2022 Headliners

Gavin Bradley is an award-winning writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland, currently living in Edmonton, on Treaty 6 territory. His work has appeared in The Irish Times, The North, Best New British and Irish Poets, and Glass Buffalo.

Michelle Poirier Brown is an internationally published writer and performer, currently living on the traditional unceeded territories of the syilx peoples, in Vernon, BC. She is nêhiýaw-iskwêw and a citizen of the Métis Nation. Her debut book of poetry, You Might Be Sorry You Read This, is forthcoming in the Robert Kroetsch Series from the University of Alberta Press in Spring 2022.

Michelle writes both poetry and prose. Her poem “Wake” won PRISM international’s Earle Birney Prize in 2019. Other poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Arc, CV2, Grain, The Greensboro Review, Emrys Journal, Plenitude, Right Hand Pointing, untethered, and Vallum; as well as several chapbooks and anthologies. The song cycle, “The Length of a Day” (Jeffrey Ryan, composer), was commission by Pacific Opera Victoria in 2021. Her prose has appeared in The Malahat Review, Release Any Words Stuck Inside of You II and III, The Fieldstone Review, The Sun, and the anthology Dis(s)ent.

A feminist activist, Michelle was the first woman in Canada to win a court case establishing reasonable accommodation in the workplace for breastfeeding women. Now retired from a career as a professional writer and, later, conflict analyst and Federal Treaty Negotiator, she is giving voice to stories she has been sheltering for forty years. 

She continues to write about her research in Transylvania that was the focus of a Community Sabbatical Fellowship at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, in 2017.

Her more personal work follows three major themes: Indigenous identity, queer identity, and speaking the unspeakable.

Jenna Butler is the author of three books of poetry and ten short collections with small presses. Butler teaches creative writing and eco-criticism at Red Deer College. In the summer, she and her husband live on a small organic farm near the historic Grizzly Trail in Alberta’s north country.

Jennifer Bowering Delisle is the author of Deriving and The Bosun Chair. A collection of lyric essays, Micrographia, is forthcoming in Fall 2023. She is a board member of NeWest Press and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets Parenting Poets Community Committee. She is a settler in amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton on Treaty 6 territory.

Marilyn Dumont teaches for the faculties of Arts and Native Studies at the University of Alberta and is proud of Metis family lines from her Mother’s – Vaness / Dufresne families and her father’s – Boudreau/Dumont families. Her four collections of poetry have won provincial or national awards: A Really Good Brown Girl (1996); green girl dreams Mountains (2001); that tongued belonging (2007); The Pemmican Eaters (2015). A fifth collection surrounding Indigenous history of Edmonton, called South Side of a Kinless River will be published by Brick Books in 2024.

Norma Dunning is an Inuk professor, grandmother and writer. Her short story collection, Tainna (the unseen ons), received the Governor General’s Literary Awards for 2021. Annie Muktuk and Other Stories received the Danuta Gleed award in 2018. Dunning’s first collection of poetry, Eskimo Pie: a poetics of Inuit Identity, was released in 2020. Her second collection of poetry, Akia (the other side), will be published in July 2022. Kinauva? (what’s your name?), Dunning’s first work of nonfiction, will release in 2023. She lives in Edmonton.

Shima Aisha Robinson is an amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton) born student, community builder, poet and spoken word artist who embodies, with every literary and scholarly effort, the ancient meaning of her chosen pen name. Dwennimmen is the name of an ancient African Adinkra symbol, which means strength, humility, learning and wisdom. It is no surprise, then, that this veteran of the Alberta poetry community uses a searing intellect and dynamic precision-of-language to create poetry which ushers her readers and listeners toward greater understanding and poignant reflection.

For Shima Aisha Robinson aka Dwennimmen, poetry has long been a compass, a salve, an anchor and guiding light. She uses the potential and force of poetry to uncover the full range of her cerebral, linguistic and spiritual fortitude. This is why her every poem and performance testifies to an emerging power and wisdom, an authentic, deeply human potency which she hopes to pass on to listeners and poetry-lovers around the world.

She is the author of two books including HORN, 2016, Denseverse (self published), and Bellow, 2022, Glass House Press. She has worked, advocated, and represented our community as Artistic Producer for the Edmonton Poetry Festival Society from 2022-23 Festival Society, founder and curator of the WORD*LAB spoken word series, Learning and Outreach Manager for Fringe Theatre Adventures, and not least-of-all is also the The City Of Edmonton’s 10th Poet Laureate.

Hannah Gelderman (she/her) is a settler of Dutch descent living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, AB). She is an artist, educator and organizer who is most energized by projects that come to life at the intersection of visual arts and climate justice.

Katherine Gibson received her MLIS from McGill University in Montreal before working at the Richmond Public Library in British Columbia, Canada. After a year and half there she took up teaching English in Japan and finally settled down at the Edmonton Public Library in 2010. Katherine leads Capital City Press, EPL’s initiative to support local writers.

She is a member of the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board.

