The 7th Sense – Victoria Stanton, Co-author (with the TouVA Collective)
Comprised of essays, a glossary, as well as contributions by 30 contemporary performance artists, The 7th Sense: Practicing Dialogues / Practicing Workshops / Practicing the Daily Performative / Practicing Performance Art surveys the performative in, with and through language. It explores a vocabulary as a process of naming, and of articulating what happens before, during and after a performative action; to express what is experienced by the artist who proposes a work, and by the audience who receives it.
The TouVA collective presents a series of reflections which are to be understood in relationship to their artworks, and to the workshops that Sylvie Tourangeau, Victoria Stanton and Anne Bérubé have both taken or facilitated. Three practitioners’ voices offer multiple perspectives, plural yet singular, to consider the performative as an art, or as a way of life; they delineate a kind of pathway that invites the emergence and recognition of an increased sensibility in this vibrant and fleeting performative: a 7th Sense. Bilingual (English and French).
Impure: Reinventing the Word – Victoria Stanton, Co-author
Victoria Stanton and Vincent Tinguely’s Impure: Reinventing the Word (conundrum press, 2001) explores the theory and practice of spoken word and the history of Montreal’s spoken-word scene from the 1960s to the present. Montreal has been called the spoken word capital of North America. What is it about this city which attracts such a unique breed of performance art? This ambitious book is a look at the theory and practice of spoken word as told to the authors by 75 French and English performers, as well as New York poet John Giorno. It also documents the history of the vibrant spoken word scene in Montreal from 1960 to the present. It serves as an invaluable resource for those interested in the medium which has single-handedly revitalized poetry for a new generation. Impure makes a perfect text book for Cultural Studies and English departments across North America!
Impure: Reinventing the Word is currently out of print.
Reviews of Impure: Reinventing the Word
“An exhaustively researched, must-have book for every Canadian Studies program.”
– The Globe & Mail“This is indeed an encyclopedia… By organizing so much info to resemble both a historical dictionary and an academic textbook, but more fun than both, Stanton and Tinguely have certainly given us more info about this most DIY and elusively defined, hybrid art form than we ever would have thought to ask for.”
– Hour“Beautifully designed and organized, this book pays homage to history without getting trapped in it.”
– This Magazine“It’s a quality publication, and a must-peruse for any Toronto spoken word artist who wants to know what the apex is in the spoken milieu.”
– Word“A book that reads somewhere between a band scrapbook,an interesting textbook and a DIY primer. Though its primary focus is Montreal, Impure‘s interest isn’t limited by this particular geography: it’s both a book that taps big questions and the fascinating story of a specific cultural movement. … Impure manages to be weighty without being ponderous. Pick up this book for dipping or a cover-to-cover read, and tell every English prof you know – this is one genre that’s probably not getting much coverage in Literature 1.”
– tart
The Portable Conundrum – Victoria Stanton, Contributor; Andy Brown, Editor
Being an unabridged compendium containing within its yellowing pages the summation of a decade of publishing from one of Canada’s most innovative publishers. Everyone who has published under the conundrum press imprint (over 30 contributors!) has provided new material especially for the book. Of the size and weight to keep in your pocket and be truly portable. Featuring fiction, comics, essays, posters, drawings and everything in between, this anthology harkens back to the superior quality of the products of yesteryear. In fact, the tear-inducing nostalgia contained within will be enough to melt any cynic’s heart.
Career Suicide! The Moosehead Anthology – Victoria Stanton, Contributor; Jon Paul Fiorentino, Editor
Career Suicide is a collection of a new generation of funny talkers. Poems and stories which find their laughs in different quarters: in the wry, the slapstick, the satiric, and the dark. One of the characteristics of contemporary Canadian literary humour may well be its engagement with popular culture. Here the importance of DKNY, Corey Feldman, Lik M Aid, Randy Savage, John Cougar Mellancamp, the game of Clue, all question the limiting purview of what may be deemed ‘serious’. As odd, off-putting, and hilarious as that may be, the authors of Career Suicide find their laughs, as we all do, in the limitations of human experience and, one suspects, pre-mixed mai tais.
SHORT FUSE: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry – Victoria Stanton, Contributor; Phil Norton & Todd Swift, Editors
Short Fuse is the first major global collection of poetry from the 21st-century featuring many of the poets who are defining world literature and culture. Over 175 innovative poets from around the world are represented in this remarkable 400-page volume, ebook & CD. The fusion poets define these complex times through new forms of performance and text by mixing the best of the oral and written traditions. The hundreds of poems in this eclectic and powerful gathering are ferocious, funny, erotic, elegiac, and always grounded in the real experiences and voices of our startling present. Included with this collection is a free ebook with additional poems not available in the book and a full-length CD featuring recordings by the poets. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to UNICEF.