Join us for another fabulous Poetry Party! We will hear from four poets who graced our stages throughout the festival this year. Expect big energy, big feelings, and big fun!

Readings from Meghan Eaker, Bänoo Zan, RC Weslowski, and Charlee Queen XO.

Pay-what-you-can
Suggested donation $10

Venue

CO*LAB

9641 102A Ave NW
Edmonton, AB T5H 0G3 Canada

Sometimes language fails us. Especially in some of our most difficult moments. Perhaps our vocabulary isn’t enough to express what’s going on or what we’ve experienced is beyond words.

In this workshop we will find ways to create new words and sounds that can help us approach difficult subject matter in a new, creative and even fun way. We’ll look at ways to help our bodies articulate their experience and challenge ourselves in how we speak about trauma. We’ll approach these experiences as something that can provide new, exciting information about ourselves. This is not a therapy session, but it might feel therapeutic when we’re done. Arrive with an open mind and a willing heart to explore the possibilities of change.

Facilitator: RC Weslowski

$15 Advance Registration
$20 at the door

Venue

CO*LAB

9641 102A Ave NW
Edmonton, AB T5H 0G3 Canada

Join us for this EPF 2023 presentation of live readings from Meghan Eaker and Jane Munro.

Host: Shima Robinson

Pay-what-you-can
Suggested donation: $10

Venue

CO*LAB

9641 102A Ave NW
Edmonton, AB T5H 0G3 Canada

Jully Black made a gesture towards reconciliation by changing one word in our national anthem. This workshop is focused on how your poems can speak truth and – word by word – unmask fear, release dread, share pain, welcome courage – save kindness – help us remove barriers to reconciliation. Image by image, can you create a room in which others can dwell, a room your reader can furnish?

Facilitator: Jane Munro

$15 Advanced Registration
$20 at the door

Venue

CO*LAB

9641 102A Ave NW
Edmonton, AB T5H 0G3 Canada

In partnership with the University of Alberta Press, Literary Cocktails will feature readings from UAlberta Press’ newest poetry collections: Arborophobia by Nancy Holmes, Separation Anxiety by Gavin Bradley, and You Might Be Sorry You Read This by Michelle Poirier Brown, as well as from a new essay collection: Blue Portugal & Other Essays by Theresa Kishkan.

Arborophobia is a poetic spiritual reckoning. Its elegies, litanies, and indictments concern wonder, guilt, and grief about the journey of human life and the state of the natural world; is spiritual and emotional solace possible or even desirable? Answers abound in measured, texturally intimate, and often surprising ways throughout Nancy Holmes’s collection, offering both a hard look at what we have done to this beautiful planet as well as to those we love and companionship for all who grapple with the problem of hope in times of crisis.

Separation Anxiety is Gavin Bradley’s poignant debut collection. His poems explore the emotional toll of different kinds of separation: from a partner, from a previously held sense of self, or a from one’s homeland and the people left behind when one becomes an immigrant halfway around the world. Together, these personal poems build a narrative that describes the loneliness and anxiety experienced by the author since leaving his native Northern Ireland, all while showing a lasting love for the people, the language, and the land to ultimately convey a message of hope.

You Might Be Sorry You Read This is Michelle Poirier Brown’s stunning debut collection. Her poetic memoir break silences and reconcile identity as it unflinchingly recounts the author’s childhood trauma and her coming to terms with a hidden Indigenous identity when the poet discovered her Métis heritage at age 38. This collection is, therefore, a journey of pain, belonging, hope, and resilience, a demonstration of poetry’s power to refine anger into something both useful, often humorous, and even beautiful while nevertheless honouring the complexities of Indigenous identity and the raw experiences of womanhood, mental illness, and queer selfhood.

Blue Portugal & Other Essays is a collection of braided essays through which Theresa Kishkan thinks deeply about the natural world, mourns and celebrates the aging body, interrogates and gently contests recorded history, and explores art and visual phenomena. Gathering personal genealogies, medical histories, and early land surveys together with the liminal spaces of memory and insights from music, colour theory, horticulture, and textile production, Kishkan weaves patterns and dangles loose threads, welcoming readers to share her intellectual and emotional preoccupations. Through this intimate awareness of place and time Blue Portugal & Other Essays offers a sense of wonder at the interconnectedness of all things.

