World Poetry Presents Janet Rogers, Victoria Poet Laureate!

Ariadne’s Notes: The World Poetry Café Radio Show with hosts Wanda Kehewin and Ariadne Sawyer welcomed Janet Rogers, Poet Laureate of Victoria BC. Canada. The show included songs by Janet Rogers and a-e poem by the Egyptian youth poet Mahinour Tawfik called Powerless.  To listen: CLICK HERE!

Janet by Blaire Russell

poet, media artist – Janet Marie Rogers – spoken word, radio host

Victoria Poet Laureate 2012 -2015
Janet is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in southern Ontario. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people (Victoria, British Columbia) since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music and script writing.

Janet has four published poetry collections to date; Splitting the Heart, Ekstasis Editions 2007, Red Erotic, Ojistah Publishing 2010, Unearthed, Leaf Press 2011. Her newest collection “Peace in Duress” was released with Talonbooks in September 2014.  Her poetry CDs Firewater 2009, Got Your Back 2012 and 6 Directions 2013 all received nominations for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards and the Native American Music Awards.  You can hear Janet on the radio as she hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV fm and Tribal Clefs on CBC radio one fm in Victoria BC. Her radio documentaries “Bring Your Drum” (50 years of indigenous protest music) and Resonating Reconciliation won Best Radio at the imagaineNATIVE Film and Media festival 2011 and 2013

Ikkwenyes or Dare to Do is the name of the collective Mohawk poet Alex Jacobs and Janet created in 2011. Ikkwenyes won the Canada Council for the Arts Collaborative Exchange award 2012 and a Loft Literary Prize in 2013.  Janet joined  talents with Mohawk media artist Jackson Twobears in the Blood Collective, winners of a National Screen Institutes Aboriginal Documentary Residency for their media project NDNs on the Airwaves 2015.

Janet Rogers Web Links :
Soundcloud Poetry
Sky Woman Falling https://soundcloud.com/janet-marie-rogers/sky-woman-falling

Being Indian
https://soundcloud.com/janet-marie-rogers/being-indian

3-Day Road https://soundcloud.com/user386441415/3-day-road

Something for the Tongue https://soundcloud.com/janet-marie-rogers/something-for-the-tongue

Video Poetry

Forever – Peace In Duress Book Trailer – Janet Rogers, Jackson Twobears https://vimeo.com/101636654

It Stopped – Janet Rogers, Benjamin Goyet, Russell Wallace https://vimeo.com/74409134

Performance Poetry

75 Levels of Connecting to the Negative with dancer Justin Many Fingershttps://vimeo.com/60812582

Idle No More Trio Poetry Performance – Jackson Twobears, Janet Rogers, Peter Morin
https://vimeo.com/59184110

Hotel Reality

Junkie
I can’t stand the grabbing hands
The way they drag me in
Against my will, unwelcomed
Uncivilized addiction
Visions of medicine
Dropping like acid on the skin
Tapping your foot off the beat
But it still feels good
Stuck in a sequence of movements
Stationary minutes passing to hours
This is how Thursday goes
Drugs don’t like independence
They are jealous lovers
Over bearing, they like you, bound
Little romance to bring you back
After the break up, but you do and again
You do
It isn’t smoke in your eyes
Its isn’t blood on your sleeve
This is the itch of psychic knowing
You’ve got to cop to it
We are all multidimensional
With invisible bridges connecting
Us together
I am aware of the pain I caused you
I can see it in the reflection of me
In your eyes looking back at you
And on and on

You beg for the songs to stop
For the drugs to wear off
But there is no one there
To hear you and no one who cares
Emotional safety nets, break
Dropping like wet cement
The artist is to the critic is to the reader
Is to the merchant is to the writer is to the muse
Is to the universe is to the _________________________
The junkie’s line is limited
And critical contributions stop short.
Our bones are not old hotels
Mysteriously supporting structures
Overdue for demolition
How do we all make a living?

“the most addicting drug of all is silence”
Sentences walking out of the room
Disappearing down fog-filled streets
Leaving questions on the tongue
Life is not complicated
It is not an acid trip
It is a dream
It is a story made of many
Complexity comes when we try
To cheat our way through it
We are still learning
We make the same efforts
To do the same things
They already did
Without success

It is useless to try and alter reality
History brings a well-worn shovel
And backhoe when we try
To bury our lies
Sleep, is the only true territory unseeded
It is precious and sacred
Please do not disturb
The funny-faced masks
Remind us there is something
Beyond ourselves, pay attention
Everything is energy everything is commodity
I got what you want
You need what I got
How much? Is the question
Love is a heavy negotiation
With sub-clauses and loop-holes
Waivers you never knew you signed
Pay attention

The dealer will call at all hours
Just to see if you’re in, hang up
And call again.
Performance is a language
We learn to use every day
This voice is for you
Trouble follows drugs
I want to be a dealer
Just for the money

Quick and dirty
Smoke hash on Christmas
Drop X on New Years
Brutal is the number
Of lost loved-ones
Breaking hearts taking faith
Shaking foundations
Pulling chords mess’n with justice
Losing balance
We hold hope when we believe in
Recycled souls
Better luck next time

I tell him of the many wet-faced
Women lining the back
Of the funeral home
When he goes, he says
nothing
The day Buddha decides to

Commit suicide is the day
I stop writing
Worthlessness is a drug
And it doesn’t even
Cost anything

Janet Rogers (C)

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