Photo credit
Nang K'uulas

Biography

Métis multidisciplinary artist Moe Clark is a nomadic songbird with wings woven from circle singing and spoken word. Originally from Treaty 7, she’s called tio'tia:ke (Montreal) home for over a decade. Her last solo album “Within” toured North America in 2017 and her video poem “nitahkôtan” won best indigenous language music video at the ImagiNative film festival and later featured at Skabmagovat Film Festival (FI). Apart from performance, she facilitates creative workshops; she directed the first bilingual edition of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, and in 2016 she launched nistamîkwan: a transformational arts organization. Her work has appeared the world over, including the Lincoln Centre (US), UBUD Writers & Readers Festival (ID) and Origins Festival in London (UK).

www.moeclark.ca / www.nistamîkwan.com

 

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 come into poetry through music. Song is my first language. I would listen to Björk, Joni Mitchell, Buffy Sainte-Marie for hours and memorize their songs and lyrics. When I got my license I played "Coyote" by Joni Mitchell religiously on my car ride to school from the suburbs. My dad had recorded it from vinyl to cassette so I could listen to it in my Malibu Classic.

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

I was a really quiet kid.  I was always hiding in poetry and drawings, but didn't actually consider myself a poet until my early twenties when I started hanging out with some local poets. I met Sheri-D Wilson, a beat poet who had studied at Naropa with Anne Waldman, Ginsberg, etc, when she came in to perform for a typography class I was taking at art school. When I heard her share, I had a revelation: "Oh, this is totally what I have been doing + want to do more of." So I connected with her and she invited me to perform at the emerging poets showcase in the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival. That was my start, and I've been writing and performing my own spoken word poetry and song ever since.

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

To transform the world into magic. To feast our senses.

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

I already have Rita Joe's poem "I Lost My Talk" memorized and reference her brilliant offering often in the workshops that I teach.

Publications

Title
Fire & Sage/ de sauge et de feu
Publisher
maelström éditions
Date
May 2012
Publication type
Book
Title
WITHIN, album of spoken word poetry
Publisher
self published
Editors
Moe Clark
Date
2014
Title
Circle of She: Story & Song, spoken word CD
Publisher
self published
Editors
Moe Clark
Date
2008
Start here: