The “Mama of Dada,” Sheri-D Wilson has 7 collections of poetry, 2 Spoken Word CDs (arranged by Russell Broom), and 4 award-winning VideoPoems all produced for BravoFACT. Reading Highlights: maelstrÖm Festival (Brussels), Blue Met (Montreal), Voix d’Amériques (Montréal), Bumbershoot (Seattle), Vancouver International Writers Festival (Vancouver), The World Poetry Bout (Taos, New Mexico), Poetry Africa (South Africa), WordFest (Calgary), Harbourfront Reading Series (Toronto), Small Press Festival (NYC).

Awards Include: CBC Arts Top Ten Poets in Canada (2009), ffwd Readers’ Choice – Best Poet (2007-2010), Stephanson G. Stephanson Award for poetry (2009), Global TV's Woman of Vision Award (2006), SpoCan Award (2005), Bumbershoot Heavyweight Title for Poetry USA (2003), Gold Award at the Houston Film Festival (2003), Three ACE awards (2003), AMPIA (2003, best short), CBC Face-off (2002).

Of the beat tradition, in 1989 Sheri-D studied at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, in Boulder, Colorado.

Artistic Director/ Producer: The Calgary Spoken Word Festival

Director: The Spoken Word Program at Banff Centre

Editor: The Spoken Word Workbook: inspiration from poets who teach (2011)

sheridwilson.com

calgaryspokenwordfestival.com

spokenwordworkbook.com

Sexy Madonna from Florence
    for Raffaella D’Elia

Sexy Madonna from Florence
stands before me, in the after-hour
street lamp torch, on cobbles of curb
in that crazy Bard-o-space twixt theatre and life;
she stands opposite me, on stones of ancient lane
rife with Lorca in her veins-
and the gypsy flamenco clapping 
and plumes of palmas dust rising
and the zapateado heel snapping, and the deep song
shadow of Duende blood rapping—
ghosts around and between us, cante jondo;
like a dancing spirit – it
hangs over our heads
like the agony of an animal with three spears
in its side, it hangs over our heads
like a blindfolded poet with seven rifles aimed
at his heart; it hangs over our heads, like the single
word: Fire!     
Coup de grace, execution’s devolution,
assassination of desire          
the air is charged—with an omphalos hit!

What a powerful show! She says,
I can hear Lorca’s cries, rise from the grave

Sexy Madonna from Florence
wears the hanged man
on a long chain of devastated pearls
shock-wave around her neck
like a High Arcana boa constrictor
I think:  Woman strangled by her own pet Tarot
card poisoned by a traitor’s elixir: asp, asp, asp

Sexy Madonna from Florence
stands restless in a spotlight 
of Belgian moon, full of early spring
as she waits all a jitter
for her lover to finish his smoke,
in his black trench coat, tête-à-tête baroque
loquacious, no end to his talkfest in sight;
she shivers, with a shutter                shifts from foot to another
swathed in a light blue cashmere shawl
I think: She’s a chrysalis stonewalled

Her lover continues his smoke as she smoulders’ frail;
so I lift her stole from her shoulders to her head
as a hood, or a veil; and that’s when I espy,
the perfect tail of her black liquid liner, how she draws down the moon
with her eyes; I am close enough to see inside
she’s more than Cleopatra’s disguise
she might even be Isis; eyes so deep they make me afraid to fall into them;
I freeze; for her eyes would need an expedition, they are
Marianas Trench, challenger deep
36,000 feet, they mesmerize
so suggestive, they are a swinging pocket watch,
they induce hypnotic sleep; entranced
I submerse myself slow, rip current undertow,
sense of time-space slips away
am I an astronomer, I don’t know?

in mind’s eye—I am Leonardo da Vinci’s last
brush-stroke of her eyes,
and she is the grand-great-grand-great granddaughter
of Mona Lisa, her eyes her demise
for they will drive men mad with longing
and mystery, they are the impossible placebo;
I dream of being the surrealist in Paris
who plots to steal her eyes from the walls of the Louvre
so I can look into, Santo Spirito forever,
for she is a Mesopotamian magnum opus heiress
older than the stones on which she stands,
her eyes a direct line to the original amulet
essence of earth, pyramid of seashell and sands
she whispers:   I will tell you my secrets…
I fall further                scrying                        can’t help myself
she says:          …and my dreams        dotdotdot

Now maybe it was the shock of the Lorca show
that shifted her shadow so, I don’t know
but as she speaks of her dreams
in Italian whisper-low,
it’s like her breath lifts from Cave of the Crow
like she goes to Point Nemo, divines herself
and returns, with a crazy Nostradamus after-glow;
like she went forward in time to realise who she is,
like she looked into the eyes of unknown,
and her hanged man swings across her belly
there on the cobble stone,
in the chill of eve’s air; as the caterpillars
look down on us from freezing branches
their beings transform, as if warmed
by this Madonna’s inner sun
who breaks through, spiral spun—

Incredible;
she gives birth to herself
before me in the nocturne
her head a halo as she lowers her eyes
and sees into her own vision,
her own apparition, in which she flies
morphing-mystic;      
and I could be in a play; and then
her lover advances, breaks the spell,
puts his arm around her
It’s time to go, are you cold?
she replies: I am warm now

And I return to my teacher who said: 
You have entered the realm of gold
and now I know what she meant;
I would crush a priceless pearl
and drink it, to stay
in this moment
for time,         
zingaro           

zingaro           

zingaro