common in Alberta, including positions held by Ahmed (Knowmadic) Ali in Edmonton and Micheline Maylor in Calgary. Banff selected its first in Amelie Patterson last year.
During the two-year term in St. Albert, the winning applicant will be recognized as a cultural and literary ambassador, reading at civic functions and public poetry events as they come up. There is also a $1,000 annual honorarium.
St. Albert residents ages 16 and up can apply or be nominated until Feb. 12. Nominees will then have until March 5 to get their documents and forms in (further details at sapl.ca).
The applicant needs to be a resident who will be living in the city until April 20, 2020.
Celebrating National Poetry Month, the winner will be announced April 20 at the library’s annual Teen Poetry Slam.
Based in Edmonton and focusing on the Western Canadian indie music scene from Victoria to Winnipeg, Cups N Cakes podcast is celebrating its 100th episode, which will be on their site this Sunday.
The episode will include topical interviews with the always hilarious and opinionated promoter Craig Martell; journalist Britney Rudyk, who continues to stand up in a big way to sexual harassment; and CJSR’s Chad Brunet, as well as chats with and music by WARES, Jesse and the Dandelions and Screaming Targets, one of the city’s excellent newer bands.
Congrats to hosts Jeff MacCallum and Carey Newton for all their hard work — the ongoing podcast can be found here.
Edmonton ex-pat writers Amy Fung (Toronto) and Ted Kerr (New York) are both returning to the city to research different books looking back at their path through the domains of art and activism, focuses including HIV, colonialism and identity.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to check in, a public event is happening from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. next Wednesday at dc3 Art Projects called A Brief and Unreliable History, which will feature readings of their worksin-progress, and a panel discussion hosted by the city’s historian laureate, Chang-Yen Phillips, whose favourite Star Trek is apparently Deep Space Nine.
Fung, born in Kowloon, is writing her first book about Canadian art, due sometime this year. Her Prairie Artsters indie art blog was a must-read for many years. Kerr, meanwhile, recently did 13 interviews for the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art’s Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project.
dc3 Art Projects is at 10567 111 St. Should be a fascinating night.
Finally, in nerd news, did you watch Star Trek: Discovery on Sunday?
Spoilers ahead, but the episode Despite Yourself had the best writing of the series so far, with plenty of brutal action and the shocking murder by Ash Tyler of Dr. Culber. At the same time, the episode did a fair amount of fan service by not only setting it in the allegory-heavy Mirror Universe, but tying together both the Original Series and Star Trek: Enterprise with a mention of the USS Defiant, which disappeared in The Tholian Web episode aired way back in 1968, only to reappear in Enterprise’s Mirror Universe two-parter aired in 2005. Gently, this further confirmed a continuous continuity between Enterprise and Discovery — despite the fact Klingons look absolutely nothing like they did in the two chronological bookend series.
But — this is fascinating — the outline of the Defiant itself was rather differently shaped than shown in the original Star Trek and on Enterprise. Given this episode is already taking place in one parallel universe, it’s a lot easier to explain all of Discovery takes place in some other reality than the numerous Trek series we’re used to, which for whatever reason makes me accept the whole show more.
Back to Tyler. I’ve been joking that it’d be really funny if Klingon zealot Voq was just inside Tyler, shrunk down microscopically — but it now seems that’s at least a metaphorical parallel of what’s going down: a twist on The Enemy Within. Voq, however the hell they explain it, seems to be emerging from Tyler — maybe when a full moon appears or something.
Joking aside, the death of Culber might not be as tragic as it seems; after all, the crew is currently trapped in an alternate reality with different versions of people. If they end up pulling a meaner, nastier Culber back to their calmer reality, we might end up with another of those great Englishmen in New York sort of characters like Spock and Data, or more accurately like Worf and Seven of Nine.
Also, wouldn’t it be awesome if Hoshi (from Star Trek: Enterprise) was an old and withered empress? Stay tuned. And more Capt. Killy, please — long live the empire!