LATEST NEWS

October 19th, 2005
The first set of photos from the festival have been found. Check out the blog for Comedian Rchard Lett. He took some pics of finals night at "The Cultch"
http://richardlett.blogspot.com/2005/10/van-deuz-wins-canadian-poetry-slam.html
Thanks Richard.
october 18th, 2005

THE RESULTS ARE IN

In case you are interested in the CFSW TEAM SLAM Results here you go. Thank you, Franci for keeping track...Vancouver B team came out in first place, with Vancouver A team in 4th place. Toronto came 2nd & Ottawa 3rd. I believe the scores were: Van "B" 111.7, Toronto 111.0, Ottawa 110.3, Van "A" 108.4...as you can see on .7 separated first and second and only 1.4 for the top 3. We also invited Winnipeg and Victoria to participate with group pieces. Darek Dawda was the sacrificial poet and Graham Olds the Slam Host. The Liars of Orpheus were sweet once again and Professor Van Steinburg illuminated us on the true nature of poetry. Al Mader/The minimalis Jug Band kicked off the showcases and recieved a standing ovation. Nice work Al. Hilary Peach did a cool set and then SR Duncan and Michelle Hersey wrapped things up with a multi media word/dance/video piece. T.O.F.U. came on after the slam and were brilliant. And considering how sick Mike Mcgee was with mono it was a truly magical and miraculous performance. There was also a group poem orchestrated by Sue Mcintyre and Jim Mcknight which involved all 250 people in the venue shouting along. Brilliant. There were smiles everywhere. The after party was a ton of fun (Thanks Andrea and Liz for giving us their home) and many friendships were made. We also made some more history and I think strengthened the bonds and ties of this thing called Spoken Word, here in Canada. We have some amazing talent from coast to coast. Next year we are in Toronto where Dwayne Morgan and David Silverberg will be looking after things. Hopefully we will be able to get Halifax back with us in the competition as it won't be as far to travel. Only one timezone instead of 3 and a 1/2. Thanks to EVERYONE who took part ALL WEEK. The Poets/Comedians/Storyteller/volunteers, you all made this thing great. There were many electric and amazing performances. Something to shine your spine each night. I now hand over the reigns and put my performance cap back on. It was quite the experience and in the end I am glad to have been able to give back to this art form that has helped define me and help heal me in ways I might never understand. So much love shooting out of my eyes in deep appreciation of everyone's effort. RC.

October 07, 2005

Our final performer was decided the other night with the Finals Competition for the Vancouver Story Slam. Bill McNamara came away the winner. It was an exciting night with a lot of top quality material, which one should expect for a Slam Finals. Bill had fortune on his side having his name drawn 10th of 10 performers (although there was no evidence of score creep. The judges did an excellent job) Still the energy had been building towards the end. Especially with a lot of great stories that kept going over time. The lead changed hands often. It was heartbreaking to see someone get a great score only to see it flushed away with a time penalty. THOSE RAT BASTARD TIME KEEPERS. THEY'RE RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE. (Just a note that the story slam is a little different than a poetry slam. 10 performers and you read only 1 piece. The time limit is 5 minutes instead of 3 and there is NO GRACE PERIOD. You start losing points at 5:00:01) Bill came in at 4:59:44. He told a fun tale of blowing up log jams and scaring hippies in Richmond. Bill will now get to perform Wednesday Oct 12th at the Heritage Hall (Main and 15th in vancouver) as part of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Congratulate him when you see him and welcome him. He's a terrific guy. Also kudos should go out to the other readers including Sean Mcgarragle, Leanne Padgett, Richard Lett, Trina Ferguson and Bjorkman.

