PERFORMERS

Dwayne Morgan: CFSW Poet of Honour (male)
Dwayne is a feature performer at the festival’s opening ceremonies.
Dwayne Morgan is a spoken word artist who first stepped on the stage in 1994. Since then, Dwayne has self published four books, and two audio recordings. At age 27, Dwayne currently performs throughout Toronto, while touring through the U.S., England, and Germany annually. Dwayne is on the roster of the Royal Conservatory of Music's Learning through the Arts Program, and often makes presentations to high school students about the importance of writing, sharing their views, and the English language. Dwayne's work is influenced by hip hop culture, and manages to touch a place deep inside of us.
 
Sheri-D Wilson: CFSW Poet of Honour (female)
Sheri will be a feature performer at the opening ceremonies.
The Mama of Dada - Sheri-D Wilson (poet, playwright, performer, film-maker, essayist, teacher) has been called one of North America's most compelling action poets. Her unparalleled performance style is rich with erotic jazz, infused with a sharp feminist sensibility, and laced with a dangerous wit. Of the beat tradition, in 1989 Sheri-D studied at Naropa, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder. Sheri-D's unique poetry shatters all conventions. In 2003 she won the Heavyweight of poetry, USA in a Bumbershoot Bout against the incredible Andrei Codrescu.




Joe Keithley aka Joey Shithead
Joe Keithley is the founder of the Legendary Punk Rock Band D.O.A. He is also the founder of Sudden Death Records, and a Spoken Word performer. Joe has a new book out on Arsenal Pulp Press entitled “I Shithead”

http://www.suddendeath.com/

TL Cowan
T.L. Cowan is a spoken word poet/performer recently transplanted from Vancouver to Edmonton AB. T.L. has been a guest of Sister Spit's Ramblin' Road Show and the curator of many spoken word extravaganza including Choice Words (2000), The Malcolm Lowry Poetry Stage (2000, 2001)), Sex Lies and Duct Tape (2001), and Thaw: A Spoken Word Meltdown (2004). T.L. has performed in Canada, the US, the UK, and France most recently at Toronto's Festival of Original Theater (F.O.O.T.), Edmonton's Visualeyez Festival, and England's The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts. She is co-editor/producor of Coastal Tongue: An Anthology of Women in Spoken Word in Vancouver. T.L. is also a graduate student at the University of Alberta (writing a dissertation on contemporary spoken word) and teaches sound poetry and spoken word as artist-in-residence at an Edmonton elementary school.
http://www.digyourroots.ca/dyr.php?sect=artists&act=view&id=170

Hilary Peach
Audio poet Hilary Peach is an inter-disciplinary performer whose work joins song and poetry. For 15 years she has performed internationally at events that include the Vancouver International Folk Music Festival, Montreal’s Voix Des Ameriques, and the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam. She has released an exquisite debut CD, Poems Only Dogs Can Hear, in which she suspends surreal vignettes inside a matrix of music. Peach was a finalist in the odious 2004 CBC Radio Poetry Face-Off, and has recently released a short film, Pennsylvania. She is currently working on Suitcase Local, a Folk Opera about her boilermaking work, with musicians Andreas Kahre and Alex Varty. She is the Artistic Director of the Poetry Gabriola Festival.

Justin McGrail
Toronto-born poet Justin McGrail has been performing in bookstores,clubs, malls, galleries, cafes, and festivals across Canada since 1991. He was a member of Montreal’s influential spoken word quintet, Fluffy Pagan Echoes, which provided an opportunity to write poetry for five voices in a performance context. The collaborative aspect of FPE culminated in an hour-long co-written show in the Montreal Fringe Festival, the creation of Editions Sandwich aux Oeufs and the publishing of the chapbook “Fluffy Pagan Echoes – A Word Circus.” In 1995, with DuoDance Company, McGrail wrote and performed “Of Fire and Sword”, a poetry-dance collaboration about Scotland’s Highlanders, that was presented in Toronto, Montreal, and at the Halifax Fringe Festival. Coming to the West Coast, Justin created and co-hosted “A-way with Words” a poetry programme on Vancouver Co-op Radio, ran “The Word Circus” performance series, was a member of Team Vancouver at the 1996 National Poetry Slam in Portland, and also a regular performer at the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival, the Word on the Street Festival, the Vancouver Children’s Festival, and the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. He has published three chapbooks with Editions Sandwich aux Oeufs: Of Fire and Sword (1995), Five Silent Partners (1995), Deus fax machina (2000). Justin’s other passion is art and architectural history. He is a professor of art history at Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History in Art at the University of Victoria. His research concerns the social and the architectural spaces of Canadian big box stores.

