pandora's recap + buttons!

Last night was Pandora's Collective's 10th Anniversary party. The room was absolutely packed, and highlights of the 4.5 hours show included C.R. Avery's Pepsi commercial, Geoff Berner's donkey, James McCann's unfortunate mattress, and a number of really enjoyable poems from poets such as Fran Bourassa and Chelsea Comeau. Oh, and Steve Duncan auctioning a painted box for about half an hour, increasing the bids in five cent increments (it eventually sold for eleven dollars!). And cake, my goodness was there ever cake...

My contribution wasn't quite as memorable as those of others, but I recounted High Altitude Poetry's early days and how openly and warmly we were welcomed into Pandora's extended family, and I read "Irradiated" (retitled as "That One Semester" in The Other Side of Ourselves), a poem dating back to those early days when I was first getting involved with Pandora's.

It was a pretty wonderful evening all around, with lots of good feeling and well-deserved praise being sent towards Pandora's founders Bonnie Nish and Sita Carboni. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I can only bring you photos of the memorabilia from the event: buttons!

The buttons feature excerpts from poems by Daniela Elza, Timothy Shay, Diane Tucker, and myself:

My three quotes are from "Haiku 1-4", "Happiness" and "You Can't Lead a Horse", all in TOSOO:

Thanks to Kyla Bourgh for putting the buttons together. As I headed out at the end of the evening, I noticed that most of them had been sold, so hopefully a few bucks were raised for Pandora's. And thank again, of course, to Bonnie and Sita for all they've done for Vancouver poetry over the last decade!