SPECIAL TO ACCENTI
Glimpses of George Elliott Clarke’s Song-Commissioning Project
The Eighteenth Edition of “Five Poets Breaking into Song,” (a.k.a. #18 with a Bullet – Piercing a Halloween Balloon), played Toronto’s Canadian Music Centre last October 31st. (Clarke’s title for the event conjoined the title of Pete Wingfield’s 1975 hit, “Eighteen with a Bullet,” with the fact that the show was slated for Halloween night.)
As it turned out, the eighteenth “Five Poets” show ended up unfurling on a tricky evening: the sixth game of the World Series, with the Toronto Blue Jays poised to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers. Would anyone show up? Well, the show enjoyed a full house of 50, all of whom got to enjoy wine, water, and cake provided through the generosity of Ron Kilius.
Presented in tandem with East and West Learning Association, and supported in part by The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts, and hosted by Clarke and Giovanna Riccio, the “Five Poets” were actually augmented by the late Italian-Canadian poet Luciano Iacobelli (1956-2022) and the late Japanese-Canadian poet Roy Kiyooka (1936-1994).
As usual, the fare was thoroughly diverse, multicultural, and thrilling! The vocalist was Usha (Karen Gray), once of Sri Lanka, accompanied by pianist Narmina Afandiyeva, once of Azerbaijan.
The full-house audience at the Canadian Music Centre in downtown Toronto enjoyed a beatific event on Halloween 2025, unlike the damned who chose to cheer on the Blue Jays in Game Six of the World Series. Photo: © C. P. Zemokhol
The whole idea of “Poets Breaking into Song” began in December 2020 when Parliamentary Poet Laureate Emeritus George Elliott Clarke decided to offer Italian-Canadian poet Giovanna Riccio a special Christmas present by commissioning Guggenheim-winning composer James Rolfe to set Riccio’s poem “Namesake” to music.
Sung to her over Zoom on Christmas Day (at the height of the Covid pandemic), the poem/song – about the Toronto school system-forced alteration, when Riccio was a little girl, of Giovanna’s name to Joan and then her adult decision to reclaim her birth-name – brought tears to Riccio, but also joy to composer Rolfe and commissioner Clarke. A new art medium was born!
Co-host Giovanna Riccio recited poems elegant in imagery, beautiful in compassion, and tragically relevant in telling of dollified misogyny and downfalls that bear the weight of myth. Photo: © C. P. Zemokhol
Since then, Clarke has commissioned eight composers to score 89 poems by 40 different Canadian (and one Chinese) poets. Since May 2021, he has partnered with various organizations and staged, often solo, twenty-one “Five Poets” shows, in Ontario and Nova Scotia.
Each show features several poets, each reading poems then turned into songs. Once the recited poetry ends, a vocalist and pianist take to the stage to perform the poems as songs. Live audiences have ranged from 30 to 300, with admission usually free. But the result is always the same: standing ovations, whoops, hollers, and cheers. Even people who hate poetry LOVE this show.
Pianist Narmina Afendiyeva was the consummate accompaniment – or, better, the accomplice to the accomplishment achieved for even the most complicated pieces! Photo: © C. P. Zemokhol
On this evening, Riccio commissioned Acadian composer Holly Arsenault to set to music Iraqi-Canadian Lamees Al Ethari’s poem about the US invasion of Iraq, “By the Iron Gate.” Like Arsenault, a jazz-oriented composer Eddie Bullen – Grenadian by birth – composed Iraqi-Canadian poet Leilah Nadir’s feminist and anti-imperialist song “Belly Dancing Upon Saddam Hussein’s Tomb.”
Bullen also scored his Carib-Canuck brother Michael Fraser’s beat-syncopated and cinematic poem “Daydreaming Sofia.” Euro-Canuck Emily Hiemstra set Kiyooka’s doo-wop-mournful poem about marital breakdown, “the pear tree’s white blossoms tincture the night air.”
Behold “GEC” – the Prof as Impresario! Photo: © C. P. Zemokhol
D.D. Jackson – part-Black, part-Chinese, all Canadian – scored Iacobelli’s song “Daylight Shooting in Little Italy” (Toronto), which tells the true story of a likely mob-hit upon a gambler too slow to repay hefty debts. Based in jazz, but able to compose anything, Jackson also scored Riccio’s poem, “Daedalus’ Lament.”
New Zealander Juliet Palmer is both a convert to Judaism and a confirmed Canadian. She scored Riccio’s poem “Barbie Sounds Out.” Her Jewish-Canadian husband James Rolfe, internationally renowned for his operas and soundtracks, set the “Africadian” Clarke verses for “Bombastic,” which denounces racialized poetry criticism, but also the tragic aria, “I’m not myself but a stranger,” from their triumphant opera, Beatrice Chancy (1999).
Vocalist Usha was stunningly dramatic and spine-shiveringly operatic. Every note transfigured and every gesture transfixed. Photo: © C. P. Zemokhol
Chronicling the whole event in images was Toronto’s Choucri Paul Zemokhol. Of Lebanese-Syrian ancestry and Egyptian by birth, Zemokhol has been a poet-comrade and editor to George Elliott Clarke since 1982. Along with being a fine poet and photographer, Zemokhol collects old cameras and old watches.
From left-to-right: Performers, poets, and a composer: Usha & Narmina Afendiyeva; poets Michael Fraser, GEC, Giovanna Riccio, Lamees Al Ethari, & Leilah Nadir; composer Eddie Bullen. Photo: © C. P. Zemokhol
By the way, those who attended “Five Poets #18” left happy. Those who watched the Blue Jays lose – on TV or in person – had to feel just a tad dejected.