Venue

Online

In collaboration with the Edmonton Poetry Festival, LitFest presents an evening of poetry performance from two major forces of leadership and innovation in Canadian performance poetry, Nisha Patel – author of COCONUT, and Jillian Christmas – author of The Gospel of Breaking.

Venue

Online

Are you fascinated by poetry, languages, and art? Are you curious to witness Indigenous language reclamation and revitalization through creative self-expression? Then please join us for The Polyglot’s launch of our double issue—nimitêyaniy and nitêh. These issues were curated by Naomi McIlwraith and Dorothy Thunder, and feature 36 brilliant Indigenous poets and artists. This launch showcases sixteen of our contributors read their poems or talk about their art, weaving their insights on language, culture, and Indigenous identities. The Polyglot would like to acknowledge and deeply thank the Edmonton Arts Council for their support and funding of this project. A special mahsi cho to the Edmonton Poetry Festival for supporting us with this launch. The covers of the issues feature art by Lana Whiskeyjack (nimitêyaniy) and Jade Roberts (nitêh). The words of the issues correspond to tongue and heart in nêhiyawêwin (Cree).

Venue

Online

“This seminar will touch upon some of the questions that keep me awake: How do you write a memoir when your memory’s shot? How do you tell the truth when the truth hurts others? When is nonfiction therapy and when is it art?”

Want to buy the book? Find it here.

Lorna Crozier is the author of seventeen books of poetry, including God of Shadows, which was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award, What the Soul Doesn’t Want, The Wrong Cat, Small Mechanics, The Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems, and Whetstone. She is also the author of The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things and the memoir Small Beneath the Sky. She won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for Inventing the Hawk and three additional collections were finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. She has received the Canadian Authors Association Award, three Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria and an Officer of the Order of Canada, and she has received five honorary doctorates for her contributions to Canadian literature. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia.

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

This event is sponsored by Robert Less-Miller.

The Edmonton Poetry Festival is throwing it’s annual poetry party and volunteer appreciation night, with internationally acclaimed poets and local superstars to show what the power of poetic performance is all about. This exciting event brings in some of the most powerful voices active in poetry today. Join us as we welcome the renowned Buddy Wakefield as well as Lady Vanessa, Nasra Adem, Ahmed Knowmadic, and musician Selassie Drah to celebrate poetry at its most vivid form.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

The River City Lecture, Sponsored by Alice Major.

Poetry translates experience into writing that often helps us navigate compromised categories of belonging and home. As poets, our perceptions of the world departs from and involves our use of language—and depends on the social for meanings to cohere. Poetry offers many reminders to ourselves, that to use language to create is always an act of transgression—less about a strict crossing of decided borders than an act that puts us imminently always in relation to someone else, in their own place, with their own ways of seeing and being and moving through the world. We are as poets always in search of marking our encounters by shaping language towards making something concrete of the mysteries that surround us. Poetry is a means of entering abstract categories in order to turn out forms and shapes for our lives beyond the mere immediacy of what is legible. Poets, and perhaps all writers, invite wonder into these attempts, to be sure, offering room for multiplicity and other modes of homing. In poetry where we are alive through the porosity of voice, we seek new legibilities for the homeward work of language. Our way of being in the world happens in the accumulation of small acts of creation that move us beyond paltry romanticisms of home.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

Alive! Is a heavy-hitting, multidisciplinary poetry experience curated and performed by nationally-celebrated poet Brandon Wint as well as an accompaniment of dancers and musicians who have created a one-of-a-kind showcase. Brandon will be accompanied by Justin Khuong, Rebecca Parsons, Mpoe Mogale, Jane Berry, Bhuyash Neupane, Jeannie Vandekerkhove and Amy Voyer. Following Alive! will be award-winning poet Titilope Sonuga’s internationally-acclaimed poetry and musical showcase, Open, which recently hit the world stage on tour before being brought back home for new enthusiasts and old friends alike to take in and enjoy. Open is backed by local favourites MelAfrique.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

Homebody invites prominent queer poets from across Canada to showcase their work in an exploration of the way home, and their place in it, manifests in themselves. Bringing in Victoria poet Arleen Paré, queer Peranakan poet Natalie Wee, editor of Glass Buffalo Matthew Stepanic, and local author Jason Purcell, this event will hopes to highlight the cross-section of poetry and queerness in today’s world and what it means for these authors.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

Presented in partnership with the Canadian Authors Association.

