Festival Saturday
Well, it’s a BIG DAY for the Edmonton Poetry Festival. You should definitely check the sked for today’s list of events. Come on, it’s a blustery day, why not slide down and catch some verse?
Couple items of interest:
- The Edmonton Poetry Festival is now live on Flickr (check it out here). So if you’ve missed the photos from this year’s dew, you can go there for a photographic recap of the festivities.
- You can download a hard copy of the schedule here. That’ll come in handy, especially for tomorrow’s cafe readings wherein 80 poets invade local cafes and deliver their words.
Today’s Events
Here’s a rundown of what you can take in today at the Edmonton Poetry Festival.
- Found in Translation: A Sharing happens at 1:00pm at the Milner Library downtown, main floor. Should be an interesting event very much in keeping with the theme of this year’s festival: Found in Translation.
- Try Your Tongue at Translation happens at the Milner Library as well, at 2:30pm. Poets are invited to bring a poem for potential translation.
- The Poetry Sweatshop goes down at the Artery at 3:00pm. An Edmonton tradition, the sweatshop is a boozy, fists-up brawl of an event designed for the strong of constitution. Admission is free and participants will be expected to drink alcohol and write on command to prompts given by the Sweatshop Captain and his crew. Foul language, heckling, and some good old-fashioned bacchanalia are standard issue, so be sure to check the event listing and decide if this event is for you.
- Findings: The Poetry Party happens at the Artery, 8pm tonight. This is the big kick-out-the-jams party. The legendary Don McKay will be in the house, along with Valerie Mason-John, Kimmy Beach, and the one and only Ian Ferrier. Rumour has it that the slam winner (Titilope Sonuga) will be present as well! It is a fitting summation of a diverse festival.
So, we’ll see you out on the street! 3-2-1-BREATHE.