me, Lillian Allen and Archer Pechawis reading at Toronto City Hall next friday!
Hey Toronto- me, Lillian Allen and Archer Pechawis, 3 POC and Native writer/poets, have been commissioned to write something about Toronto's 175 anniversary by Diaspora Dialogues, a cool organization of immigrant/POC writers in Toronto. We're reading our new poems at City Hall next Friday! All of them are meditations on colonialism, immigrant lives in Toronto, resistence and the city we live and survive in. I'm excited to be back in T.O. after a year and a half away. Please come check it out if you can- it's in the middle of the day, but maybe you can come on lunchbreak?
xoxo
Leah Lakshmi
Diaspora Dialogues donates commissioned new poetry to the City for its anniversary
February 27, 2009
(TORONTO) Toronto is a work of art in progress, whose architecture, character and vitality are continually shaped and molded by those who call it home. The city which exists today incorporates within it the core of everything that has come before and is the seed which future generations will build upon.
In celebration of the 175th year of incorporation, Diaspora Dialogues has asked three spoken word poets to reflect on the city's ongoing transformations from their personal perspectives. Please join us Friday, March 6 at City Hall for the unveiling of a brand new cycle of poems by Lillian Allen, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Archer Pechawis commissioned by Diaspora Dialogues and donated to the City as a birthday present.
"Large cities are constantly in flux, and that's what makes them so vibrant," says Diaspora Dialogues president Helen Walsh. "We wanted to give the City of Toronto a gift of poetry that interweaves history, the present and the future. We asked three very different poets to create new work that reflects their experiences and impressions of the city."
Lillian Allen's poem celebrates Toronto as the livable city, its spirit and textures, whose uniqueness comes from its people, its industriousness, as well as from the rhythms of its physical and cultural landscapes. Archer Pechawis's poem is a meditation on the history of Toronto from a First Nations perspective, an inclusive celebration of our shared stories and dreams...Pechawis states, "The bones of the city listen to us, waiting for us to listen." And Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha traces the Indigenous and immigrant past and present of Toronto, the place where all colonized nations meet at Bloor and Landsdowne.
The poems will be read twice on March 6th: once in full at "A City of Writers for 175 Years" in the City Hall Library (12 pm), and once in a short excerpt during the Opening Ceremonies in the City Hall rotunda (5 pm). For more information about the City's programming that day, visit www.toronto.ca/175.
WHAT: Perfomance of spoken word poems written by Lillian Allen, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Archer Pechawis
WHEN: Friday March 6, 2009 - 12 pm (full reading) and 5 pm (short excerpt)
WHERE: Full reading at "A City of Writers for 175 Years" - City Hall Library, 100 Queen Street West; excerpt at Opening Ceremonies - City Hall rotunda, 100 Queen Street West
CONTACT: Julia Chan, julia@diasporadialogues.com, 416-944-1101 x 277
Diaspora Dialogues supports the creation and presentation of new fiction, poetry and drama that reflect the complexity of the city through the eyes of its richly diverse writers. Diaspora Dialogues is supported by The Maytree Foundation, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canadian Heritage, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation and TO Live With Culture.
Biographies
Lillian Allen is an award winning and internationally renowned poet and writer of short stories and plays. As one of its lead originators, she has specialized in the writing and performing of dub poetry. Her recordings “Revolutionary Tea Party” and “Conditions Critical” won Juno awards in 1986 and 1988 respectively. She has spent close to three decades writing, publishing, and performing her work in Canada, the US, Europe, and England. She has also worked in film, both as a featured artist (Revolution from de Beat, 1995; Unnatural Causes, 1989; Rhythm and Hardtimes, 1987) and as co-producer and co-director of Blak...Wi Blakk… (1994). She is a leading expert on cultural diversity and culture in Canada and has been a consultant and advisor to all levels of government, to several institutions, and to community groups. She has initiated and facilitated the establishment of a number of organizations in various culturally diverse communities. Featured in the official WHO IS WHO in Canada, Ms. Allen is a past member of the Racial Equity Advisory of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Experts Advisory on the International Cultural Diversity Agenda, past executive member and member of the Sectoral Commission on Culture and Information of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. She was the instigator, co-producer and host of WORDBEAT, CBC’s show on poetry and the spoken word.
Archer Pechawis is a media-integrated performing artist, New Media artist, writer, curator, teacher and dad. He has been creating solo performance works since 1984. His practice investigates the intersection of Plains Cree culture and digital technology. Pechawis also works as a “First Nations Stand-Up Essayist”, webmonkey, MC and Mac repair guy to the stars.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer and performer, based for ten years in Toronto. The author of Consensual Genocide (TSAR, 2006) her work has been widely anthologized in the queer, feminist and of color press, including in Yes Means Yes, Homelands, Colonize This, We Don't Need Another Wave, Bitchfest, Without a Net, Dangerous Families, Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, Bent on Writing, Femme, Brazen Femme and A Girl's Guide to Taking Over The World. She writes for Bitch, Colorlines, Herizons, Hyphen, Make/Shift and Xtra magazines, and regularly performs and tours her work throughout North America. She is the co-director of Mangos With Chili, North America's only annual touring cabaret of queer and trans of color performers, and is currently touring her one-woman show, Grown Woman Show, a meditation on long-term incest survivor identity and queer of color love and heartbreak. Her first memoir, Dirty River, and second book of poetry, Love Cake, will be published in 2009 and 2010. Visit her at www.brownstargirl.com.
xoxo
Leah Lakshmi
Diaspora Dialogues donates commissioned new poetry to the City for its anniversary
February 27, 2009
(TORONTO) Toronto is a work of art in progress, whose architecture, character and vitality are continually shaped and molded by those who call it home. The city which exists today incorporates within it the core of everything that has come before and is the seed which future generations will build upon.
