Vancouver Poet Laureate Joins Olympic Tent Village Poetry Night

For information: https://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/
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READING RESISTANCE Olympic Tent Village Poetry Night

*Monday February 15th
*starting 6pm – late
*At the location of the Olympic Tent Village (TBA)
Organized by Counter-Cultural Olympiad Committee of the Olympic Tent Village. Contact: eviebelle@hotmail.com

The Olympic Tent Village launches on Monday. It is important that a crowd of supporters be present through the evening hours to pull the village together and to guard against possible police interference.

Join us the inaugural evening of the Olympic Tent Village for a night of poetry and discussion with veterans and emergent poet-fighters for social justice. Featuring, in alphabetical order:

… Brad Cran
As Vancouver’s 2009-2011 Poet Laureate Brad Cran has refused invitation to participate in Cultural Olympiad in opposition to VANOC’s gag order. See his pubic letter here: http://tinyurl.com/yfh2op5.  Brad, with Jillian Gerome, is the author of _Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside_, the winner of the 2009 Vancouver Book Prize.

… Mercedes Eng
Mercedes Eng is currently a student of English at Simon Fraser University. Her endevour both academically and creatively is to explore representations of  murdered and missing women, focusing specifically on Vancouver, while girls was goin missin left and right. Not centre, mind you.

… Maxine Gadd
Maxine Gadd is a longtime (founding) poet and resident of the DTES. She is the author of _Backup to Babylon_ and _Subway Under Byzantium_, published by New Star Books.

… Cynthia Oka
Cynthia Oka is a member of the Press Release poetry, which recently published the SURVALLIANCE chapbook for the occasion of the 2010 Olympics. She is also a single mom and community organizer with Vancouver Status of Women and the 2010 Welcoming Committee.

… Dorothy Trujillo Lusk
Dorothy Trujillo Lusk is a public historian and poet based in Vancouver, who has spent much of her life in the DTES. She has been active with the Kootenay School of Writing and the Pacific Institute of Language and Literacy. She has published several books of poetry since 1988.