Arleen Paré will explore rhyme, rhythm and repetition in poetry through this extended workshop, presented in part with the Canadian Authors Association. This intensive workshop will guide participants through an understanding of musicality and how it affects the word, shaping the form and cadence of our writing and how it meets the open air when spoken out loud.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

The ever-popular Wine and Wild Women Wordsmiths is back! And this year’s readers amplify the power of the female voice. Like poetry, there is a sea of wine styles and types to choose from. Just like Women, the anthocyanins in wine have great heart-health benefits. It’s Friday night and we invite you to enjoy distilled words, quality grapes, and the company of women who speak up, and make their voice heard. This event is hosted by S.G. Wong.

And the price of admission includes a sample of four wines to match our distinct female poets. Thank you to our friends at Prestige for sponsoring our wine samples tonight.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

Presented in partnership with the Canadian Authors Association.

The Story of Home will be a shifting talk about the term and concept of home – the complexity of it and the confusions – with exhortations for listeners to write about home. Listeners will be invited to ruminate on their own understanding of the home as a more than just a physical place as Arleen explores the vast surroundings that couch the idea of what a home is, what it means, and how it comes to show in our writing.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

Please join Marita Dachsel, celebrated Victoria-based poet, for drinks as she reads from There Are Not Enough Sad Songs. She will be joined by Edmonton’s own Jenna Butler, poet, professor, essayist, and organic farmer from northern Alberta, reading from Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard. Lastly, they will be joined by Astrid Blodgett, reading as a special tribute for her father, E.D. Blodgett, a well-known and much beloved poet in the community. She will be reading from his work Apostrophes VIII: Nothing is But You and I.

Venue

University of Alberta Faculty Club

11436 Saskatchewan Drive
Edmonton, AB T6G 2G9 Canada

What does it mean to bring the word home? pê-kîwêhtatân itwêwin will posit this question to four talented indigenous poets, listening in on their musings as they showcase their work at the headlining event of the Edmonton Poetry Festival. Amiskwaciwâskahika (Edmonton) sits on Treaty 6 land. Treaty 6 was signed on August 23, 1876 and stretches from western Alberta, through Saskatchewan and into Manitoba; and includes 50 First Nations. Treaty 6 is a traditional gathering place for the Cree, Blackfoot, Metis, Nakota Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Ojibway/ Saulteaux/Anishinaabe, Inuit, and many others. Their histories, languages, and cultures continue to influence our art and culture communities. This event features nationally-renowned poets and local talent.

Venue

Theatre Lab (Allard Hall) @ MacEwan University

11110 104 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 4S2 Canada

Poetry Central is your chance for a lunch-time poetry meet-up in the downtown! Watch some of Edmonton’s emerging and established, page and stage poets, have a short-order poem written for you on the spot, and pick up festival information or a free poetry book.

Performers

• Liam Coady is a spoken word artist based in Edmonton Alberta. His most recent publication is This Love Is Mad Reciprocal published by Glass Buffalo and edited by Matthew Stepanic.
• Daniel Poitras is a halfbreed poet from the Paul First Nation.
• As the Youth Poet Laureate for this year, Sophie Kim hopes to encourage youth to use poetry as a means of self-reflection. Aside from sleepless nights writing and deleting words, Sophie spends her time cultivating her love for learning, playing sports, and dreaming about her future.
• Omar Farah is a 22-year-old, Somali-Canadian spoken word poet. To put it simply, most poets think that he’s rapping, and most rappers think he’s a poet. But both sides acknowledge he’s decent with a microphone.
• K’alii Stewart is a Nisga’a organizer, poet, and ecology student from the Nass Valley in BC. This past year, K’alii was on the team representing Edmonton at the national spoken word competition CFSW, and is now the founder of the Edmonton Indigenous Poets Society. An integral trend throughout K’aliis life, has been examining the social conditions that have given rise to the many injustices we see in the world today. K’alii is currently fighting a custody battle to get her 3-year-old son back. The spirit of hope and determination that she has learned from this process is channeled into her poems which are often delivered as open calls to action.

