Our Poets
Barbara Adler has been a CBC PGI Poetry Laureate (2007), a CBC Poetry Face Off Winner (Vancouver, 2007), and a Canadian Team Slam Champion (2005). She is a founding member of the 2007 Canadian Folk Music Award-nominated band, The Fugitives. She has performed for thousands of youth as a 6-time member of the Reach Out Psychosis tour, and has presented hundreds of workshops to all levels of learners. Barbara is a mentor for the Vancouver East Cultural Center’s IGNITE Spoken Word Intensive, and has worked extensively with Literacy BC to bring poetry to communities across British Columbia. Her new work finds her mashing together her words with the 120-button piano accordion.
Chrystalene Buhler wrote her first poem at the age of eleven. It was stunning. Then she lost it. In an effort to recapture the genius of her youth, she has been a Vancouver Poetry Slam team member, an editor, an expert sonnet writer, a Word Play coordinator, and a stumbly clown. She also likes ridiculous cooking projects, and has recently acquired a freezer.
Zaccheus Jacksonis a three-time VanSlam team member, two-time Vancouver Individual Slam champ, 2007 GrandSlam Champ and three year Word Play veteran. He has an obsession w/ Heniz Ketchup, never touches dimes, and his gritty, rapid-fire, real-life stories will leave you counting syllables in your sleep.
Sean McGarragle is a performance poet, former Van Slam poetry team member, and Story Slam champion. He has read/performed from Halifax to Victoria in festivals, series and in classrooms. Sean has been the key note speaker at the Surrey Young Author’s Conference, one of the featured readers at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, The Saskatchewan Writer’s Festival and is the slammaster (lead organizer) for the Vancouver Poetry Slam.
Brendan McLeod has been the Vancouver and Canadian SLAM poetry champion and is a member of The Fugitives. His first novel, ‘The Convictions of Leonard McKinley’ was nominated for the RE:Lit Fiction Award. He once had a dog with no fur that everyone referred to as a ‘chihuahua with a mullet’. He likes words for reasons such as that.
Johnny MacRae is a 2008-09 Vancouver Poetry Slam team member, and has been described as a scraggly bear riding a circus bike. He is a Canadian Improv Champion. He loves cats, Dr. Seuss, toothy and toothless grins, and sharing his passion for poetry.
Reiley Murray has been enjoying the world of poetry since age twelve when her 8th grade teacher forced her into entering a competition. Since then, Reiley has been eat/dream/breathing the written word. She spends too much time dabbling in the arts and complaining that she works too much. She is currently a member of the Vancouver Youth Poetry Team.
Julie Peters is a spoken word poet, yoga teacher, and the host of AudioText, a radio show on Canadian writing on CITR 101.9FM in Vancouver. She has a Master’s degree in Canadian poetry from McGill, and loves obscure Canadian poets more than you will ever know. She also likes blue cheese, a good handshake, and really, really big hugs. Check out her website at www.jcpeters.ca.
Kelsey Savage is a member of the 2009 Vancouver Youth Slam team, a graduate of the Cultch’s IGNITE! Spoken Word Intensive, and is one sixth of the insanely brilliant Candelabra Collective poetry group.
She taught herself to beatbox by mimicking others, a process accompanied by months of awkward sounds. She also has a laugh that can shatter glass. She thinks poetry is actually a hybrid of a ninja and an acrobatic pigeon.
Kimothy Shaughnessy will probably make you a little uncomfortable for several reasons- but you’ll be glad that he did. Always eager to put himself in the line of fire- Kimothy has performed on stage, television and radio as an out transgender artist, Buddhist and social worker for over six years. He’s done his thing in venues and events across Canada including the 2006 CBC Poetry Face-Off, OutTV, countless other LGTBQ Pride events and was a member of Vancouver’s winning slam team at the 2005 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.
Scruffmouth is a PrOphETIC SCRIbBlEr of the highest order. His devours WordSoundPower as Food For Thought. His poetry has been published in We Have A Voice: An Anthology of African & Caribbean Student Writing; Blood Ink: A University of Alberta Literary Journal; as well as self-published chapbooks The Seventh Sense (2008) & Choose Your Revolution (2008 w/Van Poetry Slam). He is the open mind behind the BLACK DOT Roots & Culture Collective, which came into being out of a necessity to create, facilitate, and celebrate the Black Experience at home and abroad. Scruff is tuff & serious, but he is also cute & cuddly like a black panther cub with an afro.
RC Weslowski is a clown mouth full of x-ray visions trying to get at the heart of things. RC has travelled parts of Europe setting his words adrift including England, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. His work has been anthologized and published in magazines such as One Cool Word. His words have waltzed across theatre stages in Canada and the U.S. A surrealist heart beats hard and large inside of him and in 2008 RC Weslowski was named the male Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. RC likes to have fun and make friends.
And last, but not least, our Fabulous Word Play Program Coordinators!
Chris Gilpin is a two-time Vancouver Poetry Slam Team member, the winner of the 2008 Haiku Deathmatch and the Vancouver 2009 CBC Poetry Face-off. He likes pickles and black olives. He doesn’t like sugary foods or lettuce. Poetry makes him feel like he’s driving the clown car. He’s also a director-at-large on the Vancovuer Poetry House Board of Directors.
Julie Parrell has been a performance artist for the last ten years. Lately she has been getting her kicks from writing and performing a comic strip about a man named Steve. She has also just completed her first gallery show titled ‘Re/Dis/Covery’ where she looked at life through the eyes of an addict.Julie has been teaching performance poetry for the last six years. The first of those three years where in Manitoba with a group called ‘The Youth Activist Retreat’ and the last three have been with Word Play.
