Festival 2008: The Poets

Victor Anthony

Victor Anthony* plays old-school folk music Southern style. The set list is never the same, but you can expect bluesy originals, obscure trad numbers from his native Tennessee, and rootsy pages from the Americana songbook. The one thing you can take to the bank is that every song will be delivered with conviction – nothing fancy, just the facts and a bagful of juicy chords. A fulltime musician since 1985, he’s played in 48 of the 50 states, across the pond, and now he’s taking on British Columbia from his new home in the Gulf Islands, where he lives with his wife, Joëlle. His three CDs have received rave reviews, international attention, and lots of North American airplay. There’s a new recording in the works too, so stay tuned!
*Victor Anthony’s previous CDs (Personal Mercury, Hush Money and Skinnybones) were released under the name Victor Mecyssne.

David Bateman

David Bateman is a spoken word poet and performance artist who has presented his work across the country over the past fifteen years. He currently teaches 20th century theatre history at Trent University and
completed a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Calgary in 2001 and has yet to recover from the fact that Tim Horton and associates (God Bless him) received an honorary degree
at the same time from the same university. His two poetry collections, Invisible Foreground and Impersonating Flowers, were published by Frontenac House Press, Calgary. He is delighted to be back on Gabriola Island among poetry lovers, and hosting two evenings of sheer fabulousness!

George Bowering

George Bowering is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet,historian, and biographer. He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town of Oliver, where his father was a high-school chemistry teacher. Bowering is author of more than 60 books, has taught university for more than 25 years, and currently resides in Vancouver.
George Bowering is the best-known of a group of young poets including Frank Davey, Fred Wah, Jamie Reid, and David Dawson who were together at the University of British Columbia in the 1950s, and who founded the journal TISH. He describes himself as a Protestant agnostic. In 2002, Bowering was appointed the first ever Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. That same year, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 2004. Bowering is equally proud of his achievements as a poor-defense singles-punching great-mouth sandlot baseball player. He played various infield positions for the York Street Tigers (Montreal), the Granville Grange Zephers, the Zunks, and finally for the Paperbacks (Vancouver), from which he retired only a few years ago.

Bufflehead

Andreas Kahre is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, writer, and musician, whose work involves images, sound and text in many different configurations. He has been involved in the creation of more than a hundred performance projects with theatre, dance and music ensembles across Canada, and is a regular collaborator with many Vancouver theatre and dance theatre companies. As a musician and sound artist, Andreas has co-founded the performing ensembles Hextremities and Cymbali, has composed scores for dance and theatre, and has performed and presented work internationally.

Mark Parlett is a Vancouver based musician and composer. His musical interests span jazz, improvisation and new music for gamelan orchestra. He plays bass and is co-composer in the Gabriola trio Bufflehead.

Alexander Varty has spent the past twenty-five years navigating the boundaries of folk, popular and improvised music, recording and performing with artists as diverse as John Oswald, Veda Hille, Evil Twang, Wayne Horvitz, Al Neil, Gamelan Madu Sari, Randy Bachman, and choreographer Jennifer Mascall. His work blends folk and blues-inspired fingerpicking with electronic processing, extended techniques, and a lively physicality. He has also worked to promote innovative music as a 20-year columnist for the Georgia Straight magazine, occasional Canada Council juror, and former music curator for the Western Front artist-run centre.

Ivan Coyote

Ivan Coyote was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. An award-winning author of four collections of short stories, one novel, two CD's, four short films and a renowned performer, Ivan's first love is live storytelling, and over the last thirteen years she has become an audience favourite at music, poetry, spoken word and writer's festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam. Ivan is a columnist for Xtra West magazine, writes regularly for The Georgia Straight and CBC Radio, and pops up in periodicals all across the continent. Her first novel, Bow Grip, was released in the fall of 2006, and was awarded the Relit award for best fiction and named by the American Library Association as a Stonewall honor book in literature. Ivan recently completed an eight-month writer's residency at Carleton University in Ottawa, and is hard at work on her second novel. Her fifth collection of stories, The Slow Fix, will be released in September 2008.

