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The Chant d'amitiés
Rae et Pierre Coté
Photo by Isabelle Moisan
 

Photo by Isabelle Moisan
Femmes rapaillées at La Maison de la Littérature
 

Originally built for her book of essays The Land, this site is now the place you can also find news and information about Rae’s performances and activities as a visual artist concerned with the earth and the spirit and health of our contemporary lives. Read on and Enjoy!

Published in Quebec, launched both in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Quebec City, Canada, finalist for the New-Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, and winner of the Colorado Independent Publishers' Merit Award for the audiobook, The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope continues to make it's way in a timely fashion into the hands of readers. I hope you'll join them! (To listen or buy it and/or Rae's Spoken Word recordings, see the section “How to Buy”)

NEWS & EVENTS 2019 and 2020 during Covid 19

A note for the times: Gratefully, my life goes on in this strange Time of Corona, as one friend puts it. I want to wish you and your loved ones much wellness, energy, solace hope and safety for this difficult period.

Art is process… and sometimes web sites too! So I’m catching up with you here with photos and the highlights of enjoyable process, exhibits and performances in 2019 - which I had intended to be a quieter period - and winter 2020.

Early Winter 2019 I hunkered down on a long-term multi-disciplinary project (poetry performance-with-installation (initially foreseen for 2021, Covid19 willing) that I’d been needing time for. Part I of “Steady. Against the Absurd. Kinship at the Core" was born and in April 2019 at Casa del Popolo, the heart of Montreal Spoken Word, I performed a 20 minute excerpt accompanied by the wonderful jazz musician Pierre Tanguay. In September 2019 the same project allowed me to be artist-in-residence at Maine and Station in Parrsboro Nova Scotia, but with more of a focus on research for the installation.

Rae Marie Taylor

The Fundy Geological Museum, the Carboniferous cliffs near Parrsboro, as well as Joggins Cliffs and Black Rock beach were all perfect – at low tide of course!! – for my intended study of fossils and documenting them for material for the installation that will create a timeless “place” for the poetry scenario’s performance in exhibit settings. On horseback with Bill Gilbert or on foot, the upending of the earth, fossilized raindrops and ripples, cyanobacteria fossils (the first bacteria on the earth), and a dragonfly fossil are all powerfully inspiring material! much of which I have brought home to my Montreal studio.

The colors of the Bay of Fundy and some of its seaweed found their way into the new painting, “A New Shore” exhibited in November, and 2020 began with a lovely event, Poetic Notions, joining painters and poets for a collaborative exhibit. Kathryn Kroo, painter colleague and I participated in the beautiful exhibit and poetry performance. Again, the Bay of Fundy motivated me, this time for a poem, “Tracing Time” which inspired Kathryn’s powerful piece, “Myriads of Stones.” Both exhibits took place with colleagues at the Centre d’art E.K. Voland in Montreal.

Earlier in September in Quebec City, the exhibit Patchwork brought together 50 of us with small works to celebrate Galerie Articho’s 5th anniversary. My first insect painting was shown there and I am still thoroughly enjoying making paintings of insects and their habitats for the exhibit Beasties and Marvels/Bestioles et Merveilles at the Olde Blacksmith Art Gallery in Stanstead, Quebec. Initially planned for July 2020, due to Covid 19, it will happen at a later date. See my Facebook page for updates later in the summer.

During the residency in Nova Scotia, in spite of Hurricane Dorian and being evacuated for a week (from cliffside cabin to apartment in town), the month at Main & Station was wonderfully rich! As well as being my “research sites”, the beaches of the Bay of Fundy offered themselves as perfect sites for two readings, the first on First Beach then on Partridge Island beach where the intention of finding kinship with the earth and each other was confirmed and nourished. I remain grateful to the residents of Parrsboro who walked with me for the performance! That time in town also gave unexpected possibility for interviews with two dedicated women whose work gives them insight into both violence, healing and kinship between men and women. I so appreciate their willingness to share their thoughts so relevant to my work on “Steady.”

Another significant moment in June 2019 was the trilingual event Three Lands, Four Voices, One Planet. It was a total pleasure producing the event with Veena Gokhale, journalist and writer. We invited Laure Morali poet and cinematographer, and Brian Campbell, musician, to join us. And Rita Mestokosho, Innu poet and elder graced us with her presence and an Innu song for the earth. Following our readings the public shared enriching insights and life experience related to our relationship with the earth.

Other activities of note, I learned to play the “loop” during a wonderful 2019 Soundtrack Workshop given by Moe Clark and Ian Ferrier! And shorter readings at Lapalabrava and LOGOS multi-lingual reading series where I am always happy to be invited to read. Series that, like others in Montreal, Quebec City and Santa Fe, gather and sustain the literary community.

