The most recent news is, I moved back to Montreal in July. As I arrived, I was happy to find my bilingual poem Si je disais/What Can I say? published in Montreal’s Spanish-speaking publication The Apostles Review #19. Since then I have enjoyed reading with this warm and lively literary community.
From the beginning it has been a busy and fulfilling year, back and forth between Montreal and Quebec, bringing together my different cultures and the worlds of teaching, visual art and Spoken Word performance.
Having initiated the first courses on Native Literature while still teaching in Montreal years ago, it was a real pleasure in February to be invited to give a lecture on Native American and First Nations literature for the Cercle Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez at Quebec City’s Gabrielle Roy Library. Happily the evening was very well-attended and many among the audience discovered writers like Josephine Bacon (Innu), and Scott Momaday (Kiowa) for the first time! It’s always an honour and a joy supporting Native and First Nations culture through the literature.
March found me reconnecting with my visual art! Something I’ve been promising myself the last few years. My sculptures here, some ceramic, some bronze, are from the show Sculpter la matière at the contemporary Galérie Articho also in Québec City.
And then came April, and the fruit of several years of friendship and writing and performing for my loyal Quebec City community. By way of thanks, before heading to Montreal, I celebrated with a bilingual good-bye show at the Fou-Bar. Entitled Chant d’amitiés en mouvance (Song of Friendship and Survival) where I was again accompanied by the marvelous musicians Michel and Pierre Côté. To find a few videos from the show, produced by Isabelle Moisan, go to my YouTube channel @raemarietaylor5408. Please do enjoy them!
And on the net, the exceedingly fine on-line magazine Françoise Stereo published a special poetry issue where my poem, Vive la différence! Vif la difference! was published both in video form and in the magazine. Do look them up. You can find that video in my YouTube playlist as well.