Thursday night the CBC held its annual Poetry Face-off, Calgary installment, at the packed Auburn Saloon. Dale Lee Kwong, ryan fitzpatrick, Sabo Forte, Jill Hartman, and Shone Abet were competing for... something, a chance to go on to a national round, I think. Anyway, I thought the jazz band added a really interesting element to the readings, especially because the CBC host asked each reader to explain their choice of music before starting. ryan's answer of "a little punk rock, Pink Floyd, and Enya" was the best, and whatever the band was playing worked really well with his reading, which ventured into the sincere end of the deadpan-t0-sincere spectrum ( ironically?) to good effect. Jill, who requested Twin Peaks type music for her "esoteric love poem", read a lovely, sensual poem that really resonated with the backing music. Dale Lee Kwong (who ended up winning) asked for "Chinese jazz", which the band did a great job with -- a slow, haunting sound fitting for her dramatic reading. All the readings were enjoyable, and the slickness of the event (CBC sponsorship, expensive bar, large crowd, judges making impassioned but essentially empty speeches about the poems, etc.) put me off less than I thought it would. It's good to see the Face-off becoming more representative of all the different poetry in Calgary, not just sound poetry.