Thanks to Wi-Fi, Skype and Zoom, the pandemic has not interfered with some of my poetry currently, now in spring 2020, being translated into French! I’m thrilled with this, a first!

Happily as well, magazine publications are going ahead, albeit with launchings on-line: Montreal Serai, arts magazine has just published my essay “The Root of It” in their issue 33, Climate Change and the Commons. Both Vallum magazine and Kola, A Black Literary magazine are publishing poems in English.

And I offered a video for the multi-lingual on-line reading for 2020 spring’s World Festival of Poetry for Peace. The French publication, Possibles has welcomed both the original and the French version of my poem ‘Occupation Sacred’ for their Fall issue.

On a personal note, before the virus took over our lives, I was able to enjoy precious time with family in the States: New York City with my nephew’s family, a very special Denver visit with family and two childhood friends, and then Sonoma County with my sister Annie and family. Three weeks of spring that gave me time to hang out and savor daily life with family as well as to continue writing.

NEWS & EVENTS 2018

From Sand and Stars, my solo exhibit of painting and sculpture came to fruition! Opening on April 26th at the Centre d’art E.K. Voland, it was accompanied by my spoken word show Songs of Solidarity/Chants d'amitié en mouvance in its Montreal version. Pierre Nepveu, one of Quebec’s leading authors, gave a generous introduction getting the evening off to a wonderful start. Throughout my performance, the intuitive, ingenious musicians Pierre Tanguay, with unusual percussion objects, and Diane Labrosse, on the sampler, created the perfectly nuanced music to accompany my voice, story and poems. And the wonderfully receptive audience - without whom there's no show! - was totally with us from start to finish. It was the hoped for celebratory event for my work’s return to Montreal! Gracias à todos! Thank you to all who were there in the flesh or in spirit! The two paintings here were the theme paintings for my two geographies, New Mexico and Quebec. We owe marvelous photos of the event to Araceli Olmos. Rebecca Crumbacher from Santa Fe crossed the miles and recorded the show (If you’d like a recording of it or other shows, write us through the Contact page).

Since then, I’ve been quietly working on a new project, participating in a few Bookstore readings. My last reading of the year was with the wonderful LOGOS Readings series on the anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

On the publishing front I'm very pleased that my poem Survivante will appear in the well-respected Quebec journal POSSIBLES, and early April an excerpt of my personal essay Chère Gabrielle appears in the new and very interesting ART/ICULATION magazine. The fine internet review Françoise Stéréo published my poems, The Half of it and October last Fall. There seem to be more and more readers for poetry in spite of the loss of many bookstores!

Thanks for visiting the site! Do come back, I look forward to sharing more news with you!

NEWS & EVENTS 2017

The most recent news is, I moved back to Montreal in July. As I arrived, I was happy to find my bilingual poem Si je disais/What Can I say? published in Montreal's Spanish-speaking publication The Apostles Review #19. Since then I have enjoyed reading with this warm and lively literary community.

From the beginning it has been a busy and fulfilling year, bringing together my different cultures and the worlds of teaching, visual art and Spoken Word performance.

Having initiated the first courses on Native Literature while still teaching in Montreal years ago, it was a real pleasure in February to be invited to give a lecture on Native American and First Nations literature for the Cercle Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez at Quebec City's Gabrielle Roy Library. Happily the evening was very well-attended and many among the audience discovered Native writers like Josephine Bacon (Innu), and Scott Momaday (Kiowa) for the first time! It's always an honor and a joy supporting Native culture through the literature.

March found me reconnecting with my visual art! Something I've been promising myself the last few years. My sculptures here, some ceramic, some bronze, are from the show Sculpter la matière at the contemporary Galérie Articho in Québec City.

And then came April, and the fruit of several years of friendship and writing and performing for my loyal Quebec City community. By way of thanks, I celebrated with a bilingual good-bye show at the Fou-Bar. Entitled Chant d'amitiés en mouvance (Song of Friendship and Survival) where I was again accompanied by the marvelous musicians Michel and Pierre Côté. You can find a few videos from the show, produced by Isabelle Moisan, in my YouTube playlist. Please do enjoy them!

And on the net, the exceedingly fine on-line magazine Françoise Stereo published a special poetry issue where my poem, « Vive la différence! Vif la difference! » was published both in video form and in the magazine. Do look them up. You can find that video in my YouTube playlist as well.

NEWS & EVENTS 2016

In the spring, at my new reading from The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope at Montreal's well-loved ARGO Bookshop, the response of those present was heartening. People are hungry for hope and knowledge. How satisfying and motivating it was to nourish that hope for the land and our relationship with it!

