Events
Launch at City Hall
Monday, Sept 17
12:00 Noon
City Room, Edmonton City Hall
Be there for the official declaration of Edmonton Poetry Week and a preview of some of the week’s greatest events.
Poetry Central
Monday Sept. 17 - Sunday Sept. 23
from 10 a.m.
A combination writing/performance/information space at the front of the downtown library. Stop by to hear a poem, find a muse, cast your ballot for Edmonton’s favourite poem.
Return of the Killer Blinks
Monday, Sept 17 - 7 pm
City Arts Centre - 10943 - 84th Avenue
Blinkers on, poets and fans of the short and pithy, the brief and riffy! The Stroll of Poets Society will open the Edmonton Poetry Festival with a frantic fast-paced evening of KILLER BLINKS, poems which take no longer than 30 seconds to perform. More than 50 poets will provide a capsule preview of the Stroll’s Poet’s Haven Reading Series. Admission is free.
Poets Across Borders
Poetry World at CBC Centre Stage
Tuesday-Friday, Sept 18-21
CBC Centre Stage
A series of performances each day at noon, reflecting Edmonton’s rich multicultural reality. Poetry World will showcase work created in the Poets Across Borders and Honour Songs projects. Admission is free.
CORTEX: a multidisciplinary event
Tuesday, Sept. 18
7-9:30 p.m. *doors at 6:30 for 7:00 start time
Latitude 53
This is Your Brain on Art! Come experience CORTEX, an event designed to foster collaboration and connections between artists of various disciplines.
An evening of collaborative creation. The participants in CORTEX have spent the last several months working on their own and together to create new work. Poets will work with dancers and musicians; visual artists will work with media artists and poets ... and more. www.thecortex.ca Admission: $5 at the door; cash bar and finger food available.
Visual art, video, and poetry will be on display from September 19 – 22 inclusive, during regular gallery hours: 10am – 5pm.
Vintage - An Evening of Works from Well Aged Poets
Tuesday, September 18
6:30 pm
South East Edmonton Seniors Association
Wine & Cheese, with special guest Bert Almon – a poet who has aged especially well – along with readings by other senior poets. Tickets are $5 (for SEESA Members) and $6 (for non-members) and are available in advance at SEESA 9350-82 Street NW. Cash bar.
Hip-hop night
Wednesday, Sept. 19
7-10 p.m.
Grant MacEwan College – Downtown Campus
An evening of exciting rhythm in language, spoken word and hip-hop from local stars and special guests. Admission is free.
Teen Poetry Slam
Thursday, September 20,
4 p.m.
Stanley A. Milner Library
This is your chance to perform your own poems and maybe win a prize!
Judges will be randomly selected from the audience. Celebrate the Edmonton
Poetry Festival with other teen poets! Ages: 12 - 17 years. Admission
is free.
Open your Eyes to the Word
Thursday, September 20
7-9:30 p.m.
Metro Cinema
An evening of video poems featuring works by a range of artists who turn their words into intense visual/aural/oral experiences. Works will include video poems created by young people in the "Rhythm of the Heart" project, as well as other local video poets and a special guest artist. It will also feature a discussion by the creators. Admission is free.
MERZ
Thursday, September 20
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Art Gallery of Alberta
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience a virtuosic performance of ‘spoken words’ (with no words!) by one of the 20th century’s most innovative artists. Peter Froehlich first developed this solo recital of Kurt Schwitters’ salon performances for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1976. Garnering rave reviews around the world each time it was performed, MERTZ has been resurrected for the AGA’s exhibit, KURT SCHWITTERS: Collage Eye. Froehlich incorporates Schwitters’ works such as Sneeze-, Cough- and Stutter-Poems and Anna Blossom.
$10 / $5 AGA Members
Collaborations
Thursday, September 20
Hulbert’s Café
7:30 p.m.
Featuring Douglas Barbour and Sheila E. Murphy, along with Jonathan Meakin.
Blood Opera: The Raven Tango Poems
Thursday, September 20
Latitude 53
7 p.m.
Love, we have to call it/because we have nothing else. A creation myth. A tango milonga. Ice and fire. Wounds and longing.
Mark Henderson, Artistic Director of Edmonton's Theatre Prospero, offers an interpretive performance inspired by Jannie Edwards' Blood Opera: The Raven Tango Poems. Admission is free.
