Wednesday, March 09, 2011

radical poetry

Hey all,

As Manitoba rep of the League of Canadian Poets, it's my responsibility to organize a once-a-year fundraiser.

Lori Cayer, organizer extraordinaire and former MB rep, had done a series of events that looked effortless and were even fun.

Knowing that they were NOT effortless, I'm attempting something that approaches her events.

Thanks to all the readers! Thanks to the organizations and individuals who are donating items for the raffle! And thanks, too, to Aqua, for allowing me the room.

* * *

A Radical LCP Fundraiser
Featuring Bernadette Wagner with Chandra Mayor & Shawna Dempsey


When: Wednesday, March 23 at 7 pm
Where: Aqua Books (274 Garry Street)
Cost: Pay what you can

This year's fundraiser for the League of Canadian Poets will feature poetry, performance art and protest songs.

In addition to radical poetry goodness, there'll also be a one-night-only revival of the Winnipeg Tarot Company (have your fortune told by a poet!) and that LCP fundraiser stand-by, a raffle chock-full of bookish prizes.

Prizes donated by: Aqua Books, Turnstone Press, CV2 magazine, Winnipeg Public Library, Manitoba Writers' Guild, Alchemical Press, Brick Books, Prairie Fire magazine, Writers' Collective of Manitoba, Friends of the WPL.

* * *

Regina writer Bernadette Wagner infuses her poetry and nonfiction with a love of land, a commitment to grassroots activism and the spirit of the prairies. When she's not writing, she's politicking. She's been known to speak out against government policies, fight to keep inner city libraries open and build feminist organizations. Her work has appeared in journals, anthologies, and magazines and on radio, television and film, in schools, on stages, in the streets and on the web. This hot place (Thistledown Press, 2010), a collection of poetry, explores the personal as political and the political as personal and received a Saskatchewan Book Award nomination.

Chandra Mayor's writing has appeared in several anthologies, including Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood, Breathing Fire 2: Canada's New Poets, and Post-Prairie. Her first book, August Witch: poems, was short-listed for four Manitoba book awards and won the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book. She received the 2004 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer, and the following year her novel, Cherry, won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. The title story from her most recent book, All the Pretty Girls, won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction and was shortlisted for a 2008 CBC Literary Award. She lives in Winnipeg.

In a collaboration that has spanned well over a decade, Winnipeg multi-disciplinary artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan have created a body of internationally acclaimed work that addresses feminist, lesbian, and social concerns with biting wit.

1 comment:

Shelley Banks said...

All this, and a fortune telling poet, too? It looks like fun!