Guelph Spoken Word

🔥 FEATURE ANNOUNCEMENT 🔥

This month, we’re honoured to welcome .zan to the Guelph Poetry Slam stage.

An award-winning poet, translator, and activist, Bänoo's work is fearless, unflinching, and deeply rooted in resistance and justice. Her voice moves between the intimate and the political with clarity and power and we’re grateful to have her in the room.

Join us on Saturday February 21 at .
Open mic + $100 slam prize + amazing feature!

Come ready to listen, to slam, to be inspired.

🎤 Doors & Sign-up list opens at 7PM
🕖 Show starts by 8PM
📍 The Round Table, 32 Ess*x St.

Advance tickets on Eventbrite, $15/PWYC at the door. $10 for poets.🎉

Our first On the Page/Off the Page of the new Gregorian calendar year is coming up!

Come at 6:30 PM for a space to write. This month's prompt, should you choose to accept it, continues down the rabbit hole of self-reflection:
What's a story you've been told about your past self?
Tell a story about yourself now.
How do these connect or diverge?

The open mic starts at 7:30 PM (sign-up around 7:15). All genres of writing are welcome, whether your words or another's (with credit). Come to listen, share, or both!

📅 Tuesday January 6
📝 6:30 On the Page writing space
🎤 7:30 Off the Page open mic
📍
🎟️ $5 / PWYC

Change of plans!
Last minute switcheroo 🔄

We had a last minute change, and we'll be bringing you the seriously hilariously talented Janice Jo Lee as your feature for this evening!

Janice Jo Lee (she/they) is a q***r Korean musician, spoken word poet, actor, clown, sound designer and arts educator born and based in Toronto. She has released three albums of music, two poetry chapbooks, and has composed music and sound for two musicals and five stage plays. She has featured at every major poetry slam in Canada. She was recently published in Poetry in Place, an anthology of environmental hope poems. Janice founded and directed the Kitchener-Waterloo Poetry Slam from 2011-2017 and has worked as an arts educator for 15 years. Currently she is composing the first draft of a musical with Minh Ly called Finding Family about q***r grief. Janice directs Play Play Clown Theatre, tours with her band the QTs and works as the DEIA Coordinator for Folk Alliance International.

It's almost slaaaaam time! This time of year, we like to bring a bit of levity and laughter to your lives. You can expect a great deal of giggles from our feature, and we encourage (but don't require) poets to bring anything funny or upbeat to share 😆✨

See you there!!

📅 Saturday Dec 20
⏰ 8pm Doors
📍
🎟️ Eventbrite or at the door, $15 audience / $10 performers / PWYC

Our feature this month is... Dan Murray!

Dan Murray is not funny. He has never been funny. He’s not sure why he was contacted to feature at the Laugh it off Slam. Perhaps that is the joke. Perhaps it is a thoughtful irony.

Dan Murray never got his start in slam at the Burlington Slam Project in 2010. He never was a member of Burlington’s national team, especially not the teams that found themselves on Team Piece Finals stages at the US National Poetry Slam, or placed first in the international QEW poetry slam. He doesn’t know where you got that idea.

He certainly never won Burlington’s Best Arts Person of the Year Award in 2015 and doesn’t show off the trophy to people any chance he gets.

Don’t even act like he went into a music career next, because he didn’t. There were no years of self-sustained career musicianhood tragically cut short by something or other that happened in 2020.

He’s none of those things, and he’s not really sure what he’s going to talk to you about. He’s a Graphic Designer and Illustrator now. He goes to school for Graphic Design and Illustration. But be certain that everything he draws is deadly serious.

Because Dan Murray is not funny.

Meet the Host... Mov

Traversing war, trauma, s*x, and joy with tales from afar, Mov has lived life to the fullest. Biosphereist, nihilist, and hedonist- weaving life into thick, dark, s*xy webs. Trauma and s*x addiction often go hand in hand. With a flair for setting the stage and taking you on a journey with them; Mov has stories. They have performed at places like Hillside Festival and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, and regularly slam in Guelph.

Grab your tix (and book!) on Eventbrite or at the door ✨ https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1976383108079