V. Guzman, V, B , AUNTE V is a disabled Non Binary Salvadoran Canadian artist, visionary and organizer, a child of war refugees born and raised in Edmonton Alberta, Treaty 6 Territory . They are known as powerful, scary and intimidating organizer, they were a respected local visual artist in the last decades , specializing in acrylics for Nextfest, their last solo show was back in 2017 at the Aviary. In 2014, V got suckered into performing spoken word poetry and regretted ever since. They don’t call themselves a poet per-say, nor an MC but identify more so as a writer. Their bars are known for its lyricism, melodic rhymes, leaves you breathless sometimes shook. They sometimes write poetry , mostly for for themselves, sometimes for their friends and sometimes for enemies.

Rayanne Haines is an award-winning hybrid author and the 2022 Regional Writer in Residence for the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries. Her first full-length poetry collection Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning (Inanna, 2018) was a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Exporting Alberta Award. Tell the Birds Your Body is Not a Gun (Frontenac House, 2021) is a current finalist for the Alberta Literary Awards Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Her essay This is Normal was shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Awards Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award. Rayanne is the host of the literary podcast Crow Reads and is an Edmonton Artist Trust Fund recipient. Her poetry and essays have been featured in anthologies and journals in Canada, the UK and the USA.

Canadian writer Nancy Holmes has published six collections of poetry, most recently Arborophobia (University of Alberta Press). She is the editor of Open Wide a Wilderness: Canadian Nature Poems. She is Associate Professor in Creative Writing at The University of British Columbia in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. With Denise Kenney, she established the Eco Art Incubator, an initiative which supports ecological art in the Okanagan Valley and with Dr. Cameron Cartiere she established an award-winning community-based art project about native pollinators called Border Free Bees. Nancy won the 2015 Robert Kroetsch National Teaching Award in Creative Writing for her innovative student project, Dig Your Neighbourhood, and The Malahat Review’s Constance Rooke Creative Non-Fiction award in 2017.

Indigenous poets sharing truths, making their voices heard, and coming together to build community strength.

Alexis Kienlen is a poet, journalist and novelist who lives on Treaty 6, Edmonton. She currently works as an agricultural journalist with Alberta Farmer newspaper. She is the author of 2 books of poetry, She dreams in Red and 13, and has also written a biography about a Sikh civil rights activist. Her first novel, Mad Cow, was released in April 2020, during the global pandemic.

Theresa Kishkan lives on the Sechelt Peninsula in British Columbia. She has published more than a dozen books, including poetry, fiction, and collections of essays.

Alice Major founded the Edmonton Poetry Festival in 2006 while she was serving as Edmonton’s first poet laureate. (She warns all future laureates to be careful what they start!). Alice has published 12 award-winning collections of poetry, including The Office Tower Tales (which won the Pat Lowther award) and Memory’s Daughter (which received the Stephan G. Stephansson Prize). Her recent book Welcome to the Anthropocene was nominated for three major awards. Her 12th collection is Knife on Snow, released by Turnstone Press in Spring 2023. Other awards include the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. Her website is here.

Kim Mannix is a poet, dark fiction writer, and journalist who lived in six Canadian cities before deciding to call Sherwood Park home. As a lover and supporter of local arts, she’s delighted to be part of the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board. She works as an entertainment and lifestyle writer for MSN, and has had her creative efforts published in several Canadian and international journals and anthologies. She is a co-editor of Watch Your Head, a climate crisis anthology, and is deeply grateful to the earth that sustains us all.

Lisa Martin is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Believing is not the Same as Being Saved (University of Alberta Press, 2017) and One crow sorrow (Brindle & Glass, 2008). Her latest chapbook, Typology (Anstruther Press, 2021), is a sonnet sequence in homage to the Myers-Briggs personality types.

Marco Melfi joined the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board in 2019. His poems have appeared in The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, The Arc Award of Awesomeness, Funicular, and FreeFall. His chapbook, In between trains, was published in 2014.

Peter Midgley is the author of several books of poetry, children’s literature, and plays. He lives in Edmonton.

For more info check out their website:
https://www.midgley.ca/

Catherine Owen, from Vancouver, now lives in Edmonton and has published 16 books, including her latest, Moving to Delilah (Freehand 2024).

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Paul Pearson is the co-founding editor and chapbook designer for the Olive Reading Series. His poems have appeared in Descant and Event, and the anthology Writing the Land: Alberta Through Its Poets from House of Blue Skies. Raised in a mining town in the mountainous back-country of southeastern British Columbia, Paul has since relocated to Edmonton where he lives and writes with his wife and two children. Lunatic Engine is his debut collection.

Well I’m from New Orleans, I’ve been living in Canada for 26 years… I AM a proud father of four! Like Rumi, Hafiz, La La ded and many other mystical poets I AM a Lover supreme! For I Love all, I Love Life in all it’s glorious infinite expression! I AM also a musician,songwriter and author. In a Word I AM always flowing growing and glowing in Love!

