Poets Across Borders Project

Edmonton is one of the most culturally diverse cities in Canada. Poets Across Borders will build bridges between different cultural communities.

In this project, nine pairs of writers from different cultural groups that play an important part in Edmonton's civic life are engaging in a creative dialogue.

Writers who have come from the Sudan, Pakistan, Croatia, Phillipines, Chile, Kurdistan, India, and Caribbean are working with English-language poets with roots from Scotland to Saskatchewan. They are sharing the questions of difference and of common humanity – What it’s like to remember your father? What do cattle and the land mean? What’s a poetry reading like in different cultures? When a stranger begins a conversation with you at a bus stop, does it mean he is reaching out to you because you look as lonely and confused as he is?

The poems created will be performed at a series of events during the Edmonton Poetry Festival, Sept 17-23. These performances will include music and/or other arts from the participating cultural communities.

The Poets

Jalal Barzanji & Sandra Mooney-Ellerbeck

Jalal Barzanji is from Kurdistan. He has been in Canada since 1998. A poet & human right activist for many years in his own country, he published a multitude of poems & articles on individual freedom & freedom of expression.

In Edmonton he helped established the Canadian Kurdish Friendship Association and the Edmonton Immigrant Support Network Society. He was a 2004 recipient of a RISE award and was recently appointed PEN Canada Writer-in-Exile. Jalal has three children and works with the Multicultural Health Brokers Co-operative.

Sandra Mooney-Ellerbeck’s poetry has appeared in literary journals, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, greeting cards, cafes, visual art, songs, and radio. She facilitates poetry and art workshops, and works as a Library Assistant at the Edmonton Public Library. She is a past president of the Stroll of Poets Society and has coordinated many of their events She also created, coordinates, and hosts the Discovery Café in Edmonton, a philosophy café that also celebrates music and poetry.

Together they have created poems about borders and landscapes, that will be accented by music from Kurdistan.

Shabnam Sukhdev & Alison Owen Nicholls

Shabnam Sukhdev is an alumnus of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune with a diploma in Film Direction, 1994 batch. Since then she has been actively engaged in the media arts industry of Mumbai as writer, director and producer of television shorts, movies and documentaries. Shabnam immigrated to Canada in 2003 and continues to make independent documentary films. Her work is deeply concerned with the themes of identity, roots and survival in diverse immigrant communities.

Alison Owen Nicholls has been a member of the Edmonton Stroll of Poets Society since 1992. She has performed her work frequently at Stroll and Poetry Festival events, and at “Alice’s Restaurant” (Provincial Museum of Alberta, as part of the 1960’s/Linda McCartney Photography exhibit.) Most recently, Alison was chosen to perform at the 21st annual South Country Fair in Fort McLeod, Alberta.

Together: Their collaboration centers on the bond they share with two remarkable fathers, both with an interest in film. Alison’s father, John “Larry” Owen, was an English teacher, an administrator of a learning and reading centre, an expert in film genres, and avid photographer. He passed away in 2004 after a lengthy struggle with myeloma bone marrow cancer.

Shabnam lost her father, S Sukhdev, when she was only fourteen. He had dedicated his life and career to the documentary film movement in India, having less time for his family and close relationships. One of Shabnam’s poems declares peace with her father in a poem that recognizes his dedication to film and his influence on her own choice of career.

Khalida Tanvir Syed and Kelly Shepherd

Khalida Syed is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. She is a Pakistani/Canadian who speaks five languages – Punajabi, Siraiki, Urdu, Arabic, English. Her areas of interest are language, literature, culture, and multiculturalism. She is a human rights and social justice activist, and the granddaughter of Urdu poet, Syed Mohammed Abdul Aziz Sharqi

Kelly Shepherd Among other things, Kelly Shepherd is a student and a teacher temporarily based in Edmonton, Alberta. His writing portfolio includes a chapbook of poetry from Publishing Beyond Borders in Iceland (http://this.is/poems/), and numerous news, wildlife, and travel articles in South Korea's Gwangju News. Kelly is currently working on two new poetry collections.

The Project – Together, Kelly and Khalida poke fun at the “White Noise” of racism that occurs in all societies, and share the experience of poetry readings in Pakistan and Canada.

Marijan Megla & Melle Huizinga

Marijan Megla, an irrepressible story teller, has written a collection of short stories, Vajolin and a book of poems, Gypsy Messenger about life in Croatia in the 1950s. He
writes in his idiomatic Croatian phonetics to express in English his views of life and experiences in unique and charming ways. Marjan has worked as a roughneck and pipefitter in Canada and in Cuba.

Melle Huizinga came to Canada as a ten-year-old from Holland. He has written poetry , plays and short stories during his 40 years of teaching. His experiences as an ESL teacher at Norquest College has opened opportunities for travel and social activism.

