Photo credit
Nicole Marcia

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. RC incorporates nonsense and surrealistic language to get at the depths of himself. He has trained as a clown and believes play is a key component of his artistic practice. 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

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

I read the poems that were assigned to us in high school.  A lot of that included Shakespeare and Doctor Seuss.  I remember being quite taken by a poem I read in the horror magazine, Creepy.  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.

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

I experimented with poetry in high school and in my early to mid 20s.  I wanted to do something with writing but I wasn't sure what.  I wrote a lot of angsty rhyming poetry.  I probably didn't start thinking of myself as a poet until recently actually and sometimes, I have difficulty doing that now.

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

I think a poet's job is to play and through that play expand the universe of perception.

If you have a poem in our anthology what inspired you to write it?

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.

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

Publications

Title
My Soft Response to the Wars
Publisher
Write Bloody North
Editors
Stuart Ross
Date
2021
Publication type
Book
Poem title(s)
It's Good To Be Here
Title
Where The Nights Are Twice As Long
Publisher
Goose Lane Editions
Editors
David Eso and Jeanette Lynes
Date
2015
Publication type
Anthology
Poem title(s)
If Language Is A Virus
Title
Arc Poetry
Publisher
University of Ottawa
Editors
Tanya Evanson
Date
2015
Publication type
Periodical/Magazine
Start here: