River City Writer

It is now almost exactly 1 month until the 2007 Roar Spoken Word Festival rocks River City[1]. The festival’s new website was launched recently, so I figured I’d point you all in that direction.

For those of you who may be unaware, the Roar is Edmonton’s premiere spoken word festival. Hell, it’s really the only spoken word festival in Edmonton. It may be the only one in Western Canada. Calgary has a poetry festival, and Edmonton has Poetry Week (of which the Roar is a part), but neither of those festivals are devoted exclusively to the spoken word. Calgary also has a spoken word festival, but I’m inclined to say that the Roar is 10 times cooler.

The Roar isn’t necessarily about the genre of performance poetry that is referred to as Spoken Word. It’s about the spoken word more generally. This means any poetry that is meant to be read/performed aloud. This includes traditional slam poetry, as well as confessionals, Zen-readings, hip hop, sound poetry, and more.

The Roar isn’t just about poetry, it’s about taking the words off of the page, and bringing them to life–brutally and violently, if necessary.

If you don’t have plans for September 21, 2007, you should check out the Roar, happening in downtown Edmonton from 7pm until approximately whenever we get kicked out of our final venue. If you do have plans, you should break them.

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[1] Disclosure: I am involved in the planning and implementation of the Roar festival. I’m also a performer.