Strap Your Hands Across These Engines | Edmonton Poetry Festival

Well, it’s been a busy one. Funny how a month can go by in the snap of a paw. Here we are, August 11, 2008 and the Edmonton Poetry Festival website is in need of a little love, maybe a caress on the backside or a kiss on the nape of the neck. THIS FRIDAY, August 15, 2008 is also the TOE TAG DAY for the PoFest event sign up! We’ve got three killer events that YOU can participate in! If you haven’t thrown your name into the ring for the biggest, coolest word party in E-Town, what are you waiting for? A ballad crooned from the crooked jaw of an alley bound lover with a heart dented by your past-life cruelty? That’s a pretty pedestrian excuse isn’t it? Signup deadline is Friday, August 15, 2008. Now go forth and sign your ass up.

I’d like to announce a few headliners:

E-Town’s poet laureate Ted Blodgett will open the festival finale with his stirring and award-winning verse.
All the way from Vancouver, the big “B”, otherwise known as Brendan McLeod, will be rocking the finale stage on Saturday night (September 13, 2008). If you’ve never seen Brendan in all his sweat off the brow awesomeness, you should. You will. Of course you’ll be there ‘cuz he’s awesome, and he’ll make you laugh, cry, and want to throw your clothes into the street and dance like the heathen that you truly are.
E-Town’s own Mary Pinkoski will be shakin’ ‘em on down at the finale. Mary is fresh from her barnstorming world tour in support of her latest album, I Smoke Cigarettes Because I Don’t Believe in Marriage. She’s also the reigning Queen of the CBC Poetry Face-Off. She kicked ass all across this great nation of ours and she’ll be on the festival stage to show us all how it’s done.
The legendary Raving Poets Band will be providing their finely-honed blend of poetic musical brinkmanship and high tolerance for malt liquor and imported beer.

Oh, don’t worry. There’s still more to come. Plenty more. Likely more than you can handle. It’s more that I can handle, anyway. Alice made me promise not to tell. So I’m not. Talk to you soon.