Venue

Edmonton City Hall

1 Sir Winston Churchill Square NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 2R7 Canada

Come and judge Edmonton’s spoken word poets in this year’s season finale! Only the top ten poets from this year’s Breath in Poetry slam will be taking the stage to see who makes it through to win the title of 2019 Edmonton Slam Champion. The top five poets at the end of the night also take home the title of the 2019 Edmonton Slam Team as they begin their journey to nationals.

Venue

Art Gallery of Alberta

2 Sir Winston Churchill Square NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 2C1 Canada

Join Jan Zwicky for a three-hour workshop focussing on the musical aspects of poetic language. The workshop aims to heighten awareness of rhythm and sound through close readings of sample poems by established authors and through exercises that participants can take home. It will occur in the Ozawa Pavilion, an authentic Japanese Tea House.

Jan Zwicky has published eleven collections of poetry, most recently The Long Walk. Her books of philosophy include Wisdom & Metaphor, Lyric Philosophy, and Alkibiades’ Love. Her collection, Songs for Relinquishing the Earth, won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

Register online at the ticket link below or call 780-987-3054 × 2227. Directions will follow registration.

This event is sold out!

Venue

University of Alberta Botanic Garden

51227 AB-60
Spruce Grove, AB T7Y 1C5 Canada

Alchemy is the name of the expansive, diverse and dynamic poetry party being curated by local spoken word artist Brandon Wint as part of this year’s festival. The event will welcome the remarkable talents and perspectives of internationally-acclaimed poets Alessandra Naccarato, Shauntay Grant, and Ahmed Knowmadic. Alchemy will be a show that embraces the daring, magical potential that is revealed whenever poetry and music collide. Beyond this, the show will revel in the strength, authenticity, candour and emotional poignancy each of these poets brings to the stage. Alchemy is an event that will showcase and celebrate the social, spiritual and emotional potency of poetics, by inviting this group of accomplished writers to take what they do best and push it into new territory.

This event is generously sponsored by Dr. Kim Solez.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

One of Canada’s most celebrated and innovative poets, Jan Zwicky blends together poetry and philosophy in her work that focuses on ecological thinking. At her only performance for this year’s festival, Jan will share poetry that explores the philosophical roots of her work. She will be joined by Benjamin Hertwig, who was a finalist for the 2017 Governor General’s Award for Poetry for his collection Slow War.

Jan Zwicky has published eleven collections of poetry, most recently The Long Walk. Her books of philosophy include Wisdom & Metaphor, Lyric Philosophy, and Alkibiades’ Love. Her collection, Songs for Relinquishing the Earth, won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

For those who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum, the words and terms we use to label ourselves are central to how we shape our identities. As times change, so do the queer expressions we reclaim and use to understand ourselves. Explore the diversity and complexities of queer lives through the incredible work of this eclectic group of poets.

Kai Cheng Thom, winner of the 2017 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBT Writers, and Ali Blythe, author of Twoism and finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, headline this celebration of strong and resistant queer voices, including Edmonton Youth Poet Laureate Grayson Thate and Laurie MacFayden.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada

Our popular event Wine and Wild Women Wordsmiths is back! Just like poetry, there is a sea of wine styles and varietals to choose from, and just like women, the anthocyanins in wine have great heart-health benefits.

It’s Friday night and we invite you to enjoy distilled words, quality grapes, and the company of women who make a habit of pushing boundaries! This year’s event will be hosted by Gurvinder Bhatia and S.G. Wong.

The price of admission includes a sample of four wines to match our distinct female poets. Thank you to our friends at Vino Mania for sponsoring our wine samples tonight.

• Medgine Mathurin: A Haitian-born poet, psalmist, and spoken word artist, Medgine is the current artist-in-residence at the McLuhan House with the Black Girl Magic artist collective
• Alice Major: The first Poet Laureate of Edmonton, Alice received a 2017 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguised Artist Award and her most recent book is Welcome to the Anthropocene.
• Kai Cheng Thom: Winner of the 2017 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBT Writers, she is the author of Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars and a place called No Homeland.
• Penn Kemp: The first Poet Laureate of London, Ont., Penn received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal for her service to arts and culture.

Includes poetry, four wine samples, and hors d’oeuvres.

Venue

The Matrix Hotel

10640 100 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 3N8 Canada