Alexis O’Hara
Alexis O’Hara has produced street theater in Toronto, dirty movies in Vancouver and conceptual events in Geneva. Since she moved to Montreal in the late 90’s, she’s been known mostly for her engaging and inventive spoken word performances.
A former poetry slam champion and newspaper columnist, she now divides her time between three parallel artistic pursuits: spoken word, sound art and live action art. She began incorporating technology into her live act in 2001, layering vocalizations to create soundscapes for her post-po-mo oration. Following the release of her album In Abulia, she toured extensively from the swamps of Louisiana, to the midnight sun of the Yukon to diverse European festivals. Her talent at vocal improvisation has led to live collaborations with many musicians including violinist Malcolm Goldstein and percussionist Michel F. Côté.
The eclecticism of her work attracts programmers from various disciplines, from new media to experimental music, live art to literature.

http://www.louderarts.com/poets/ohara/

Lisa Baird aka Lisa B aka Lucky Goat will be one of two features at the GLBT/Queer reading on Saturday Oct 15th.

lisa b's spoken word poetry is political, passionate and always deeply personal; her audiences smile widely, squirm uncomfortably, laugh out loud, occasionally cry, and think about her words long after she's stepped offstage. in 2004 she recorded her first cd, salvaged music, collaborating with 5 victoria musicians to create a unique and diverse recording of spoken word poetry accompanied by diverse instrumentation. she is the first (as far as she knows) poet to tour all the way across canada, booking, promoting, and performing her spoken word poetry in small towns and big city centres, doing 21 well-received shows between victoria and halifax in 2 months in early spring of 2005 http://www.luckygoat.org/

Kevin Mackenzie…
Storyteller in Residence Saskatchewan Writers Guild
Kevin MacKenzie has been a professional Canadian storyteller for over six years.  A popular performer, he has appeared at such events as the Vancouver Children’s Festival and at storytelling festivals in Ottawa and London, Ontario. He has toured throughout Canada, England, and in the U.S.  
He has worked with numerous schools, childcare facilities, festivals, and community centres. He has also taught early childhood educators the art of storytelling, and he has been a volunteer and resource to the storytelling community.
He has studied under such storytelling masters as Melanie Ray, Tololwa Mollel, Margaret Read MacDonald, Rita Cox, Ben Haggerty, and Ed Stivender.  He has graduated from Langara College with a certificate in Early Childhood Education.
He has created and produced a videocassette and CD-ROM of original fingerplays, called “Fingersplay” (which was included in the Canadian Children's Book Centre's 2003 "Our Choice" selection).  This material is intended for professionals and families to use with young children. The CD ROM version is the first such teaching aide of its kind, and the video of “Fingersplay” sold out of its first run of five hundred copies in eight months.
http://www.skwriter.com/storyteller.html

Hugh Phukovsky aka Paul Anthony
Hugh Phukovsky: The punk rock custodian of comedy has been mopping up this shitty excuse for humor since 1996. Compelled on to the stage out his huge disgust in the lost art of stand up, his plans we’re simply to stir up the drones that frequented comedy clubs. Dubbed an Anti-comedy hero he took his show on the road. Not because he had a growing legion of fans, but because he ran out of places to play in town. At the beginning there were very few places that would let him back a second time. . It’s not that he was that offensive; most comedy clubs just don’t know how to take him. He wasn’t really telling “jokes”, he was more playing with the idea of humor. Maybe they felt him making fun of their chosen profession and didn’t think it was funny. When people don’t understand something, when they don’t have words, sometimes they get pretty violent. As when Hugh was “banned from Calgary” or physically pushed off the stage at the Urban Well (Kitsilano’s yuppie central) three years ago never to be allowed back again.
http://www.123presents.com/

Steve Larkin
Steve Larkin has been a performance poet for 10 years performing at festivals throughout the world including Edinburgh to Canada to Glastonbury. Steve was also the Farrago Slam champion in 2003, Europe’s longest running slam. He is now president of “Hammer and Tongue” Britain’s largest slam organization
http://www.stevelarkin.com/

SR Duncan
S.R. Duncan ("The Incredible Shrinking Poet") is a Vancouver poet, free-lance writer and graphic designer. His broadcasting credits include CKNW, CITR, Rogers Cable 4, CJSF and CO-OP radio, where he produces a weekly half hour radio show called "WAX POETIC" (Wed.@2pm). On top of numerous publishing credits, he has performed live on stages as far-flung and diverse as Squamish, Victoria, Seattle, Auburn and Portland. For two years he co-produced a poetry event at the VANCOUVER PRESS CLUB called "THE FOOL'S BANQUET" and was first a board member, then president, of the EDGEWISE ELECTROLIT CENTRE - a non-profit society whose mandate is to exploit communications technology in order to widen the audience of Canadian poetry. He has worked with several other poets to produce two new literary publications, "A Week of Words" and the "Rain City Review." Recently, he collaborated with Milan-based musician/sound technician MASSIMO MARIANI to produce "THE DAY AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD PARTY" (auditorium Records, Milan IT.)