Poets show solidarity with brave Ukrainians as they fight for their freedom and the freedom of all world citizens.

Jason Purcell is a writer and musician living on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton, Alberta, where they are co-owner of Glass Bookshop. They hold a MA in English from the University of Alberta. Swollening is their first book.

Shazia Hafiz Ramji’s fiction was shortlisted for the Malahat Review’s 2022 Open Season Awards. Her poetry was shortlisted for the 2021 National Magazine Awards and the 2021 Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry. Shazia’s award-winning first book is Port of Being. She lives in Calgary and Vancouver where she is at work on a novel and some tunes.

Emily Riddle (Okimâw Pipikwan Iskwêw) is Nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw). She is a writer, textile artist, and policy iskwew based in Amisko Waciw Wâskahikan (Edmonton, Canada). In 2022, she released her first full length poetry collection, The Big Melt which won the Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian first book award. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, among others. Emily Riddle is a dedicated Treaty 6 descendant and a semi-dedicated Edmonton Oilers fan.

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Sampler Café is a diverse community of beat smiths, sample sculptors, pad smashers and musical misfits that work together to promote unity through music and to share beat culture with the masses. From hosting open jam sessions, engaging the community through educational workshops, welcoming guest educators/performers or creating sample-heavy electronic music live as a team, Sampler Cafes approach is focused on opening up the portal of accessibility for newcomers and veterans alike to shape a space to exchange knowledge and new ideas in the art of the beat.

Anna Marie Sewell is a multi-genre author and former Poet Laureate, a founding member of the Stroll of Poets, and  involved with various collaborators in pursuit of beauty, meaningful exchange and reverent foolishness. Her latest novel, Urbane, is a finalist for the City of Edmonton Book Prize. A member of Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation, also of Anishinaabe and Polish heritage, she lives in Edmonton and works globally.

For more info check out their website:
prairiepomes.com.

Kelly Shepherd’s second poetry collection, Insomnia Bird (Thistledown Press, 2018) won the 2019 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Kelly has written seven chapbooks, and he is a poetry editor for the environmental philosophy journal The Trumpeter. He has a Creative Writing MFA from UBC Okanagan (with a thesis on the intersections of ecopoetry and work poetry), and an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Alberta (with a thesis on sacred geography). Originally from Smithers BC, Kelly currently lives in Edmonton, and teaches at NAIT.

Titilope Sonuga is a poet who renders, both in verse and performance, a quality of rootedness and unflinching womanhood that extends beyond the bounds of a single poem or poetic performance. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Down to Earth (2011), Abscess (2014), and This Is How We Disappear (2019) and has composed two spoken word albums, Mother Tongue (2011) and Swim (2019). Her work is expansive, reaching into the realm of theatre, television and advertising campaigns for global brands. She is the 9th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton.

Sublime Intervention Collective, also known as S.I.C., is an experimental and collaboration based group of young femme artists out of amiskwaciwáskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta). Starting as a passion project of young artists Lydia Leblanc and
MadJohn! Madden, S.I.C.’s goal has been to initiate connection between creatives within our community, and develop projects that bring together different mediums to explore the creative interaction that can take place across disciplines. S.I.C. has held multidisciplinary events independently as well as a part Next Fest and Edmonton Poetry Festival.

‘Sum’ started writing at the age of 16 & began to freestyle whilst living on the streets of Edmonton at age 17. His submersion into hip-hop culture supported the foundation of his ability to freestyle & eventually song write & experiment with lyricism. This enthusiastic devotion for ‘word smithing’ as an art form, has successfully cultivated an adept ability to express with purpose, passion & power for intentionally conscious, culture informed entertainment. His work covers decolonization, original people’s spirituality, the relationship between personal self & the world around us.

Grayson Thate (he/him) is a poet born in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton). He is currently studying heritage management, and hopes to go to law school in the near future. As a past Youth Poet Laureate, he has been passionate about poetry and how it brings people together for many years. With a background in policy and education, Grayson is excited to be on the Edmonton Poetry Festival board and work to connect people with poetry in ways that are innovative and accessible.

Maigan van der Giessen is Tzadeka: a mother, poet, vocalist, visual artist, organizer, innovator, and all around rabble rouser. Tzadeka makes music that is unpredictable, clever, and magnetic. Female-fronted, experimental political-soul spoken word that’s fresh-as-hell!

Accompanied by the wildly talented Murder Hornettes (Allison Ochoa and Kirsten Elliot), this unstoppable trio is burning up stages across the prairies with their harmonies and hot sauce!

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike is a Nigerian-born, Calgary-based poet, fiction writer, essayist, and literary journalist. He is the author of Double Wahala, Double Trouble; Wish Maker; and a co-editor of Wreaths for Wayfarers.

Matthew James Weigel is an award winning Dene and Métis artist and author born and raised in Edmonton. His visual art often represents the many relationships we have with our surroundings, while his scholarly focus hopes to reclaim archival histories. His debut book “Whitemud Walking” recently won the City of Edmonton Book Prize and he is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Alberta.