RC Weslowski
Biography
RC Weslowski is a long-time Canadian spoken word artist living on the Unceded Territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Wautuh Nations. RC is a Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Champion and a two-time World Cup of Poetry Slam Finalist. He has led performance workshops at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Tucson Poetry Festival, the Victoria Spoken Word Festival and the Speak North Festival. A.I. has not replaced him yet. RC's first collection of poetry, "My Soft Response to the Wars" is available through Write Bloody North Publishing at www.writebloodynorth.ca
Micro-interview
I remember being quite taken by a poem I read in the horror magazine, Eerie. It was written in the style of Edgar Allan Poe and detailed the story of a corpse decomposing in a grave from the body's point of view. I don't remember the poem's title though.
I think to some degree, I always knew or felt like I knew, I was a poet but I didn't have a name for it. I had a deep feeling for the written language and spoken word and I identified with the rebellious nature that I attributed to poets, musicians and artists, especially the Dadaist and Surrealists of the early 20th century.
I think a poet's job is to play and through that play expand the universe of perception.
The poem I have in the anthology is called "Let's Not Get It Together" and I was inspired to write it while being a part of a conference at the Banff Centre for the Arts. I was in conversation with a fellow clown and that phrase "Let's Not Get It Together" popped into our mouths and I thought it was great. I feel like we humans can get too rigid in our ways of thinking...fundamentalisms, literalism and so on rather than using play and curiosity to expand our perceptions of ourselves and the universe we inhabit.
