Poets & Performers from 2021

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Albert Dumont
English Local Canada

Albert Dumont is Ottawa's English poet laureate.

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Allison Calvern
English Local

allison calvern thinks the best writing hinges on metaphor and beautiful sentences.

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Amanda Merpaw
English Canada

Amanda Merpaw’s latest is Put the Ghosts Down Between Us (Anstruther Press).

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Amber O’Reilly
French Canada

Catch Amber O’Reilly’s latest, Boussole franche.

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Amelie Trottier
French Local

Bilingual author Amélie Trottier is also an actress, a broadcaster and a columnist.

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Amish Trivedi
English USA

Amish Trivedi’s third book is a look at FuturePanic.

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Andre Bagoo
English Trinidad

Poet, writer, and critic, Andre Bagoo is a fearless, brilliant mind.

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Andrea Thompson
English Canada

Andrea Thompson’s collection, A Selected History of Soul Speak was published in the 2021 Quartet series by Frontenac House.

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Andreae Callanan
English Canada

St John’s poet Andreae Callanan is the author of The Debt and is a recipient of the Cox & Palmer SPARKS Creative Writing Award.

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Anne Carson
English Canada

Anne Carson has gained both critical accolades and a wide readership.

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Apollo the Child
English Local

Omnipresent poetic leader, Apollo the Child will enliven your hope

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Bardia Sinaee
English Canada

Former Ottawa poet Bardia Sinaee makes a welcome return with his astute debut collection, Intruder.

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Billie Chernicoff
English USA

Billie Chernicoff has authored four collections of poetry and publishes Salt, a journal of new writing.

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Brecken Hancock
English Local Canada

Brecken Hancock is this year's VERSeFest poet-in-residence.

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Canisia Lubrin
English Canada

The Dyzgraphxst is Canisia Lubrin's spectacular feat of architecture called a poem.

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Catherine Hunter
English Canada

Catherine Hunter’s latest is St. Boniface Elegies.

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Cecily Nicholson
English Canada

Award-winning poet Cecily Nicholson also volunteers with communities affected by incarceration 

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Christine Sung
English Local Canada

Local Christine Sung is an upcoming poet.

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Dave Read
English Canada

Dave Read is an incoming meteor in haiku’s galaxy.

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David O’Meara
English Local Canada

Ottawa's David O'Meara's newest moving collection is Masses on Radar (Coach House, 2021).

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David Wheatley
English Ireland

David Wheatley is an Irish poet and critic with a sardonic and devastating wit.

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Diane Seuss
English USA

A past Guggenheim Fellow and John Updike Award winner, poet Diane Seuss’s most recent is frank: sonnets at Graywolf Press.

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Dimorphic
English Local Canada

Dimorphic discovered spoken word in 2008, and has represented Lanark County at 7 national festivals.

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DMP
English Local Canada

Daniel Mark Patterson has been delivering spoken word for 13 years.

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Donna Kane
English Canada

Donna Kane’s impressive third collection Orrery was a gg finalist.

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Gilles Latour
French Local Canada

Gilles Latour is Ottawa's current Francophone Poet Laureate (2021-2022).

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Ian Williams
English Canada

Ian Williams' second collection Word Problems won the Raymond Souster Award.

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Jason Selman
English Canada

Jason Selman has published two collections and co-edited the poetry anthology Talking Book.

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Jean-Philippe Bergeron
French Canada

Jean-Philippe Bergeron has published six poetry collections and won several prestigious literary awards.

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Jean-Philippe Cazier
French France

French poet Philippe Cazier is also a member of the literary journal Chimères and co-editor of Diacritik.

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Jean-Philippe Raîche
French Canada

Jean-Philippe Raiche is the Poet Laureate of Moncton. 

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Jeanne Painchaud
French Canada

Jeanne Painchaud’s most recent collection is Mon été haïku, haïku for children from Éditions Druide.

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Jim Johnstone
English Canada

Jim Johnstone is publisher, poet, mover and shaker, and award taker.

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Kevin Matthews
English Local Canada

Rhythmic moral voice Kevin Matthews calls for our best selves.

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Khashayar Mohammadi
English Canada

Translator and poet Khashayar ‘Kess’ Mohammadi writes with arcing power.

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Kirby
English Canada

Kirby is the author of Poetry is Queer.

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Kuf Knotz and Elise
English USA

Poet Kuf Knotz and Harpist/Vocalist Christine Elise have combined forces to create an album.

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Lana Crossman
English Local Canada

Lana Crossman's alert, insightful poems show her to be a poet to watch.

