Poetry at Alberta Culture Days
On September 28 and 29 The Edmonton Poetry Festival presents DiVerse Alberta as a part of Alberta Culture Days.
The following events take place at Government House, 12845 – 102 Avenue Edmonton (on the grounds of the Royal Alberta Museum) on September 28 and 29, 2013.
September 28th – 1:00 pm
Youth Showcase with the Edmonton Youth Slam Team.
The 2013 Edmonton Youth Poetry Slam team is the inaugural youth team in Edmonton. Team members Dylan, Mimi, Skye, Faven, and Harleen represent the diversity of youth poetry slam voices from across the city. The youth team is excited to perform at events throughout the year and has already appeared at The Works Festival.The youth slam is sponsored by the City of Edmonton’s Rising Youth program and the Breath in Poetry Collective.
September 28th – 3:00 pm
Page meets Stage – Mary Pinkoski, Edmonton’s current Poet Laureate and award winning Poet Nora Gould.
Nora Gould writes from east central Alberta where she ranches with her family and volunteers in wildlife rehabilitation with the Medicine River Wildlife Centre. I see my love more clearly from a distance is her award-winning poetry collection. Poet Laureate for the City of Edmonton, Mary Pinkoski is an award-winning spoken word poet and currently ranked the top female slam poet in the country.
September 29th – 1:00 pm
Showcase of Edmonton’s Adult Slam Team
The 2013 Edmonton Poetry Slam team brings together a group of diverse poets. With differing backgrounds in poetry, theatre, and hiphop, Gisele Lemire, Kaz Mega, Jan Poliakevitch, Rhianna Estelle, and Arlo Maverick bring a unique blend of performance experience and poetry to the stage. As Edmonton’s fourth poetry slam team, they look forward to competing at the 2013 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Montreal.
September 29th – 3:00 pm
Di Verse Voices
Join us for a showcase of four talented local poets including Jalal Barzanji, Norma Dunning, Peter Midgley and Roman Mariam. Poet and Journalist, Jalal Barzanji is originally from Iraqi Kurdistan. He has published seven books of poetry, and hundreds of columns about democracy, peace and freedom of expression in Iraq. Norma Dunning is currently a second-year MA student in the inaugral class with the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. She has been awarded The James Patrick Follinsbee Prize for Creative Writing (2011) and the Stephen Kapalka Memorial Prize for Creative Writing (2012) through the U of A. Peter Midgley’s poetry has appeared in South African journals, and his bilingual volume of poems, perhaps i should / miskien moet ek came out with Kalamalka Press in 2010. Peter’ book-length creative non-fiction project, Counting Teeth: A Namibian Story, is set to appear with Wolsak & Wynn in 2014. Roman Gebre Mariam (R.S.W) was born and raised in Ethiopia. She fell in love with the world of literature at an early age. Now residing in Edmonton and working as a program manager at the Africa Centre, Roman recently took a part in APAAD, presenting two poems in Amharic, “Call of the Century” and “Learning to be human”