Oct 02, 2005 about 5 minutes later
I just wanted to tell you about some of the promotional stuff happening with the festival. Check out ONLY magazine for the terrific FULL page ad for the festival THAT THEY DONATED. Also see the ad for the GLBT/Queer reading in the latest issue of XTRA WEST. That too was donated free of charge. Earlier today Mike Mcgee and I were up at Simon Fraser University and appeared on the "Firestarter" radio program hosted by Shalyma Cambridge. It should air Oct 03 at 12 noon pst. You can listen online if you want CJSF are the call letters. Speaking of radio there is a good chance now that we might be broadcasting portions of each night of the festival live on the radio. We are "in negotiations" as they say. As well radio ads are playing on CKNW, MOJO, Z95 and CISL in Vancouver. Also myself and one other poet will be appearing on CKNW as guests of the David Berner show on Oct 08th between 5:30 and 6pm pst to promote the festival. TV likes us too. Al Mader and I will be appearing on Shaw Cable's Urban Rush program on Oct 06. I'm not sure if it airs the day of or the next day. The good thing is the show repeats several times each time. Metro newspaers are donating ad space for the festival to appear Oct 07 and Oct 12 and the Province newspaper will actually be running a story on the fesival Oct 11th. I did an interview with their "arts and entertainment" reporter Stuart Derdeyn last week. I'm also trying to get us some coverage on one or two of the "morning news" programs in town. At least people are talking about us. That's about it.

Oct 02, 2005

I'm not sure if this is "news" per se but I wanted to tell you about they "Liars of Orpheus" or rather I want Johnny Frem to tell you about them in his own words because the "Liars" are going to be a key component to the Festival. "LIARS OF ORPHEUS" is: JOHNNY FREM plays trumpet, MIKE PEACOCK plays piano, TREVOR SPILCHEN plays guitar and drum, PAUL BECKETT makes beats and talks a lot, ROGUE REESE MURPHY acts wild and tells stories MICHELE SUTCLIFFE sings and fools around, not to mention ANYONE ELSE who'd like to join in any waythey please. It can be so cool. Especially when the whole room is involved with everybody else. Can you come out to play? Me and some friends were just wondering, because it would be fun. We're going to play music and make-believe. I've got a big blackboard and you can use my sidewalk chalk and draw if you want to. Plus: you can be part of our puppet show--all you have to bring is some socks. Plus there's also some walkie-talkies, I think, or maybe it's microphones. I don't really know what it's called, but it's those things you talk into, but it makes you sound like you're on the radio. I think it IS a microphone. And we've got three of them. Plus some of my friends are going to dance and you can do that too, if you know how, or else we can show you. I hope you can be there. It's every night of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, which it is when we're having our jam sessions at the beginning of each night just to loosen everybody up. It's not really a sleep-over, but you can stay as late as you want, because after us there's all those other spoken word peoples doing other neat stuff too.

Octber 01, 2005
Festival passes are on sale now. $55 covers admission for all five nights. tickets are available at Duthies books on 2239 W4th avenue (4th and Vine) and also Magpie Magazine Gallery 1319 Commercial Drive. What these tickets guarantee you is admission into every evening event if you show up by 7:15pm. After 7:15pm your reservations are no longer valid. It becomes first come first serve until we sell out. Doors are at 6:30pm each evening. We will have two lineups. One for pass holders and one for tickets at the door. Advance tickets for the Final night only are available NOW through Ticketmaster. Or you can purchase them at the door as well.

September 27th 2005:

We're only a couple weeks and change away from the 2005 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Even though there is still a lot of work to be done and plenty of incredible performances still to happen I wanted to thank everyone who has worked so hard to get us so far already. And of course a big shout out to all the teams who are putting their loonies and twoonies together to get themselves out to Vancouver. I think it will be a brilliant 5 days although I am going through small panic attacks daily. I encourage anyone and everyone who can come to see these performers to do so. This WILL BE historic and beautiful. Last year already was and we can only go from there. I look forward to seeing you all Oct 11-15 in Vancouver. Advance ticket sales for finals are available now through Ticketmaster if you are so inlcined. Otherwise all tickets will be availalble at the door.
See you soon. Randy.
YOU CAN HELP! Please help us spread the word about the festival, contact us to volunteer or to sponsor an event at kevin@cfsw.net.

July 26, 2005: The festival Website is live! check out the other sections for performer info and our program, and more. Spread the word and watch this space for news as more great things are planned!

Please support the CFSW! This is a grassroots effort, and we welcome any individual or corporate gifts, donations, or services in kind! See the Sponsor section for more information and contact us if you can help!

FESTIVAL MANDATE

The CFSW is a festival of Spoken Word and Poetry that hosts artists from across Canada and international guests to celebrate and promote Spoken Word performance, to expand and cultivate the audience for this work, and to inspire networking between artists and organizers from various regions of Canada in order to foster a growing and interdependent national community of Spoken Word artists.