This has been a productive year with new writing and my bilingual poetry being published in two French publications here in Quebec: the well-respected Montreal literary journal Les Écrits #146, with a piece entitled « Something », in hommage to the wonderful sculptor Don Darby, and in the impressive anthology of 4 generations of women poets in Quebec, Femmes rapaillées. Of course, both publications led to performances with the fellow writers involved, at the Maison de la littérature in Quebec City, and at the Salon du livre international de Québec. (Quebec's International Book Fair). The jazz musician Michel Côté regaled us, the femmes rapaillées, and the public, with his amazing improvisations for each poem.

The International Quebec P.E.N. committee recently established a P.E.N. Women's Committee in Quebec City and Montreal. As a member of the Quebec committee this year, I was invited to give a writing workshop for Native and immigrant women. It was a thoroughly enjoyable privilege to support their process and impressive to see their fine work evolve.

Part of our work on the P.E.N. committee involved witnessing different women around the world who are detained, murdered or constantly harassed for their speaking out against injustice in their countries. For our two events witnessing them, again at the Maison de la literature and the Salon du livre, I supported Dina Meza in Honduras. The Wyandot singer Andrée Lévesque-Sioui accompanied us in both events with her finely wrought musical witness.

And last but not least, the pleasure of translating (into English) Valerie Forgue's poems for her participation in Germany's Roedermark's World-Poetry Festival.

NEWS & EVENTS 2015

Now it's Fall and after doing new writing in French for a couple publications, I'm enjoying time again in the Southwest. My focus this time is guiding tours with Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project. Do go to their site to see and enjoy the wonderful work they do. mesaprietapetroglyphs.org 


Phare-Ouest at Studio P, Quebec
Photo credit Isabelle Duval

Voices, music, images, depth of rhythm and feeling all came together in Quebec! We loved doing the show PHARE-OUEST for our warm and enthusiastic public who have asked, and still ask, for more. Many people said they discovered a West they didn't know existed. We'll be happy to do the show again in 2016. Feel free to invite us!

PHARE–OUEST a new show! Some true West for Quebec City. We'll be going beyond stereotypes to share the deeper West we each know. Join us if you can!: Tuesday, March 31st at Studio P, 280 rue St. Joseph. Spoken Word artists Rae Marie Taylor and Jean Désy will offer an evening of beauty, emotion and humor around the theme of the American West, Rae's original home and Jean's recent passion. Frederic Dufour's guitars and images by videographer Isabelle Duval will accompany the duo.
Bilingual (French and English)


Rae and Michel Côté at Arts Alive!
Photo credit Isabelle Moisan

In June as part of the weekend festival Arts Alive! at Morrin Center, I was delighted to perform in a Spoken Word event with the true blue jazz musician Michel Côté. New poems, new music and sunshine to start the summer!

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko Nevada, in its 31st year, was fabulous. Great music, great poetry and the gladness of being among ranchers and cowboys again! Listen to them on their site. www.westernfolklife.org

January 6th. For my creative and homing spirit, I celebrated the New Year at the Jemez Buffalo Dance where the joyful hospitality of my friends nourished body and soul, as did all the family who took time for me for along the way.

NEWS & EVENTS 2014

(Click here to view past news and events!)

My writing year ended with an enriching and lively workshop with Jimmy Santiago Baca in Taos, NM just before the Holiday festivities began. Jimmy is a life-force, and his support is still inspiring me. I did get a chance as well to enjoy the traditional 'farolitos' walk with friends, and later, for New Year's Day, the always enlivening Turtle Dance at Taos Pueblo.

A November Reading with Lapalabrava in Montreal was a real treat. Founded by Hugh Hazelton, Lapalabrava is a tri-lingual poetry series, so I was moved to be with Mexican writers and the beauty of the Spanish language as well as that of French, and of course my own mother tongue!

CIPA AWARD
Viva Colorado my first home! My book The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope has received its second award in one year! This time from Colorado Independent Publishers Association for the enhanced e-book version (text, audio and images) that I recorded last November with Brook Forest Voices in Evergreen. I am so encouraged and hope many of you will want to read and/or listen to it!
Here's the press release!

It can be ordered from the ibooks on itunes: Here's a link with a sample.

Spring is always a busy time and I was very happy to be invited again in March for La Nuit de la poésie during Le Printemps des poètes events, and for La Muse, evening of readings in and around town for the International Quebec Book Fair. I was especially glad to offer some new poems!

In May, there was a new delight; being invited to lead a storytelling and creativity workshop for children at the Morrin Center in Quebec City as one of their writers for their literary festival, ImagiNation.

And then came Ireland! I was invited to the Listowel Writers' Week by fellow poet there, John McGrath, and thoroughly enjoyed being among the Irish writers and their open-hearted good humored hospitality. Poet Linda Whittenberg from Santa Fe, who has researched her Irish roots, was also attending. The poetry community is a small and grand world!