Two regional artistic directors will take their place at the mic this week for Alberni Valley Words on Fire.
The spoken word open mic event happens live via Zoom teleconferencing on Wednesday, July 29, at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Open mic readers and attendees can tune in via www.charslanding.com.
Ian Cognitō is the founder and artistic director of 15 Minutes of Infamy, a word-craft cabaret in Nanaimo, as well as assistant director of the Wordstorm Society of the Arts. Cognitō has published a collection of poetry entitled flora, fauna, and h. sapiens with co-author Pat Smekal and is currently putting the finishing touches on Animusings, a bestiary of poetic reflection.
Daniel G Scott is the artistic director of the Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series in Victoria, the longest-running poetry event in Western Canada.
Scott has published gnarled love, terrains, Random Excess and and most recently aftertime with Ekstasis Editions, as well as black onion and two chapbooks: street signs and Interrupted with Goldfinch Press.
In 2020, Ekstasis will be releasing Voicing Suicide, an anthology of suicide poems Scott has edited with an afterword by Australian scholar, Dr. Katrina Jaworski.
He has a chapbook, [klee-shays] undone, volume one, in production with Nose in Book Publishing.
Alberni Valley Words on Fire is one of a number of brick-and-mortar literary events across Canada that went online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the encouragement of Char’s Landing proprietor Charlene Patterson and host emcee Stephen Novik, the AVWOF team of volunteers actually started doing twice as many events as before.
“With its twice-monthly events held the second and last Wednesdays of the month, the Port Alberni event has become a provincial showcase for poetry talent with the Federation of British Columbia Writers, attracting readers to the open mic from around the continent,” said FBCW president Jacqueline Carmichael.
“Ian Cognito and Daniel Scott are accomplished poets,” she added. “This is going to be a nice evening, and I hope people will tune in.”