In the Blog

Partridge Poems

February 13th, 2009     by Anna Leventhal     Comments

Montreal-based spoken word artist Taqralik Partridge has been keeping busy. This Sunday the 15th she’s going to be featured on CBC Radio 2’s concert series Next!: Canada’s Music Future, so tune in at 8 PM to experience her husky, rhythmic poem-performance.

drawing by Megan Griffith-Greene

Partridge is a writer and performer of Inuit and Scottish descent. But instead of choosing between differing realities - Indigenous and white, Up North and Down South, big open spaces and cramped bustling skylines - she keeps them in constant conversation, merging hip-hop and throat-singing, poetry and storytelling, the personal and the political. In her own words,

It’s very strange to me how we can live and have two realities. I come from this place that’s vast and open and beautiful, but I live and work in this place that is constricted and full of so many things going on. I love Montreal and I love the city, and [yet] in many ways I feel like an outsider.

I profiled Partridge for the Fall 2007 issue of Shameless, so you can read more about her here. And if you just can’t wait until Sunday, check out her Myspace page. Although she claims she wrote it more for a laugh than anything, the piece Eskimo Chick is a wry and touching crowd favourite, and Battery features a haunting string arrangement. Can’t wait to hear what’s next.

Tags: event listings, picks from planet venus, playlist

« “I want pie, I want beef jerky!”

My New Favourite Blog »