Magpie Ulysses profile picture

Magpie Ulysses

About Me

Magpie Ulysses has been a member of three Vancouver poetry slam teams, including two Canadian champion teams at ‘The Canadian Festival Of Spoken Word’, and is the winner of Vancouver's 2008 CBC Poetry face-off. Her "confessional poems hit hard and take the reader through intense visceral terrain but never wallow" (Robert Priest, NOW Magazine). Magpie has performed and workshopped at word and music festivals, poetry slams, high schools, fundraisers, colleges and house parties across Canada and throughout the United States. She spits hot fire and is always happy to see you."Much of her life takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia, (that’s Canada) where she also lives a life under the guise of Emily Campbell. She has hitchhiked over 25,000km, climbed mountains, canoed on the ocean in a dress, cut some trees down, grown some food, sang in choirs, tobogganed on glaciers, played baseball, hugged some trees, fed some chickens, shot some rifles, served people food stuffs, traveled to 8 countries, lived in a tent, a van, a broken down bus and a hovel made of glass bottles, manicured rich people’s gardens, spent two 1/2 years working as a mental health worker in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and is now going to school to learn things about stuff. Magpie's poems and stories have been published in Common Ground Magazine, and two self-published chapbooks; "Tinfoil, Twist-ties & Other Shiny Things; Love poems from the aviary" 2005, and "School Of Etiquette." (2006)If you would like to contact Magpie, contact her here on myspace, or at [email protected]

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 08/12/2005
Band Members: 1 woman & 16 small finches singing the blues...
Influences:

Fainting in public, Sunbeams, Espresso, Books, Good ideas, Good scotch, Intentions, Distractions, Losing balance, people, Introspectulations, Kissing in public gardens under full moons, Hot underwear, Hot food, Birds of prey, Cold weather, Writing, Traveling, Things that breathe under water, Science, History, Time, Women who carry guns, Photography, Looking for love in all the wrong places, Quality, Plants, Addiction, Constellations, The way we think we are supposed to be, and Trouble, o precious trouble

There are so many people who have influenced my writing but here are the big ones: Cohen, Brautigan, McCullers, Vonnegut, Eat Lard fudge, Robbins, Rumi, Bukowski, Rilke, J.West, Waits, Dennis Lee, Coelho, Gibran

"A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep" -Salman Rushdie


Sounds Like:

WHAT HAS BEEN SAID:

"Magpie Ulysses’s confessional poems hit hard and take the reader through intense visceral terrain but never wallow." Robert Priest, NOW Magazine.

"Magpie is some crazy talkative part of the universe that doesn't shut up before she makes you think and wonder at the natural world and the many types of people in it. You won't be able to deny her and that's how it should be." from, Janna slamicide in Baltimore

"Magpie Ulysses does NOT muck around." Simone Beaubien, Boston, Cantab slammaster

"She's no monkey in a f*!ing cage." R.D. of the T-dot

"Either you are brutally honest or the most dangerous kind of liar"

"Magpie Ulysses is a slam poetry artist whose compelling, searingly passionate, yet deeply informed writing convincingly transcends the limitations and conventions of the slam format. Her crossover potential appears without limits. Indeed, she is probably nothing less than a pathfinder for a new generation of performance poets whose work on the page will consistently capture and illuminate much of the dynamic vitality and clarity of the live presentation. Her embodiment of the union of gift and earned skill is such that her poetic vision possesses the power, depth and primal magic sufficient to complete the arc from verses lost in the mists of prehistory to the as-yet inchoate poetry of tomorrow, only beginning to be dreamt."Shadowbyrd, April 2006

Magpie Ulysses on 11/21 at Reflections Cafe in Providence: "Why you brilliant, instinctive, rhythmic, twitching, slightly damaged slammer, you! workin' both sides of the tracks on the Vancouver docks, baby's helpin' folks with needle tracks, maybe layin' soulful slammin' tracks for torn and reborn troubadors and minstrel whores who seemed to slip right on thru the invisible cracks of amorphous life, a coupla which may've held a piece o' you after just wriggling past in your adventure travels and travails, all the while living on the prayerful edge and then surviving therefore thriving on the Pure Power of the Words and your staggering ability to mount your special passion and then hump that quivering truth, conveying climax and sweet release as a rarified free juice for those fortunate enough to be present and then ready and willing to go deep within and ride that baby blue wave and catch that violet wind..." Lori Desrosiers Western Mass, poetry and book reviews.

Some links to interviews, articles, and published things... for you:

http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/music/music.aspx?iIDArticle=8602

http://www.straight.com/article/next-gen-slammers-inject-lif e-into-scene-0

http://commonground.ca/iss/0504165/cg165_StorySlam.shtml

http://commonground.ca/iss/0505166/cg166_letters.shtml


Type of Label: Major

My Blog

old poems...NEW TRACKS

Spent this rainy Vancouver Monday skipping class and recording tracks in my bedroom. Maybe one day someone will give me money and I can make a real CD. Suppose I should start by asking. Just like aski...
Posted by on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:13:00 GMT

Mic Check, canadian anthology of Spoken Word out now!

I am very pleased to announce the arrival of MIC CHECK, the first anthology of spoken word featuring Canadian artists solely. Edited by Dave Silverberg, this anthology is from the small press Quattro ...
Posted by on Thu, 22 May 2008 22:49:00 GMT

*Promises* written for the CBC poetry face off

Everyday I step onto my front porchto see cranes and construction obscuring my view of mountain lionsI continually tell myself that thisis the price I pay for living in a myth of progressSometimes, I ...
Posted by on Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:24:00 GMT

CBC Face off thank you

Hey..thanks to everyone who came out and voted and participated in being a great audience.I am in total shock that I won, and am really grateful for all the votes. I had to leave early last night bec...
Posted by on Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:49:00 GMT

new/old poem *Buho*

  Buho, Do you remember the night you started smoking again on the Porch on 5th? How we curled up next to each other in red sweaters and traded childhoods. Do you remember the night you read to ...
Posted by on Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:32:00 GMT

Hot Hot Video- poet slays the teens with her wit.

So, thanks to my new myspace friend Rashon, I discovered that Someone had taken footage of me performing at a secondary school in Port Moody, and put it up on Youtube. I was there for Reach out. It's ...
Posted by on Thu, 24 May 2007 10:13:00 GMT

The first ever Vancouver youth poetry slam team is.....

Ben Nixon, Olivia, Wee Man & Sasha Langford!Congratulations!for the rest of you,Stay posted there will be shows!
Posted by on Sun, 06 May 2007 14:34:00 GMT

That's Mr. Ulysses to you- on the subject of moustache photography

On Friday May 4th I hosted the first ever whippersnapper youth slam finals at the CULTCH. They had a gender bent event afterward so Amnesia Jane and I decided to put our moustaches on and go out in st...
Posted by on Sun, 06 May 2007 14:25:00 GMT

This dream

I have a dream that I am Like a sequioa, like a glacier lake, like a rare fungi, a mystery to myself, a complex structure living symbiotically within a body to be studied by science questioned by hypo...
Posted by on Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:38:00 GMT

*Nothing Sacred* written for the annual sisterhood slam

It's SundayAnd nothing is sacred.You have poems to write.Others to memorizeYou've been feeling so profound about things lately you think you might start to pee miracles.You spend all day memorizing a ...
Posted by on Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:57:00 GMT