Strong Language
verbal and musical
Thursday, September 20th
8:00 pm
Ortona Gallery 9722 – 102 Street
Poetry by Gerald St. Maur, with music by George Andrix (strings), John McCormick (percussion), Beth Levia (wind) and Ken Read (brass).
Should’ve
Friday, Sept 21
8 p.m.
Timms Centre, Second playing Space U of A
A North American premiere of the drama by Roald Hoffmann, Nobel-prizewinning chemist and poet. A play about death, mysteries, new bonds… and ethics in science and art
Lit Crawl
Friday, Sept 21
7 p.m. to whenever
Locations downtown
Featuring recognized local writers and also special guests in downtown restaurants and bars. Organized by The Roar, Edmonton’s spoken-word dynamo. For schedule and details, visit The Roar.
Word! Symposium: talk, poetry and performance. –
10 a.m.-5 p.m.
MacEwan, Alberta College - Muttart Hall
Two days of high-performance presentations and interactive poetry . Some of the speakers will include USA slam poet, Jack McCarthy. Vancouver Poet Laureate George McWhirter, singer-songwriter and poet, Kris Demeanor (Calgary), and poet/chemistry star Roald Hoffmann. For more info...
Word! Gala
Saturday, Sept. 22
8pm
Muttart Hall- MacEwan at Alberta College.
A wrap-up to the Word! Symposium, featuring the performance of the Honour Songs project, Edmonton poet laureate E.D. Blodgett, special guest Anne Simpson, and lots more.
The Coffee Line(s) Stroll
A Sunday afternoon of readings in downtown coffee shops. All are > welcome to read a sip or two of their own work - providing you register to read.
Small Words, Big Moments — Daily Haiku Journal Launch and Workshop
Saturday, Sept. 22
2-4 pm
Café Select South (8404 109Street, upstairs)
DailyHaiku is pleased to present a Zen-like afternoon of tea
and haiku to celebrate the launch of the new DailyHaiku print
journal. Featuring haiku readings by the Cycle I & II contributors,
as well as guest haiku proficients, Small Words, Big Moments will
showcase the best of Edmonton's diverse haiku scene. Following the reading,
the DailyHaiku editors will host a short workshop where participants
have the opportunity to learn more about this inspiring form, compose
their own haiku and share them with the group. For more information please
visit: http://dailyhaiku.org
haiku launch and tea
old words, new worlds merging
fresh minds sip and learn
Leonard Cohen Nights
Friday, Sept. 21 and Saturday, Sept 22
Myer Horowitz Theatre, University of Alberta
Musicians and poets honour Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen.
Pre-festival events
There’s more in the days leading up to the beginning of poetry week.
Book launch – Bert Almon and Ben Murray
Sunday, September 16th
7pm
Greenwoods Bookstore
Brindle & Glass welcome you to the launch of two new poetry books, A Ghost in Waterloo Station, by Bert Almon, and What We’re Left With, by Ben Murray. Bert Almon has published eight previous collections and is held in high esteem after teaching creative writing at the University of Alberta since 1968. His new book is rich with intelligence, wit and a generosity of spirit. Ben Murray is publishing his first collection, after winning the Canadian Poetry Association Award for Poetry, the Petra Kenney International Poetry Prize.
Honour Songs Installation
Saturday, September 14
City Hall
The Honour Songs Project celebrates the contributions of Aboriginal women to Edmonton with a vibrant display at City Hall. Shawls have been crafted with poetry texts created in the project, and will be mounted in City Hall. On Thursday, September 20, the installation moves over to the Muttart Hall, in time for Word! Symposium.
COLLAGE-A-THON
Friday, September 14,
8pm – 1am
Art Gallery of Alberta,
Latitude 53 (artist-run centre) and Edmonton artist Tim
Rechner have organized an annual Draw-a-thon for the
past three years: an evening of collaborative cutting and pasting, free
drawing, music, and serious schmoozing. Rechner turns rumours of the
death-of-the-author upside down, and counters by claiming that everyone’s-an-author.
We agree, so in the spirit of disciplined anarchism, Dada, da da, dandies
and Kurt Schwitters, we invited him to shake us up and stage this year’s
edition at the AGA. You can’t not be there.