Dinah D

"Dinah D is a West Coast gem, a real rarity, whose presence, style, and sound will all stick in your head from the very first time you hear her. Of course, jazz has no shortage of female vocalists, and the feminist revolution has even encouraged some women to pick up the oh-so-MALE stand-up bass but herein lies part of the recipe for Dinah D's triple threat jazz style. Dinah is not only a solid upright bass player- thumping out that low register downbeat almost effortlessly—she's also a gifted singer, a seductive contra-alto with a wry sense of humour. Dinah D's skill as a performer is backed up by strong songwriting talent (check out "Dawson", a classic in the making) with roots that go deep far back to the days of Viper jazz and a sound that is steeped in the blues. If you get the chance to see Dinah perform, do not hesitate to make the gig!" —James Booker, CHLY Radio Malaspina

Baby Dee

Baby Dee (born 1953) is best known in New York as the badly angelic, Shirley Temple-obsessed, high riding cat that ruled the streets of lower Manhattan in the nineties. Her quest for adventure and little fishies led her to become the bilateral hermaphrodite of The Coney Island Side Show and The Kamikaze Freak Show in Europe. Michael Musto calls her “a fabulous accordionist” and “ingenious harpist”. Time Out calls her “the nightclub sensation”. The LA Times calls her “hilariously bawdy”.

Performance artist, singer, musician, poet and street legend from Cleveland, Ohio, Dee has worked with Antony and the Johnsons and many other artists on the New York scene, playing piano and harp.

http://www.babydee.org

Cheryl L'Hirondelle

Cheryl L' Hirondelle (aka Waynohtêw, Cheryl Koprek) is an Alberta born halfbreed (Metis/Cree-non status/treaty, French, German, Polish) artist and musician. Her creative practice is an investigation of the junction of a cree worldview (nêhiyawin) in contemporary time and space. Since the early 80's, L'Hirondelle has created, performed and presented work in a variety of artistic disciplines, including: music, performance art, theatre, performance poetry, storytelling, installation and new media

L'Hirondelle's practice as a musician has garnered her several nominations and awards. Most recently, L'Hirondelle received the 2006 Award for Best Female Traditional Cultural Roots Album and the 2007 Best Group Award from the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, for Fusion of Two Worlds, the first CD from her Aboriginal Women's ensemble, M'Girl. She is also working on a solo recording project entitled Giveaway with acclaimed Toronto based singer/songwriter & producer Gregory Hoskins.

www.ndnnrkey.net
www.myspace.com/cheryllhirondelle
www.myspace.com/mgirlmusic

Tina Jones

Tina Jones' style allows for the traditions of soul and R&B masters to meld with the provocative and intuitive techniques of jazz, and hip hop. As a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, her reputation as a recording artist, entertainer and songwriter are recognized throughout Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast and Lower Mainland music scenes.

On stage and in the studio, she has the ability to execute breath taking vocal performances along with adept improvisational abilities on the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano. Influenced by the works of Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder and Canadians Ron Sexsmith, Joel Plaskett and k.d. lang, her words and melodies provide a solid base for her natural vocal charisma.

From touring Canada and the USA fronting various ensembles, including Wunderbread (1995-2005), to solo and duo performances at festivals and concert venues in small communities, her shows continue to captivate live audiences.

Kaie Kellough

Kaie Kellough was born in Vancouver, grew up in Calgary, and resides in Montreal. He is a bilingual author, editor, educator, and performer. His words make sound sense, be bop inflected, and syncopate Canada's multiple solitudes. Kaie has dubbed and inked his way across Canada and into the United States, recently performing at the Hilltown Folk Festival in Massachusetts. He is the author of Lettricity (Cumulus Press 2004) and the editor of the Talking Book anthology (Cumulus Press 2006). He was writer in residence for the 2005 Toronto Int'l Dub Poetry Festival. Kaie is currently working on a second book of poems, titled Maple Leaf Rag.

The Kerplunks

The Kerplunks are becoming Canada's newest children's phenom. From big stages to very little stages, they have been charming audiences big and small. Their debut self-titled album has been flying into the arms of fans and a new album is in the works this fall. The Kerplunks are comprised of 4 fun musicians — Tina Jones, Dinah D, Aaron Cadwaladr, and Phil Wipper. Between these 4 musicians, they play over 10 instruments! The Kerplunks' first performance at the Poetry festival should prove to be great fun!

Tim Lander

Born in February 1938 in England, Tim Lander attended London University before moving to Canada in 1964. A penny whistle playing 'street poet', he has published numerous chapbooks and a volume of poetry with Ekstasis Editions. Gentle, thoughtful and articulate, he has remained an important presence on the West Coast poetry scene for several decades, mostly based in Nanaimo. His books include Street Heart Poems (1993) 'Pecunia Non Olet' (The Poem Factory No. 8, 1997), The Glass Book: Poems (Ekstasis, 1999), and The Book of Prejudices (2002).

