performance as editing

One night in 2000, I was sitting around the metaphorical campfire with some friends in Regina, Saskatchewan. We were talking about art and writing. We were talking about music and performance. One by one, we noted that there was really no place for Indigenous people to perform at. Or, maybe it was just that we could not think of where we could readily perform. This is where the Crow Hop Café was born. I and Tim Fontaine were the founders.

The Crow Hop Café ran from 2000 to 2004. At its height, we would have crowds of 600. Our show was featured on national CBC radio. Many of the poets, performers, and musicians who were on this stage have went on to have national recognition. We tapped into the zeitgeist of that moment, of that time, and were at the core of an Indigenous arts revitalization. Most of the events were held at the Exchange- which is close to the legendary North Central Regina hood. Of all of the things I have done in my life, of all of the things that I have been part of, this is one of the most important to me. In the course of the development  of Crow Hop happenings, our egos, our presence as founders became irrelevant. We were like matches that started a fire. In the end, the small fire of these initial matches becomes lost in a large growing fire.

I was an MC at the Crow Hop, performed comedy and also read  and performed poetry. It is the poetry that stays with me after all of these years. My desire to MC is gone from me, but my desire for poetry remains. Poetry, the marrow of my soul. Poetry the flow of life through us, flow of life through the contours of words.

When I read/ performed my poetry at first, it was very loose. I performed with blues guitar rifts, and organically formed crowds. The spacing and timing of the poems was shaped by audience response. I would read/ perform the same poems over and over again. Each time, I would perform, I would pay attention to the reaction of the crowd. Over time, I would edit and change the lines. I found that this was a very effective way of tightening my poems- I think that modern Indigenous poetry is similar to storytelling-  it is a process with the audience at the core. The formation of performance of the text/ narrative has been critical to my poetry writing. And, I would hold that this public performance aspect of my earlier work functioned as form of editing and helped sharpen my work.