Marie Metaphor Specht
I met Marie by chance at a holiday market, both of us drawn to a constellation of handmade jewelry. We spoke only briefly. I offered her a glimpse of a gallery that, at the time, existed only in my mind, and promised to be in touch. What stayed with me was the kindness and generosity in her voice.
While Marie is often called a poet, her practice moves far beyond the page. She is a multidisciplinary artist, having collaborated with filmmakers, dancers, musicians and other artists to create immersive and interactive works. A long-standing presence in the Canadian spoken word scene, Marie is the 2018 Slam Poetry Champion and the 6th Poet Laureate Emeritus of Victoria, BC.
For over two decades, Marie has coached, mentored, and created space for poets of all ages. She volunteers her time leading writing workshops for men transitioning out of incarceration and recovering from addiction, and works with youth writing clubs and slam poetry teams across Victoria. Marie and I share a belief in the power of stories shared. Her full-length collection, Soft Shelters, feels like a gift. She sees us, and helps us see ourselves with ‘aching softness’.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“The poetry that strikes my heart and stays, most often speaks to an unnameable feeling or contemplation that has been hovering in the background - pulling it into the light where it can be seen and named. Poetry allows us to inhabit the experience and thoughts of another human being, to find some small part of ourselves reflected. I’m interested in the ways language can create an experience that is somehow both deeply personal and universal; both surprising and familiar.
I write, perform, read and listen to nurture our individuality while closing the spaces between us; ultimately, I’d like us all to feel a little less alone in our nuanced experiences of being human. The world can be a bitter and difficult place, but it can also be joyful and unexpectedly tender. The beauty lies in our struggle to simultaneously hold the love and the mess, the soft and the hard - to inhabit and celebrate the interwoven complexities of our world, together.”
Ten Quick Questions
What is the story behind your name? Middle names are not as common among Germans so I was never given one, but in North America my first name, Marie, is a popular women’s middle name. When I was starting to really focus on my spoken word practice, I decided to give myself the middle name Metaphor. The consonantal alliteration lends it a rhythmic lyricism and conceptually, the metaphor is very important to my work; I believe in the power of metaphors as a tool for deep translation. We are each an island of our unique encounters with the wider world, harbouring an uneasy urge to be understood in our individual humanity. When we compare a specific encounter from our own experience to something that our listener may recognize, it is an act of reaching out. It is an invitation to understanding. It is an attempt to transcribe and transmit something essential of the unfathomable self, interfacing with the unfathomable world. It is a bridge spanning the spaces between us.
What is a book you would recommend to a friend? On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
What is one of your pet peeves? I know I should probably list something small or cute, but at this particular juncture of human history my anger and frustration are reserved for bigger issues. I cannot stand the small-minded, fragile-ego’ed bigotry that has infected many in global positions of power, crippling their ability to experience empathy and act with true compassion.
What is a noise or sound you love/hate? I love waking to the cacophonous chorus of our neighbourhood crows because it means the local Barred owl has returned and is roosting in our backyard chestnut tree. I cannot stand the howling-buzz of a chainsaw chewing through green wood.
What is a smell you love/hate?
Where is a favorite place on Earth?
What is a dream you have?
What was an embarrassing moment in your life?
When was the last time you cried? There are eager oceans in my eyes and I usually tear-up a few times a day. Before I sat down to write this I welled-up on my walk to the neighbourhood coffee shop. I couldn’t help it because the ornamental cherry trees on my street were in full bloom, and the morning air was as still as a photograph, and all the neighbourhood tulips were up, and my neighbours were safe in their houses, and the birdsong was so bright it hurt.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
Available Artworks
A compassionate meditation on the transformative power of relationships, Soft Shelters examines what it is to become home for another person, how to shelter those we love without losing ourselves in the process. These poems ask us to consider the gifts left by dear ones who drop into - and sometimes back out of - our lives; how the love we have to give the world is in many ways a patchwork of the love we have received.
Like offering a pulled thread from one end while weaving a new fabric on the other, this work is both an unravelling and a becoming. Marie Metaphor Specht explores the double-edged gift that is caregiving through the lens of queer motherhood, intimacy, and our complex relationship with the natural world. In a world that gives us much to worry about, these poems ask us to reframe our worry as a transmutation of love. In a world that asks us to be stronger every day, this book finds unexpected strength in softness.
You can book Marie for:
Spoken word performances
Poetry readings at private and public events
Commissioned poetry
Performance workshops
One-on-one editing
Custom mentorship