Andrea Thompson
Over the past ten years, she has performed her work at festivals, events and venues across North America. Andrea re-creates mythological themes in a contemporary milieu, offering her audience an invitation to return to the roots of the oral tradition through the elevation of spoken word to its ancient role as public ritual. Andrea Thompson has co-hosted CiTr radio's half hour show, Hearsay, produced live poetry events and has facilitated writing workshops with adults and youth on Finding Your Voice and Poetry and Passion. As the Executive Director of The Edgewise Electrolit Centre, she produced Telepoetics, a video-conferenced live poetry event, and Teen-Telepoetics workshops. Andrea has performed her work in the feature film Slam Nation, Bravo TV's Planet Poetry, on CBC radio’s Go, Outfront, Morningside, Definitely Not the Opera and Sounds Like Canada and on Daniel Richlers’ Book Television, and on Carolyn Weaver’s BioLibrary. Her collection, Eating the Seed (Ekstasis Editions, 2000), has been included on George Elliot Clarke’s reading list for the past three years. Her video-poem, Juicy (produced by Seth-Adrian Harris) has been screened at the Vancouver Videopoem Festival and Toronto’s Iced in Black Festival. On-the-page, Andrea Thompson’s poetry has been included in magazines, literary journals and anthologies across Canada. http://www.andreathompson.ca/at.html

T.O.F.U. (Mike Mcgee, Shane Koyczan and CR Avery)
Undeniably one of the most highly anticipated unions of voice and word, Tons of Fun University (T.O.F.U.) is one part Mike McGee and equal part Shane Koyczan.
Both Individual Grand Slam Champions of the National Poetry Slam (Koyczan in 2000; McGee in 2003), they are North America’s biggest poetry duo, figuratively and physically. Combined, they bring a sense of passion and urgency that is mainstream, timely and unique, while maintaining a creative energy that is no-holds-barred and uncommon in modern poetry and spoken word.
Shane Koyczan hails from Vancouver, British Columbia and has captained every Poetry Slam team representing Vancouver at the National Poetry Slam since 1999. The highest consistently ranked slam poet in the world, Shane’s a true performer whose theatre and writing background is riddled with scholastic and professional awards, and he’s received kudos from such luminaries as Maya Angelou and Utah Phillips. Having performed to crowds as large as 12,000 plus Shane has become one of the most sought after spoken word performers in North America and parts of Europe
Mike McGee was raised in his hometown of San Jose, California. His early theatre and comedy experience blossomed into stand up comedy performances and slam poetry competitions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. These all helped Mike to develop and establish his brand of spoken word humor, or slam comedy, if you will or will not. Propelled by a background in broadcasting and playwriting, the poetry stage was the next logical step for Mike’s style of storytelling. His obscure humor and “celebrity voice caricatures” make for original, witty spoken word
Tons of Fun University is the coming together of three nations, three men, three friends and three voices that can only compliment each other, while luring the audience into their world. A world of people, patience, peace, pleasure and prosperity. A world that loves right back. They do this with powerful voices and words, with humor and insight. They do this because they only do that which they love.
CR Avery “search this man out” Tom Waits
http://www.mikemcgee.net/tofu/

Addena Sumter-Freitag
Addena Sumter-Freitag is also well known in the Canadian Arts Community as an award-winning writer, actor, and director. Addena was born and grew up in the North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba, a unique ethnic and culturally diverse neighborhood. She credits her background for the heart and soul in her writing. Her poetry has been performed on WTN television network (Toronto) on their series “Writing On The Wall.” In Nov. 2001 she had a chapter of 10 poems entitled: Witness- Testament of a Journey published in an anthology “Women’s Bodies/Women’s Lives”: Sumach Press: Toronto. Feb. 2005 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for poetry by the World Poetry Reading Series


The Svelte Ms. Spelt
One of Vancouver’s most well known spoken word performers the Svelte Ms. Spelt has been gracing Vancouver stages since 1998 when he made his first Vancouver Poetry Slam team. Spelt is also the only Canadian to ever win the PSI “Spirit of the Slam” award back in 2002 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Author of several chapbooks and one spoken word cd.

Sue Cormier
The ink of Susan Cormier’s writing never dries. Its cadence and imagery run deep and leave impressions upon the mind like long, heavy brushstrokes. The people she writes about are stories, and the stories she tells are sometimes filled with destruction, sometimes filled with helplessness, and sometimes both. There is a realness to her writing, one that betrays experience, hard earned wisdom and a bright, graceful defiance against the odds. There is a subtle rage here, but it is definitely not blind, Susan knows where she is going. Susan was also a featured poet on the west coast leg of the SlamAmerica bus tour. She has also been featured on Latchkey.net.