Odette Laramee

Odette Laramee has a long-standing passion for integrating art forms and working across sectors.

Between leap and loll she does video production, play writing, arts-based research, and community engagement projects featuring 4 metre puppets. She notes, "the poetry writes itself when I can get out of the way".

 

Patsy Ludwick

Patsy Ludwick has worked as a professional actor, playwright and dramaturge, published poetry and articles in literary magazines and anthologies, and for the past twenty years has made a living of sorts as a screenplay consultant, editor, and writing coach, with occasional forays into performance just to keep the juices flowing. Weathering: poems as passing clouds. Recent poems that cycle the emotional landscape, touching as lightly as humanly possible in a climate of rapid change.

Kathy McIntyre

Kathy McIntyre has been performing and recording as a soul singer for over twenty years. Her delight with costume and comedy took her singing career into a cabaret setting where she found even more joy in connecting with her audience and making them laugh. Musical theatre came calling and Kathy never looked back. She is probably best remembered for playing Rhonda in “Supreme Dream” and Lucy in “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown”. Kathy has been a cast member of Radio After Dark since its conception over 5 years ago, and it has been her great thrill to combine so many of her passions and talents, to tell the quirky stories of these fun, live, old time radio dramas

Daphne Marlatt

Vancouver writer Daphne Marlatt has written over twenty books of poetry, fiction and essays, notably the poetry cycle Steveston with photographs by Robert Minden, and the novels Ana Historic and Taken.  She has worked as an aural historian and an editor for a number of little magazines, including the feminist journal Tessera.  In 2006 Pangaea Arts (Vancouver) staged a bicultural, bilingual production of The Gull, her contemporary Noh play about Steveston’s Japanese-Canadian fishing community.  This recently won the international Uchimura Theatre Prize in Japan.  Her most recent publication is The Given (2008), a long poem in prose fragments with a novelistic narrative. Soon to appear from JackPine Press (Saskatoon) is Between Brush Strokes, a limited-edition poetry chapbook designed by Frances Hunter about the life and work of the B.C. painter Sveva Caetani.  And Otter Bay is currently releasing Like Light Off Water, a remarkable collaboration with composer-musicians Robert Minden and Carla Hallett.

Robert Minden and Carla Hallett

Composers Robert Minden and Carla Hallett combine waterphones, bowed saws, theremin, toy piano, found object percussion and voice in their explorations of musical textures and forms. Acknowledging the legacy of John Cage, Harry Partch, Meredith Monk, not to mention Spike Jones and Victor Borge, their compositions combine microtonal nuance, lyrical intimacy and whimsy. Since 1986 Minden and Hallett have been engaging audiences across Canada, the United States and the UK. Their recordings range from the Juno nominated storytelling and music, The Boy Who Wanted To Talk To Whales, to scores for independent films and radio drama. A new addition to their four albums, is the just released Like Light Off Water, a dramatic musical setting of Marlatt’s voicing, rhythm and imagery drawn from her poetic classic, STEVESTON.

Cindy O'Dell

Until recently, Cindy O'Dell's fascination with the creative process has been for purely selfish reasons. Obsessed by documenting processes of transformation, her quest for understanding has taken her to the deepest and darkest reaches of comedy, dreamwork, Taoism, the occult, Bon Buddhism, Toltec wisdom, and 25 years writing. Underlying the years of research and experimentation, is her desire to awaken a natural balance between structure and intention, essentially making it possible to create with a sense of openness and ease. Ironically, this seems to require an understanding of the principle of antagonism or obstacles. After numerous "understandings" Cindy is ready to divulge her secrets, except for a few she promised not to tell.

Hilary Peach

Hilary Peach is a poet, filmmaker, recording artist, and producer. She has performed internationally at events that include the Vancouver International Folk Music Festival, Montreal's Voix d'Ameriques, and the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam. In 2006 she toured across Canada with her fusion trio, Suitcase Local, performing a suite of bizarre narratives about working for the past ten years in heavy construction as a high-pressure welder. Publications include 10 Flowered Cactus (1996), Love is a Small Town (2001), and assorted anthologies and magazines. In 2003 she released the exquisite audiophile CD, Poems Only Dogs Can Hear, in which surreal vignettes are suspended inside a matrix of music. In 2008 Peach released her second CD, Suitcase Local, with musicians Andreas Kahre and Alexander Varty.

