Calgary

March 12
Location: The Auburn Saloon, at the Calgary Tower, 163-115 Avenue SE

Poets:
Eugene Stickland
Blake Brooker
Sarah Murphy
Jennifer Mojisola Kunlire * WINNER
Wakefield Wilburforce O'Donald Brewster

About the Event

It’s been freakin’ cold in Calgary. And you know what it’s like when it’s cold: people would rather stay home sipping hot chocolate than go to a bar to drink icy beer and listen to poetry. But get this: it warmed up by like 20 C yesterday. And why is that important? ‘Cause the Poetry Face Off (PFO) happened yesterday at The Auburn, a funky downtown bar at the base of the Calgary Tower.

And the warm weather brought people out in droves, they arrived in bushels, there were ten-fold baker’s dozens. They drove, they rented buses, they took public transport, they walked. The result: the bar was jammed.

Host Katherine Duncan greeted the crowd all who had been kept emotionally warm by the jazzy guitar stylings of Keith Smith. We’ve got a tradition in Calgary. Before every PFO event we sing O Canada. This year we changed the tradition … a bit. Keith played an awesome instrumental version on his guitar. Let me tell you, the turbines began to spin.

We taxied onto the runway with a sacrifice poet, visiting “Ottawanian” Medhi Hamad. This helped set the evening’s tone and let the audience and judges get fueled. Judges? They were last year’s Calgary (And 3rd place national) winner, Dale Lee Kwong; CBC Producer Russell Bowers; and the inimitable poetess, Sheri-D Wilson.

Katherine called up the poets, beginning with the miraculous Wakefield Brewster, who delivered a poem to help the evening take off. After him came Sarah Murphy, whose powerful poem took us to cruising altitude. We thought there was a spy on the plane when we heard Blake Brooker’s turbulent poetics. Then the plane began to flap like a butterfly with Jen Kunlire’s reflective piece of word magic. And finally, we began the descent with Eugene Stickland’s call and answer that hinted at loss … but hopefully not luggage!

We landed smoothly and the judges deliberated as plane taxied toward the terminal. Once we stopped Dale announced the winner and handed over the controls to … Jen Kunlire.

Jen’s poem Still I Rise revealed stumbling blocks she has leapt and it breathed the theme of flight. Her words became an angelic lullaby that did not enduce sleep, rather it stirred our souls, suggesting we rise above ourselves. It was (and is) a song of hope with a mantra that challenged us to flutter upwards with the beauty of the brightest butterfly.

So, in the end, we listened to some music, some crack poetry, and a high time was had by all. I can’t wait to hear the national competition ‘cause the Calgary poets were awesome!

Thanks for everything. Looking forward to next year!

Yer Calgary poetry face off guru,

Allan Boss


Eugene SticklandEugene Stickland came to prominence as a playwright during a ten year stint as playwright in residence with Alberta Theatre Projects, where he wrote some of his better known plays such as Some Assembly Required and A Guide to Mourning. Eugene is a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald. He is the editor in chief of b House Publications. He teaches and mentors in many diverse situations in Calgary and beyond. His latest play, Queen Lear, was produced by Urban Curvz Theatre in Calgary in February of this year

Blake BrookerBlake Brooker is a graduate of the University of Calgary, founder and co-artistic director of One Yellow Rabbit Perfrormance Theatre. An award-winning writer he has created or collaborated on many productions that have been presented throughout Canada and in Europe. These include: Alien Bait, The Ugly Man, Doing Leonard Cohen, In Klezskavania, Somalia Yellow, The History of Wild Theatre and High Performance Radio: Andrew Allan's Chair (Commissioned by CBC Radio). He collaborated with Bruce McCulloch on a screen adaptation of Barbara Gowdy's Mr. Sandman and directed a music video from Dream Machine for Bravo!FACT.

Sarah MurphyAuthor, activist, translator, award winning visual and spoken word artist, in 2007 Sarah Murphy became Canada's first writer to receive an Arts Council England International Artists' Fellowship to complete her first innovative sound art/spoken word CD, when bill danced the war. In 2008, she received the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival’s Golden Beret Award. Murphy has published seven books and performed and shown widely in Canada, the UK, the US, Australia and Mexico. A new novel in dramatic monologues and prose poems, Last Taxi to Nutmeg Mews, is upcoming with Toronto’s Pedlar Press in 2009.

Jen KunlireJen Kunlire a local activist, poet and dreamer. An emerging poet on the Calgary scene she has performed extensively in a relatively short time throughout the city. Some of these events include including Afrikadey Poetry Jam, Single Onion Fundraiser/CD Chapbook launch, One Yellow Rabbit High Performance Rodeo Midway, the 2008 Calgary Slam Team and recent 2009 Barack Obama Inauguration Party.She also formed Humble Line Press in 2008, an alternative grassroots paper focusing on local & international concerns, artist showcase and community voice.

Wakefield BrewsterOne of the country’s most renowned Black poets Wakefield Brewster (aka: “da lyrical pitbull”) is an audacious performer who writes with a political yet lyrical voice. Over the past 8 years his poetry has been published in print, online and he has blasted onto nearly 800 stages for poetry slams, open mics, fundraisers, political functions and multimedia exhibitions. In 2008 he captained the Calgary Slam Team at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.