Edmonton

March 5


Poets:
Ben Murray
Diane Buchanan
Jocelyne Verret
Joseph Gurba
Nicole Pakan * WINNER


About the Event

Wish you could have been here on march 5th at noon as poetry fans of all shapes and sizes filled the interactive space of the CBC Edmonton studio.

The room was filled with a mixture of nervous energy from the 5 poets and the eager anticipation of the friends, family and local word smiths who came out to cheer on the festivities.

And festive it was thanks to the ebullient personality of CBC Canada Live host, Jacqueline Janelle who kindly led the show. After a quick intro and rundown of the hour the poets were ready to take to the mic. We left them hanging on edge by drawing names from a hat to set the order. No one knew who was next until the last poet finished. As if a poet needs yet another source of angst.

If you think a poetry reading can not be entertaining to any but the acclimatized few, you should give it a try. Joe Gurba kicked off with a dynamic and gripping piece called "Nightmare" that definitely suited it's name. Jocelyne Verret gave us a lyrical piece called "In My Dream" quite the polar opposite of Joe's Nightmare. Nicole Pakan 's rhythmic style, sing-song voice and emphasis carried us through her "da Vinci's Parachute" as though we were leafing through the artist's notebook.

Diane Buchanan's "Razing the Arlington" was clearly an audience favourite for it's studied recollection of a local landmark. And Ben Murray had fun bringing the face-off in upon itself in a lyrical paradox.

We had slated a 5 minute break for the judges (poet Alice Major, playwright Conni Massing and TV journalist Kim Trynacity) to tabulate their score sheets and to confer.

About 10 minutes later, after Jacqueline had interviewed everyone in the room including last year's overall winner, Mary Pinkoski, the judges finally emerged with a winner.

A pleasingly difficult task.

Nicole Pakan was clearly elated with the announcement of her victory at this stage of the NPFO.

It is such a tight community of writers in Edmonton however that they all seemed honestly happy to just get together and perform. It was very nice as well to see how many of the audience stuck around after the show to chat with the poets.

All in all not a bad way to spend a lunch hour.

Ben MurrayBen Murray is an E-Town based writer whose debut collection of poetry What We're Left With, was published by Brindle & Glass in '07. His poetry has appeared in many literary journals over and under the years. Ben bears no relation whatsoever to Stephen Harper, praise Jesus.

Diane BuchananDiane Buchanan has lived in Edmonton all her life. She began to write after retiring from nursing in 1995. She has two collections of poetry; Ask Her Anything in 2001 and Between the Silences in 2005 which was short listed for the 2006 Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry.

Jocelyne VerretJocelyne has been presenting her poems in French and in English in Edmonton since 1995. She has twice been President of the Edmonton Stroll of Poets for a total of 3 ½ years. Jocelyne has had a novel, a play, two books of poetry and books for French Immersion students published. She twice won Radio-Canada’s Nouvelles sous l’soleil competition. At the opening of CBC’s downtown studio, she performed live with saxophonist Marc de Montigny, a physics professor at the University of Alberta.

C. Joseph GurbaC. Joseph Gurba has been writing literary poetry for a very short time. He is well known as The Joe, spearheading Edmonton's alternative Hip Hop community. He is heavily involved in the local music scene. He takes great joy in writing poetry because it expresses certain sentiments that Hip Hop cannot. He loves God and writes most of his poems as some varying form of prayer.

Nicole PakanNicole Pakan is an active member of the Edmonton literary community, performing regularly at venues around the city. She is the Co-Editor for the international online and print literary journal DailyHaiku. Her recent publication credits include poems in: filling Station, The Prairie Journal, Other Voices, Notebook Magazine, Misunderstandings Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly and Blue Skies Poetry. She was also short-listed for the CV2 2-day poem contest for 2008.