Shab-e She'r (Poetry Night) L Poetry Month Celebration

Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) L

Poetry Month Celebration

The most diverse poetry reading and open mic in Toronto

At Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) we don’t just wait for diversity to happen: we actively invite it.

Please spread the word through social media and any other way you know. Let our event become as diverse as we are.

Featured poets: Diana Manole & Anuj Rastogi

Guest speaker: Jael Richardson

Host: Bänoo Zan

Time: Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Place: Church of St. Stephen in-the-Fields, 365 College St, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2N8

(416) 921-6350

Doors open 6:15 p.m.

Open-mic sign-up 6:30 p.m.

Show 7 p.m.

Admission: $5

Diana Manole is a Romanian-Canadian writer, translator, theatre director, and scholar. She has published nine books (poems, short fiction and/or plays), as well as ten peer-reviewed articles and/or chapters on post-colonial and exilic literatures, national identity, cultural globalization, and theatre. Her poetry in English has been published in Canada, the US, the UK, and South Africa. Her poems have also been translated into and published in French, German, Polish, Spanish, and Albanian, while her translations of Canadian poetry were printed in major Romanian magazines.

“B&W”, her bilingual Romanian-English collection of poems, came out in 2015 at Tracus Arte, and “The Hunchbacks’ Bus” by Nora Iuga was published by The Bitter Oleander Press in 2016, both co-translated with Adam J. Sorkin.In September 2016, “Deflowering. English,” her poem on being a poet in a second language, has been featured on the website of the Canadian Parliament’s Library as Poem of the Month.

Diana is happy to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary by organizing “AlieNation: Performing Canada as ‘New Canadian’ Poets,” a multicultural English and French poetry reading, at the conference of the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures, at the 2017 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Toronto.

Since February 2013, Diana writes and dreams in English!

Anuj Rastogi is a Toronto-based writer, spoken word poet and music composer. Anuj has cultivated his worldly sensibilities and uses elements of word play and storyline that thread together broad narratives about social, political, personal and human insights. His works “Breaking News” and “I Wanna Know”, and “While You Were Sleeping” have featured extensively. His latest work, “Baby Girl”, is a heartfelt love letter in admiration of his daughter, and a dream for the world our daughters may one day grow up in.

As a musician, he has composed and produced music for film scores, studio albums, and has performed with a number of diverse artists across Canada, the US, the UK and India. Anuj brings a forward a musical sensitivity that is a unique product of his intuition and environment.

Anuj is currently working on a number of projects including a new studio album, a new Spoken Word EP, his debut poetry manuscript, and two new feature film scores in pre-production for 2017.

Jael Richardson is the author of The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lesson, a Father’s Life and The Stone Thrower children’s book, which was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award. Richardson is a columnist on CBC’s q and is two-time TDSB Writer-in-Residence. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and lives in Brampton, Ontario where she serves as the Artistic Director for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD).

Both Shab-e She’r and St-Stephen-in-the Fields strongly support freedom of expression and encourage our features and open-mic’ers to use any language they wish.

This event is partially sponsored by St-Stephen-in-the Fields Church.

St-Stephen-in-the Fields accessibility information:

The venue has a wheelchair ramp entrance and is all on one level; however, the wheelchair ramp door does not yet have a pushbutton, so someone needs to hold the door open. There is one fully barrier-free washroom.

All washrooms are gender-neutral.

@BanooZan

@ShabeSherTO