Results tagged “torontopoetryslam”

MUSIC: The Canadian Music Café is held in conjunction with TIFF every year to help get Canadian music noticed by the international media in Toronto for the festival. This year, fifteen Canadian artists and groups will take to the stage at the Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge Street in hopes of snagging that elusive film deal that will get their music on the big screen and hopefully into viewers' iTunes after the show. Some of the performers are already known names, like Hawksley Workman and Amy Millian (both playing on Thursday), but most of them are more obscure or up-and-comers. Today, Stef Lang, Spiral Beach, Emma-Lee, Winter Gloves, and Jets Overhead will be playing. Hard Rock Cafe (279 Yonge Street), 1–5 p.m. daily until Thursday, FREE.

COMEDY: Having just been nominated for four Canadian Comedy Awards, Monkey Toast: The Improvised Talk Show is still going strong after several years as one of Toronto's foremost comedy shows. The premise is simple: the host, David Shore, interviews a few local celebrities (past guests include Mayor David Miller, writer/actor Don McKellar, and musician Peaches), and then a team of improvisers create skits based on the interviews. Tonight, musician Big Rude Jake, Susan Fischer character Evelyn Reese, NDP leader Jack Layton, and MP Olivia Chow will sit down with Shore. The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West), 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30 p.m.), pay-what-you-can.

Urban Planner is Torontoist's daily guide to what's on in Toronto, published every morning. If you have an event you'd like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you've got any—to events@torontoist.com.

DANCE: Members of the Arabesque Dance Company perform at the Revival Bar tonight in a fundraiser for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of Canada. As one of the leading belly dance organizations in the country, with an international reputation garnered from its world-wide tour circuit, the Arabesque dancers are surely a big draw, as is DJ Agile, a Toronto-based DJ and producer, who's created beats for big names like Jully Black and Nas. The ticket price includes a comp beverage, hors d’oeuvres, dessert buffet, and a gift bag. Revival Bar (783 College Street), 7:30 p.m., $40 in advance, $45 at door.

ART: Pattie Boyd inspired both George Harrison and Eric Clapton to write their best-known songs while she was a part of their lives. She will be sharing a number of photographs taken during that London period at the exhibit "Through the Eye of a Muse." The exhibit (on until December 31) includes work that Boyd—now a member of the Royal Photographic Society—has done since that time. The Great Hall Gallery (1087 Queen Street West), 12–6 p.m., FREE.

WORDS: The new season of the Toronto Poetry Slam kicks off Friday. Amateurs sign up half an hour before the show, and are given a chance to showcase their talents. Afterward, there will be a performance from musician Mark Berube and The Patriotic Few. For more information, check out the Toronto Poetry Slam website. The Drake Hotel Underground (1150 Queen Street West), 8 p.m. (sign-up at 7:30 p.m.), $5.

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry.

Next Saturday, Toronto Poetry Slam brings you the last slam of the season, with some of the city’s brightest and wordiest battling it out for the last remaining place in the semi finals. Finalists will have a shot at the 2008 Toronto Poetry Slam Team, which competes at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and the US National Poetry Slam (this year to be held in Madison, Wisconsin).

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks in Toronto, and you may have a tough time deciding just what bookish thing to attend. If anything, Torontoist recommends you check out this year's second Toronto Small Press Book Fair this Saturday. The twice-yearly event features a variety of micro to medium-sized presses offering zines, books, chapbooks, journals, hand-made crafts, and many other wonderful things. And if you've got any time and energy left after the fair, you also might want to head down to the Cervejaria, where the Toronto Poetry Slam will be celebrating their second anniversary. There will be a spoken word competition, featuring the spoken word folk band, The Fugitives.

LitTO Summer Reading Pick: check out Prose Karen from Neitzsche’s Brolly.

Photos of trey anthony, Dawn Whitwell, and Gein Fence courtesy of Get Your Lit Out.

There are as many types of poetry as there are different styles of music. Books of poetry are usually confined to a shelf or two at a local bookstore, but if you want to buy a CD, you visit an entire store dedicated to music. When someone professes to like poetry, the reference is probably to a favourite type of poetry, and not all poetries—just as a jazz afficionado might dislike Country and Western, or a pop music fan might hate Metal.

Everyone sufficiently recovered from Word on the Street? Over 200,000 people braved the wind and rain and descended upon Queen’s Park for a celebration of books. I have a book hangover, thus the lateness of this week’s listings.

A couple of Sunday night events to kick-off or end your week, depending on how you see it. Gypsy Eyes, who is all over the place this week, hosts Last Call Poets at the Cadillac Lounge – 1296 Queen W. – tonight at 8pm. Admission is $7.

The Art of Slam, a spoken word performance art in which poets spit their pieces in the hope of getting a good score from the audience, was probably best-documented in the 1998 feature film Slam. In the movie, a young Saul Williams becomes a rapper/poet/writer in response to the harsh police-as-predators community in which he lives. This music could accurately be described as intensely verbose, though never as misunderstood as its way more popular cousin. (If there are lines to be drawn between any rap/crime issues of the day and slam poetry, it's up to you to draw them.)