Poetry and other things that bleed from my pen...

I wrote my first poem at age 11 when I was forced to sit out gym class. I never liked writing, poetry or otherwise, not until that day. Then something fizzled, sparked and was born. I blinked once, maybe twice, then never looked back. "I have started on a journey down the endless path, no one tries to stop me or even come along..." I still remember the first verse of that very first poem.

Although I was approached about publication when I was 13 or so. I chose not to go that route at the time, even then knowing that I did not want to be judged for the rest of my life based on what I wrote at age 13. I did not allow any of my poetry to be published until 1996, when I was 20.

That was the same year I first took to the stage to perform poetry. At the time I was living with a brilliant (yet slightly psychotic) spoken word artist who urged me to take my words out of our living room and into the world. I remember that first show. I hadn't been on stage since studying theatre in high school. It was at this dingy Nascar bar in London, Ontario. All the poets where crammed into the front of the room and all the bikers were drinking along the bar at the bar. I was scared shitless, not of the reception I would get from the poets but of the impression my words would make on the bikers. London was a town where people read very conservative literary poetry, what I had brought that night was neither conservative nor terribly literary. I was very heavily influenced at the time by Henry Rollins, Karen Finley and Maggie Estep. I was there to perform 'Word From The Girl at the Bus Stop' and 'The Mission' (a rant about the wasteland that London, Ontario was.) I was sure that either or both would get me pounded (or worse) out back afterwards. Only that didn't happen. For some reason (that the roomie would later tell me was my remarkable stage presence) I didn't get pounded or heckled, everyone including the bikers shut up and listened and then whistled and cheered. A performance poet was born.

Mind you what I was doing then was hardly performance compared to the things I do on stages now. I was getting my feet wet and having a blast being stranger and edgier than all my peers. They either loved me or hated me. Banned me or booked me back. On Valentine's Day 1997, I was filmed for a cable TV special on Spoken Word. I never saw it aired. In August of that same year my first chapbook was released by HMS Press. By December I was packing up house and moving to Toronto. Life and art and poetry and love was quite the whirlwind...

and suddenly I was somewhere else. The last 8 years in Toronto have been good to me. I have started my own small press, Burning Effigy Press, I have been published numerous times and released three more chapbooks (Legacy (and other short fiction), Bruises On The Inside, and the sound of one girl screaming. I have been featured on most of the stages in this city as well as many abroad. In 2001, I performed at the Poetry Cafe in London, England, then in December 2002, I was flown to North Carolina to perform erotic poetry at a New Year's Eve fetish event. November of the following year brought a weeklong stint on the Perpetual Motion Roadshow Tour, where I had the pleasure of entertaining audiences in Ottawa, Montreal, NYC, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Chicago. In 2004, I was one of the performers selected to appear at the world renowned Hillside Festival, and just this April, I performed to great response (and an audience of celebrated poets) at the poetry open mic evening at World Horror Con 2005.I have been interviewed on HOWL, The Poet Tree, for MediaTelevision and Imprint. My first full length book, a collaboration with fellow writer Cynthia Gould, called Some Words Spoken hit shelves in December of 2002. Currently I am working on a follow-up collection of poetry to be titled The Sick and The Beautiful and my first novel.

I feel a world away from that kid who wrote a poem because she forgot her gym clothes and was bored of watching all the other kids play dodgeball. Would I still have become a writer had it not been for that day? Probably. My dad always told me my mother used to write- I like to think that it has more to do with my blood than that stupid gym class. I write because I have to. Simple. Blood simple.

I can be booked for an appearence / performance / interview by emailing: monica@burningeffigy.com

All Site Contents © 1996 - 2005 monica s. kuebler (monica@burningeffigy.com)
Theives will be persecuted and bitten.