Together – they are two ‘grandpas’ sharing the experiences of moving to new countries.

Mark Kozub & Marvic Aceder

Mark Kozub is a founding father of Edmonton’s Raving Poets movement and a member of The Raving Poets Band, featured on Book TV, Help TV and The Bravo! Network. He is also a past President of the Stroll of Poets Society. His performance poetry has been featured on CBC Radio and CBC TV and in various Alberta poetry anthologies. Hailing from Ukrainian/Romanian roots, he grew up playing bass, saxophone, and a whole lot of polkas in a family band.

Adecer was born and raised in the Philippines but also did a lot of growing up in Canada. He's been here seven years now, but “his tropical ass still freezes in the winter.”

Together – they create a winter encounter at a bus stop between a Canadian born of Ukranian/Romanian roots and a newcomer from the Philippines. What are you thinking of as you talk about the weather?

Nicole Pakan & Rodrigo Loyola

Nicole Pakan is an active member of the Edmonton arts community as a poet, painter, printmaker, potter and photographer. By day she is the communication manager for a non-profit; by night co-editor for the international online and print journal DailyHaiku.

Rod Loyola is a member of the hip-hop group The People’s Poets, three Edmonton MCs who rap about social justice issues, local and global.

Together – theyexplore issues of cultural identity and gender equality as young people try to negotiate the line between traditional beliefs and new values based on personal truths.

Therezinha Franca Kennedy & Rusti Lehay

Therezinha was born in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro where she she taught Philosophy, Sociology and History at different schools and universities. As a writer in Brazil, she wrote many Distance Education courses. Living in Edmonton for the past 18 years, she worked as a writer collaborator for The Arauto of Edmonton, a Portuguese newspaper, as well as a tutor for the Portuguese language. She is also a legal interpreter and translator and has translated several books and documents. She has a passion to write, loves to travel, dance and to laugh with friends.

Rusti Lehay is a long-time Stroll of Poets member and a widely published freelance writer.

Together They share their poems about language – language as skin, as mother, as guardian.

Ruth Anderson Donovan & Ring Deng Biong

Ruth Anderson Donovan grew up on a mixed farm near Carnduff, in southeastern Saskatchewan, then lived in Saskatoon, Rosetown, Edmonton, and London, England. Drawing on the best of many homes, on family stories, her father’s ingenuity, and her mother’s example of trust in God as a practitioner of Christian Science, Ruth has been involved in community development for many years. as a writer, artist, educator, arts advocate, and member of her faith community. She helped found the Stroll of Poets, has written for and edited magazines, serves on the board of LitFest, and works as a gallery educator, freelance writer, and teacher of art and ESL.

Ring Deng Biong was born in the state of Bhar-el-Ghazal, in southwestern Sudan, in the village of Abyei near Wau. Ring’s tribe speaks Jaang, commonly known as Dinka. The Dinka tribe are herders. Their herds are the backbone of their economy, and cattle are currency for bride prices, ransoms, or social status. Milk is a staple food in the cattle camps. Ring’s grandfather was a rain caller for his tribe. Ring’s bull-song is a unique form of sung poetry, called a ghazal, which can also be a love song to a girl. From a Muslim country, Ring memorized the Koran, and studied the Bible in Arabic and later in English while in Catholic School. He also learned French while living in Egypt and Quebec City, before moving to Edmonton, where he lives with his wife Nyanriak Matiok, and their five children.

Together - Ruth and Ring share an understanding that creation is inherently spiritual, and that understanding of the infinitude of one Mind governs our being and our perception of the world. Sacred texts and teachings in many cultures create poetry to pray, give thanks, or ask for courage and wisdom in challenging times. Poets Across Borders enabled Ring and Ruth to explore values and traditions that helped their people sustain the ideals of common ground and community. The people of both Sudan and Saskatchewan have weathered long periods of drought and great social and economic change. Especially in rural areas, they have had to struggle to survive, and to find new models for supply and government. Their faith had to be practical for them to be able to continue to shepherd their community, creatures, resources and the wild beauty of the land.

Accompanying traditional music from Sudan provided by Mac Jok, organist and choirmaster for the Sudanese community in Alberta, whom comes from the Dinka tribe.

Shima Robinson & Magdalena Witkowski

Shima Robinson is a young spoken-word poet born in Canada but with Caribbean ancestry. Her great aunt is the much loved Jamaican writer Louise Bennett-Coverley – “Miss Lou”. Shima coordinates the Poet-Tree reading series.

Magdalena Witkowski left Poland at the age of 25 and lived in Paris before emigrating to Canada in1983. She realized she had a passion for writing at the age of 12, Her poetry, in translation, has been published in the Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature, Edmonton Stroll of Poets Anthology, and is forthcoming in NÇ D Magazine.

Together – they reflect on their names. What do they mean? Where do they come from? What about the nicknames and family names they are known by?