Poets need teachers, and opportunities to grow. Sometimes mentors are found in a classroom, in a workshop, on stage, in the community. Sometimes, all it takes is someone to give us a chance, or teach us that one important lesson that sets us on our path. This panel invites some of Vancouver’s most engaged Spoken Word Poets who have mentored, taught, and significantly impacted many poets across the country. Moderated by Johnny D Trinh, this panel promises to be an engaging and powerful gathering that will be filled with diverse poetic performances, and discussion.
Location: HSBC Hall
Type: Poetry, Panel
Sponsored by Word Vancouver · Vancouver Poetry House
Moderator: Johnny D Trinh
Readers: CR Avery, 38 Bar Blues (Write Bloody North) | Johnny MacRae | Kiran Kaur | Leslie Stark | Brandon Wint, Divine Animal (Write Bloody North)
About The Moderator
Johnny D Trinh
Johnny D Trinh is the Artistic Director of Vancouver Poetry House; Interim Executive Director of Historic Joy Kogawa House; and Founder of Stage to Page Performance Society. Johnny is an interdisciplinary community-engaged artists with practices in poetry, theatre, film, and culinary art. Trinh's recent work, Quiet Kitchen funded by the Canada Council is a performance and collection of poems, recipes, and stories that recognizes how many people find culture and identity through food and family. It asks the question, "What happens when those connections are lost?" Their play, "Pho-Miglia" a queer intercultural rom-com is set for workshop in Spring 2025. Additional highlights: a 2024 Writer-in-residence at the Historic Joy Kogawa House, Artist-in-residence at the Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre, Banff Spoken Word Residency Alumnus. Johnny holds a MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Community-Engaged Art and Autoethnography. “It takes a community to build an artist ... whether we are nurtured by it, or resist against it.” johnnydavidtrinh.com
About The Readers
C R Avery
30 years of artsy jive in the hive.
Johnny MacRae
Johnny MacRae (he/him) is a mouthy poet (aka. spoken word artist) living on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) nations. Known for his dynamic and energetic poetry performances, MacRae has been a featured poet at poetry series and arts festivals all across Canada, both solo and with collaborative acts such as 2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac, Travelin' Word Circus and The Dambassadors. In 2013, he was named Poet of Honour for the Victoria Spoken Word Festival, and in 2017, received the Zaccheus Jackson Nyce Memorial Award.
Kiran Kaur
As a Sikh artist forged from the cracks of diaspora, Kiranjit's teaching and writing centre around agency and self-determination. In exploring race, queerness, gender, and colonialism with raw humanity, Shoker’s art and education builds on empowerment and restoration of self.
Leslie Stark
Leslie Stark is a high school drama teacher who is also a poet, playwrite, dancer, singer, maker of pretty things, expert catnapper, master Christmas baker and generally warm hearted human who is so grateful to reside on the Unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples.
Brandon Wint
Brandon Wint is an Ontario-born poet, spoken word artist, educator and multi-disciplinary storyteller based in western Canada. For more than a decade, Brandon has been a sought-after touring performance poet, having shared his work all over Canada, and internationally at festivals and showcases in the United States, Australia, Jamaica, Latvia and Lithuania. Brandon is ever-grateful for the power of poetry as a spiritual technology and social force. He is devoted to using poetry as a tool for refining his sense of justice, love, and intimacy. Brandon Wint's poems and essays have been published in The Ex Puritan, Event Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, and Black Writers Matter, among other places. Divine Animal (Write Bloody North, 2020) is his debut collection of poetry. His debut film, My Body Is A Poem/The World Makes With Me screened at DOXA documentary film festival and Reelworld Film Festival in 2023.