Jen Lam
Jen Lam is a nose-picking, Mashimoro-obsessed, coffee-slumming, camera-phobic, reluctant Daoist with a strictly ‘Friends-With-Benefits’ relationship with reality. She spends much of her time pretending to be a vegetarian and writing and rewriting the first 10 pages of her novel-in-progress which she never plans to ever finish because she’s too fricking anal about every, single, freaking word. In other words, she’s a poet

Jake De Peuter

Jake de Peuter: power poet, performing artist, spoken wordtuoso; aka "the maestro." his writing and presentation are influenced by, among numerous other sources, having studied english and theatre at the university of lethbridge, from where he graduated with a b.a. in 1991. founder of MOST VOCAL poets' society in lethbridge, and the lotosland poetry stage at the south country fair near fort macloud, he's excited about participating in the canadian festival of the spoken word because it's the first time he's sharing his words outside southern alberta.

Kagagn Goh

Kagan Goh is an award winning filmmaker, a spoken word poet and a mental health activist. Central themes running through his work is the damaging effects of the stigma of mental illness, the exploration of illness as a shamanistic initiation and vehicle for personal growth and spiritual transformation.

Jeffrey Yu

In a very short time Jeffery has become one of Vancouver's finest comedians. He was runner-up in Vancouver's Comic Competition and has travelled to the Maritimes to represent Vancouver at the Halifax Comedy Festival. He has also written for CBC's "This Hour has 22 Minutes" and will be appearing in his own "Comedy Now!" special airing next year on the CTV and Comedy Network.

AJ Mckenzie

Hailing from the bourgeois suburbs of Vancouver A.J. enjoys using big words but seldom understands their meaning. After high school and two lack luster semesters at college, A.J realized with no skills, and no penchant for manual labor he had to rely on one of his two talents, but there isn’t much of a market for glass eating. He’s been active in the comedy scene ever since and is working tirelessly at perfecting his craft.

Kat Norris

Kat Norris is proud of her Indigenous heritage. She is Coast Salish/Nez Perce and Hawaiian Filipina. She grew up in California, has lived in BC most of her life and now resides in East Van. She is the proud mother of two sons Sky and Anthony

Queen Sheba

Queen Sheba’s past performances include:
Colleges and Universities
University of Rochester ~ Yale
University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana ~ Temple University
University of DC ~ Howard University
Norfolk State University ~ Old Dominion University
Duke University ~ University of Mass
Amherst College ~ Morgan State
Bowie State ~ University of Michigan
Hampton University ~ James Madison University
University of Ohio ~ Chicago State
Virginia State University
Conferences and Seminars
Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Conference Oct 2003
Furious Flower Writers Conference September 2004
Take Back the Night Key Note Speaker Feb 2002/October 2003
The French Embassy Washington, DC July 2004
The Ethiopian Embassy AIDS/HIV Benefit for Africa August 2004
PanaFest International Music and Arts Festival Ghana, West Africa July 2003
Afram Music and Arts Festival Norfolk ,VA June 2002/4
National Black Family Day September 2002/4
Black August New Orleans August 2003
Word Up! International Poetry Festival Norfolk, VA April 2000-4
Toronto International Poetry Festival September 2004
Invited to perform at The March For Women’s Lives April 2004
Television and Radio
106 & Park Black Entertainment Television May 2002
Amateur Night at the Apollo Jan 2002
Invited to BET’s Lyric Café Bahama’s Music Festival August 2004
XM Radio Washington, DC October 2003
~ More available upon request ~

ALL THESE AND MORE PLUS THE POETRY SLAM TEAMS:
Vancouver Team “A”
Brendan Mcleod, Chrystalene Buhler, Zaccheus Jackson, Barbara Adler


Vancouver team B
Magpie Ulysses, Kim Shaughnessy, Dunce the Wizard, TL Groves

Toronto
Wakefield Brewster now replaces Spin, Leviathan, Amanda Hiebert, Dane Jah Ras (Dane Swan), David Silverberg is the team coach and captain.


Ottawa
John Akpata (2005 Capital Slam Champion), DJ Morales, Steve Sauvé, Kevin Matthews
Oni the Haitian Sensation (team alternate)


Victoria
carey jernigan (a/k/a talus), sam decter (a/k/a sammy d), shayne aeichele (a/k/a shayne avec i grec), scott towson (a/k/a strong cottonwoods), alex murray (a/k/a blank space) (team alternate)


Winnipeg
Julie Parrell, Nereo, Christoff Engbrecht and Teagan Redekop, Lindsey Wiebe (coach)