In celebration of the 175th year of incorporation, Diaspora Dialogues has asked three spoken word poets to reflect on the city's ongoing transformations from their personal perspectives. Please join us Friday, March 6 at City Hall for the unveiling of a brand new cycle of poems by Lillian Allen, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Archer Pechawis commissioned by Diaspora Dialogues and donated to the City as a birthday present.
"Large cities are constantly in flux, and that's what makes them so vibrant," says Diaspora Dialogues president Helen Walsh. "We wanted to give the City of Toronto a gift of poetry that interweaves history, the present and the future. We asked three very different poets to create new work that reflects their experiences and impressions of the city."
Lillian Allen's poem celebrates Toronto as the livable city, its spirit and textures, whose uniqueness comes from its people, its industriousness, as well as from the rhythms of its physical and cultural landscapes. Archer Pechawis's poem is a meditation on the history of Toronto from a First Nations perspective, an inclusive celebration of our shared stories and dreams...Pechawis states, "The bones of the city listen to us, waiting for us to listen." And Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha traces the Indigenous and immigrant past and present of Toronto, the place where all colonized nations meet at Bloor and Landsdowne.
The poems will be read twice on March 6th: once in full at "A City of Writers for 175 Years" in the City Hall Library (12 pm), and once in a short excerpt during the Opening Ceremonies in the City Hall rotunda (5 pm). For more information about the City's programming that day, visit www.toronto.ca/175.
WHAT: Perfomance of spoken word poems written by Lillian Allen, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Archer Pechawis
WHEN: Friday March 6, 2009 - 12 pm (full reading) and 5 pm (short excerpt)
WHERE: Full reading at "A City of Writers for 175 Years" - City Hall Library, 100 Queen Street West; excerpt at Opening Ceremonies - City Hall rotunda, 100 Queen Street West
CONTACT: Julia Chan, julia@diasporadialogues.com, 416-944-1101 x 277
Diaspora Dialogues supports the creation and presentation of new fiction, poetry and drama that reflect the complexity of the city through the eyes of its richly diverse writers. Diaspora Dialogues is supported by The Maytree Foundation, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canadian Heritage, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation and TO Live With Culture.
Biographies
Lillian Allen is an award winning and internationally renowned poet and writer of short stories and plays. As one of its lead originators, she has specialized in the writing and performing of dub poetry. Her recordings “Revolutionary Tea Party” and “Conditions Critical” won Juno awards in 1986 and 1988 respectively. She has spent close to three decades writing, publishing, and performing her work in Canada, the US, Europe, and England. She has also worked in film, both as a featured artist (Revolution from de Beat, 1995; Unnatural Causes, 1989; Rhythm and Hardtimes, 1987) and as co-producer and co-director of Blak...Wi Blakk… (1994). She is a leading expert on cultural diversity and culture in Canada and has been a consultant and advisor to all levels of government, to several institutions, and to community groups. She has initiated and facilitated the establishment of a number of organizations in various culturally diverse communities. Featured in the official WHO IS WHO in Canada, Ms. Allen is a past member of the Racial Equity Advisory of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Experts Advisory on the International Cultural Diversity Agenda, past executive member and member of the Sectoral Commission on Culture and Information of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. She was the instigator, co-producer and host of WORDBEAT, CBC’s show on poetry and the spoken word.
Archer Pechawis is a media-integrated performing artist, New Media artist, writer, curator, teacher and dad. He has been creating solo performance works since 1984. His practice investigates the intersection of Plains Cree culture and digital technology. Pechawis also works as a “First Nations Stand-Up Essayist”, webmonkey, MC and Mac repair guy to the stars.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer and performer, based for ten years in Toronto. The author of Consensual Genocide (TSAR, 2006) her work has been widely anthologized in the queer, feminist and of color press, including in Yes Means Yes, Homelands, Colonize This, We Don't Need Another Wave, Bitchfest, Without a Net, Dangerous Families, Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, Bent on Writing, Femme, Brazen Femme and A Girl's Guide to Taking Over The World. She writes for Bitch, Colorlines, Herizons, Hyphen, Make/Shift and Xtra magazines, and regularly performs and tours her work throughout North America. She is the co-director of Mangos With Chili, North America's only annual touring cabaret of queer and trans of color performers, and is currently touring her one-woman show, Grown Woman Show, a meditation on long-term incest survivor identity and queer of color love and heartbreak. Her first memoir, Dirty River, and second book of poetry, Love Cake, will be published in 2009 and 2010. Visit her at www.brownstargirl.com.