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Laurie Koensgen
English Local Canada

Ottawa poet Laurie Koensgen’s poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies and online magazines across North America and in the UK.

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Lillian Necakov
English Canada

Surrealist poet, Lillian Nećakov’s latet work is the striking il virus.

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Liz Howard
English Canada

In Letters in a Bruised Cosmos, Liz Howard makes sentences a sculptor's elegance.

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LM Rochefort
English Local Canada

 Bilingual poet and editor LM Rochefort’s poems have has appeared in magazines, and in a dozen chapbooks. 

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Louise Bernice Halfe
English Canada

Foundational poems of Sky Dancer are in her collected sôhkêyihta: The Poetry of Sky Dancer Louise Bernice Halfe.

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Manahil Bandukwala
English Local Canada

Ottawa poet to watch soar, Manahil Bandukwala explores in Orbital Cultivation.

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Martine Audet
French Canada

GG winner Martine Audet has published a dozen poetry collections, and several artists’ books.

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MA|DE
English Canada

MA|DE's chapbook, A Trip to the ZZOO has shortlisted for the bpNichol Award.

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McKenzie McDonald
English Local Canada

McKenzie McDonald won the George Johnson Poetry Award for 2020.

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Medrie Purdham
English Canada

Medrie Purdham’s poems have been featured in Best Canadian Poetry and her first collection, Little Housewolf was published in 2021.

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Michael Prior
English Canada

Michael Prior's poems move seamlessly between geographical and psychological landscapes of wildfires.

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Michaël Trahan
French Canada

Michaël Trahan is an award-winning poet, essayist and professor of literature from Quebec.

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Michel Thérien
French Local Canada

Le poème involontaire is Michel Therien's eleventh collection. 

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Mike Caesar
English Local Canada

Mike Caesar's first chapbook title releases in 2022.

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Molly Cross-Blanchard
English Canada

Molly Cross-Blanchard is the publisher of Room Magazine.

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Monty Reid
English Local Canada

Monty Reid gathers short poems, wraps them into longer sequences, and gathers poets to assemble.

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Namitha Rathinappillai
English Local Canada

Namitha Rathinappillai is a Tamil-Canadian published poet, organizer and workshop published Dirty Laundry in 2019.

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Nelson Charest
French Local Canada

Nelson Charest teaches modern poetry at the University of Ottawa. 

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Phil Hall
English Local Canada

A festival favourite GG winner Phil Hall’s newest collection is Toward A Blacker Ardour.

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Poetiquette
English Local Canada

Poetiquette explores the bleeding edge of hearts.

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Radna Fabias
Dutch The Netherlands

Award-winning Radna Fabias is a Dutch literary talent as a poet and as a translator.

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Rhonda Douglas
English Local Canada

Rhonda Douglas is a writer and poet with a day-call as an editor and writing mentor.

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Rob Winger
English Canada

Former Ottawa poet Rob Winger, returns to share, It Doesn't Matter What We Meant.

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Rodrigo  Toscano 
English USA

American poet Rodrigo Toscano’s tenth poetry collection is The Charm & The Dread.

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Rusty Priske
English Local Canada

Rusty Priske has been part of the Canadian poetry scene for 15 years.

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Sanchari Sur
English Canada

 Sanchari Sur authored the Toronto Book Award Shortlisted The Unpublished City (Book*hug, 2017).

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Sanita Fejzic
English Local Canada

Playwrite, novelist and poet, Sanita Fejzić’s latest poetry collection is: Psychomachia.

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Sara Uribe
Spanish Mexico

Mexican poet Sara Uribe's work has been translated into English, Portuguese, German and French.

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Sean O’Gorman
English Canada

Veteran spoken word poet Sean O’Gorman has a pact with impact.

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Sultana Shazi Shirin
English Local Canada

Sultana “Shazi” Shirin currently has 6 books, 4 of poetry and hopes to translate her works from Bengali into English. 

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Sylvia Legris
English Canada

Sylvia Legris' poetry collection Garden Physic, a paean to the pleasures and delights of gardens.

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textcurious
English Local Canada

Sound poet composer textcurious pushes language where it never knew it could go.

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Vanessa Bell
French Canada

Vanessa Bell co-directed l’Anthologie de la poésie actuelle des femmes au Québec 2000-2020.

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Véronique Sylvain
French Local Canada

Véronique Sylvain specialises in literature of the North French Canadians.

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Victoria Kennefick
English Ireland

Victoria Kennefick's Carcanet collection explores what it is to live with the past—and not to be consumed by it.

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