Kit Pepper & Dion Pepper-Smith

Kit Pepper has three grown sons and has lived on Gabriola Island for more than sixteen years. For most of that time, Kit has been writing poems, a number of which have been published in Canadian and international literary journals, and one of which has recently received 1st place in the Burnaby Writers' Annual Contest for her poem Through the Skin. Kit will be reading with her son, Dion Pepper-Smith. Dion has traveled, loved, suffered, lost, won, and written poetry through it all. He is currently studying creative writing and psychology at Vancouver island University.

Victoria Stanton

Victoria Stanton is a Montreal-based artist who works primarily with words in a variety of contexts: on-stage, on-screen, in galleries, in one-on-one exchanges, and on the page writing prose, poetry, and non-fiction. She has performed and shown her videos in festivals and arts events in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia and Japan. Her solo and collective spoken word pieces have been broadcast on regional and national radio and featured on a variety of spoken word and music CD compilations internationally.

Stanton's creative writing and non-fiction has been published in English and French language anthologies, journals and cultural/lifestyle magazines. Critical collaborative texts have appeared in numerous arts reviews. Her first book, Impure, Reinventing the Word - an examination of the practice of spoken word - (co-authored with Vincent Tinguely), was published by Conundrum Press in October 2001. She is currently working on a new book project about the practice of performance art.

Tongue and Groove

Tongue and Groove is a musical, spoken word experience designed to move body, mind and spirit. This quartet of talented Vancouver Island musicians fuses jazz, funk, country and Cuban rhythms with personal and political text on topics such as: feminism, war, patriotism and the psychiatric system. Soulful, responsive improvisation in support of the poetry provides audiences an experience of deep hearing.

Richard Van Camp

Richard Van Camp is a proud member of the Dogrib (Tlicho) Nation from Fort Smith, NWT. He is the author of the novel, The Lesser Blessed, a collection of short stories, Angel Wing Splash Pattern, as well as two children's books illustrated by George Littlechild: A Man Called Raven and What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? His baby book, Welcome Song for Baby: A Lullaby for Newborns, is the official selection of the Books for BC Babies Committee and is being given out to every newborn baby in BC in 2008. His forthcoming novel, Blessing Wendy, will be published with Orca Books in 2009.

Naomi Wakan

Naomi Beth Wakan is a writer and artist. She has written and compiled over thirty-five books. Haiku: One Breath Poetry (Heian International) was a choice of the Canadian Children's Book Centre and was also selected by the American Library Association for its 2001 catalogue. Her book to encourage the older writer, Late Bloomer - On Writing Later In Life was published by Wolsak and Wynn, in the fall of 2006. Naomi's latest book of essays Compositions: Notes On The Written Word (Wolsak and Wynn), came out in Spring, 2008. Her writing workshops, Late Bloomers, were developed to inspire and empower the older writer. Naomi is a member of Haiku Canada, The League of Canadian Poets and Tanka Canada. Her poetry and essays have been printed in numerous magazines including Geist, Room of One's Own, Moonset and Resurgence. She lives on Gabriola Island, B.C. with her husband, the sculptor Elias Wakan.

Sheri-D Wilson

Sheri-D's seventh collection of poetry, Autopsy of a Turvy World (Frontenac House) was launched in April 2008. Re:Zoom (Frontenac House) her sixth collection won the 2006 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. She has produced two CD's & three award-winning VideoPoems.
In 1989 Sheri-D studied at the Naropa Institute (The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics). Other highlights include appearances at the Festival Voix d'Ameriques (Montreal), Vancouver International Writer's Festival, Bumbershoot (Seattle) Alberta Scene (Ottawa, 100th centennial), Human Rights Symposium (Victoria), Poetry Africa (S.Africa), One Yellow Rabbit - High Performance Rodeo, Taos Poetry Circus, Global TV's Woman of Vision award, and being a featured poet in the Heart of a Poet documentary series.

Since founding the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival in 2003, Sheri-D has worked at quantum velocities to present one of the most respected Spoken-Word Festivals in Canada. Driven by the passion to connect people, voices and ideas she founded and organized SWAN (Spoken Word Arts Network, 2007, 2005) and is the Program Director of the 2008 Spoken Word Program at Banff Centre.

www.sheridwilson.com
www.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com