February 23: Thingness, peopleness and the world inside this one

Is there a world inside this one?

Can we see the universe in a grain of sand? How about in a paperclip? A barbershop? The colour yellow?

Would only some type of über-nerd ask these sorts of questions?

If so, we at the Art Bar are happy to provide a welcoming environment where literary geeks and metaphysics nerds can run free with sweet potato fries on the menu and lots of beer on tap.

- Stephen Humphrey

The evening was once again hosted by the always witty and photogenic Cynthia Gould.

Up from Chicago where she teaches creative writing, Suzanne Buffam treated everyone to morsels of philosophy that wound up as love poems and one-liners just this side of tears. Her writing explored burning houses, heartbreak’s correlation to fruit and why Parisian waiters won’t congratulate you for chewing for chewing your food.

Regarding her verse, Suzanne says, “Basically, my poetry is clear, I hope, and plain-spoken enough for a child to read. If it presents the reader with any difficulties, they tend to be of the sort that lie beneath its surfaces. In general, I’m interested in paradox, the way a poem can assert seemingly opposite truths at once. The way life does.”

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Aislinn Hunter practices ‘thing theory‘ which means, among other things, she’s equipped to spend an hour considering paperclips and organize a conference on the colour yellow. She loves the written word enough to recite her table of contents. She suggests further study of the word ‘listen’.

Can the ‘paratext’ fit on a t-shirt? How about a thumbtack?

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Poet, musician, youth slam host and self-proclaimed ‘meta-geek’ Yehuda Fisher, a.k.a. PAN, closed the evening with energy and emotion. His moods ranged from unrequited love, to political angst, to  a laugh or two at his own expense.

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