Friday Special Blend
Friday March 24th, 2023 with Susan Johnston
Versefest Special Edition: CODA for the Victims with John Barton and Glenn Nuotio

Join Susan for a chat with John Barton and Glenn Nuotio about CODA For The Victims, a special performance of Barton's work set to music and song. The event: An evening highlighting queer-themed poetry and music that spans recent Canadian history, contemporary figures, AIDS, romance, social issues, sex and local 2SLGBTQ+ Ottawa life, found within the poems from the Coda For the Victims section of John Barton’s sonnet memoir Lost Family, this Saturday March 25th special musical event (as part of 2023 VERSeFest) will feature an oratorio-style reading of poems by renowned Canadian gay poet John Barton. Ensemble Allure is a collective presenter of contemporary classical and experimental music originally based in Ottawa, now spread apart interprovincially. The ensemble convenes annually and operates in a modular way. For this performance in Ottawa, the ensemble will be composed of Ben Borg, Guitar, Erik Johnson-Scherger, Violin, Renée Dahn, Viola, and Stephen Eckert, piano. https://www.ensembleallure.com/ John: John Barton is a poet, essayist, editor, and writing mentor. His thirty books, chapbooks, and anthologies include For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin: Selected Poems; We Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs, Manifestos; Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets; and The Essential Douglas LePan, which won a 2020 eLit Award. Lost Family, his twelfth book of poetry, was nominated for the 2021 Derek Walcott Prize. Winner of tree Archibald Lampman Awards, an Ottawa Book Award, a CBC Literary Award, a National Magazine Award, he was born in Edmonton and raised in Calgary, He lives in Victoria, where he was the city’s first queer poet laureate. Glenn: Glenn Nuotio is a co-founder of Qu’ART - Ottawa Queer Arts Collective and creative director of this Coda For The Victims music project with the poems of John Barton and VERSeFest. As a piano player, songwriter and cabaret brat, Glenn’s solo and band performances have included invitations to Westfest, National Arts Centre Fourth Stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Ottawa International Writers Festival and Magnetic North Theatre Festival.