Celebrate National Poetry Month at livewords with Johnstone, McFadden, and Ross!

On Thursday, April 23rd livewords presents:

WORDS BY:

Jim Johnstone

Jim completed his M.Sc. in Reproductive Physiology at the University of Toronto, where he is currently a doctoral candidate. His first book of poetry, The Velocity of Escape is available from Guernica Editions and his work has appeared in literary periodicals such as The Antigonish Review, Contemporary Verse 2, Descant, Grain, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire and Prism International. He is a two time winner of the E. J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry and won second place in the 2008 CBC Literary Award in Poetry. Currently he edits Misunderstandings Magazine, a literary journal he co-founded with Ian Williams in 2005.

David McFadden

Mr. McFadden began writing poetry, publishing in famous literary magazines, and corresponding with Jack Kerouac while still in high school in Hamilton, Ontario. He worked as a night proof reader at The Hamilton Spectator through the sixties, at the same period starting his own literary magazine, Mountain. His life in Canadian poetry has spanned five decades and David McFadden is still going strong. An Innocent in Cuba is the most recent of his many travel books over the past 30 years. In 2008 Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. McFadden is a poet’s poet and a people’s poet.

Stuart Ross

Stuart is a Toronto fiction writer, poet, editor, and creative-writing instructor. He has been active in the Toronto literary scene since the mid-1970s. He sold 7,000 copies of his self-published poetry and fiction chapbooks in the streets of Toronto during the ’80s. Stuart is co-founder, with Nicholas Power, of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, an underground literary institution since 1987. He has edited many literary magazines, including: Mondo Hunkamooga, Who Torched Rancho Diablo?, Dwarf Puppets on Parade, Peter O’Toole, and, most recently, the poetry magazine Syd & Shirley. Stuart has given readings at hundreds of venues in Canada, the U.S., England, and Nicaragua and appeared at many literary festivals. His work has appeared in scores of journals here and in the U.S. His poetry collections from ECW Press include The Inspiration Cha-Cha (1996), Farmer Gloomy’s New Hybrid (1999), which was shortlisted for the 2000 Trillium Book Award, Razovsky at Peace (2001), and Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected (2003). In spring 2007, Anvil launched Stuart’s fifth major poetry collection, I Cut My Finger. In spring 2008, he released his most recent collection Dead Cars in Managua from DC Books’ Punchy Poetry imprint.

† NATIONAL POETRY MONTH OPEN MIC CONTEST:

Best Reading of one (1) of your favourite Canadian poems by one of your favourite Canadian poets (living or dead but not you).

• $50 Cash Prize. Our inscrutable judges will pick the winner based on a match of section and presentation.
• SIGN UP 7:30
  

@ Cervejaria, 842 College Street (just west of Ossington)
7:00 p.m. Doors Open
7:30 p.m. Open Mic Sign-Up
8:00 p.m. Performances Commence