In its fifth year, Ottawa’s annual poetry festival VERSeFest, is embracing “a world of poetry in Ottawa.” From March 24-30, international poets are coming in from Chile, Ireland, the U.S. and elsewhere to perform at the festival.
However, these global sensibilities are not just being imported. An event on March 28 sponsored by KaDo Ottawa (a local group of haiku poets) will showcase two acclaimed Canadian poets, Grant Savage and Marshall Hryciuk, who write using Japanese forms such as haiku.
The event will feature a both a performance and a workshop with the poets.
Savage, an Ottawa native, says he first started writing free verse poems and before stumbling upon and embracing Japanese styles for himself.
“I wrote a few poems in 1978 and somebody suggested that they sounded rather Japanese,” he says. For more than 30 years, this has been his main means of poetic expression.
The 58-year-old Savage, an avid bird-watcher and nature photographer, used to go to Stony Swamp as a teenager and collect plants in the west-end Ottawa wildlife reserve. His connection to nature compels him to continue writing.
“I also got into it because of the nature element, which was the basis of haiku, even in English, for decades.”
Savage writes using mostly haiku, a short poem traditionally written in three lines of five syllables, then seven, then five. However, most modern haikus are simply required to juxtapose two images or ideas.
“The juxtaposition or the play on words will bring you to a silent spot,” says Savage. “You know, how a moment creates a silence before the meaning, or whatever is there, explodes into your head.”
He also writes using renga and renku, two collaborative forms of Japanese poetry. Much of his career has been spent writing with others, namely past girlfriends and other Japanese style poets. He says that collaborating with other poets has inspired him to push his writing further.
Matt Jones, artistic director for VERSeFest, says events such as the KaDo reading/workshop bring cultures together through poetry.
“It speaks to the diversity of the festival. We’re not only interested in a single flavour of poetry,” he says.
Jones expects to have more than 1,500 attendees across the various events throughout the week. Some other events include the “Urban Legends” poetry slam presentation and readings from critically acclaimed poets such as Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier and Anne Compton.
Jones says that he’s excited about the KaDo event not just because of the poetry, but because it will be held at Gallery 101, in Little Italy, a first-time venue for VERSeFest. Gallery 101 will also host a student showcase on the same day.
Georgia Mathewson, administrative assistant for Gallery 101, is looking forward to the event and what it might bring to the gallery.
“We always look forward to partnering with non-visual arts groups,” she says.
“For us, it’s also a way to outreach to a different type of audience that wouldn’t necessarily come over to the gallery. So introducing the space to new faces is always fun… It seems like the events are going to be really good.”
While mainly rooted in Japanese styles, Savage says that he and his poetry are very much local.
“Well, as a haiku poet, there are all sorts of references to make it more international than it is. But there are also efforts to unify the imagery, so that everybody understands it. I guess in a small way, I support Ottawa in doing this, but I believe that haiku and renga and stuff like that should be written and appreciated locally because we have our own local seasons and customs and festivals,” he says. “I believe we have our own little world here.”