Literary: Poetry Olympians Hit Summer Dreams!

Jillian Christmas

While Canadians are watching our athletes in London, closer to home, a team of four young writers are going for it all in Charlotte, North Carolina, and being noticed by a large, discriminating poetry audience.

Vancouver is one of only two Canadian teams (the other being Toronto) in a sea of American teams, with a smattering of European contenders. Despite being considered underdogs, they have reached the finals with their group piece, this after a grueling round robin series of bouts where members of the audience are recruited to judge the poetry with score cards, figure skater-style on a scale of 1-10. Poems can be no longer than 3 minutes or the team is subjected to a time penalty.

The National Poetry Slam is the annual poetry slam championship tournament, wherein four- to five-person teams from all over North America and Europe gather to compete against each other for the national team title. It has become part superbowl, part poetry summer camp, and part traveling exhibition. Staged in a different city each year, the National Poetry Slam has emerged as slam’s highest-profile showcase.

This year’s Vancouver team is made up of Jillian Christmas, Erich Haygun, Zaccheus Jackson, Erin Kirsh and Julie Peters.

Jilian Christmas on YouTube

Fresh off the Greyhound, the team takes to the stage at Trout Lake with almost 90 other writers and performers on Saturday, August 25th for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival.

Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community.  Those interested can sign up on the website at www.summerdreamsfest.com.


For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Literary: Award Winner Haley is a Renaissance New Media Artist

Stimulating and directing cultural fulmination is as natural to Heather Haley as manipulating media. She is an innovative programmer with a history of staunch commitment to the arts community and cultural awareness. 

With a strongly held conviction that artists, especially poets, needed to be represented on the World Wide Web, she founded The Edgewise Café in 1994, one of Canada's first electronic literary magazines, along with the non-profit arts organization, the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre. 

The EEC facilitated the Vancouver Videopoem Festival and Telepoetics, a videoconferenced reading series founded by Merilene Murphy. The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre's populist mandate and innovative programs effectively made poetry accessible to all and assisted Canadian artists in expanding both their audience and potential. 

Since 2004, Haley has been the host and curator of the Visible Verse Festival, North America's sustaining venue for the presentation of new and artistically significant poetry film and video. www.heatherhaley.com 

Haley and several other local literary figures of note will be honored at a ceremony on August 24, 2012, at CBC Studio 700. She then takes the stage the following day at Trout Lake with almost 90 other writers and performers for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival. 

 As one might expect, putting on a big event with 3 stages, a children's area, a market place and 90+ performers is a lot of work, so the more help the festival can have the better. Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community. Those interested can sign up on The website at www.summerdreamsfest.com. For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Special Event: Summer Dreams "Comes Home" to Trout Lake!

Barbara Adler & Fang are this year's headliners at Summer Dreams

The biting humour of Barbara Adler's "Fang", is just one highlight of this year's Summer Dream Literary Arts Fest.

When you look at past rosters for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival, you quickly realize that the  "grassroots" used to describe it could easily be the grass of East Vancouver's Trout Lake,  the heart of the trendy neighborhood where many of the performers live and work.

Besides being only a few blocks away from the home of the city's and one of the country's oldest slam poetry venues, Cafe Deux Soleils and the Rio Theatre (which played host to a packed house for the finals for this year's Canadian Festival of the Spoken word), Trout Lake is a jewel in the neighborhood.

As in the past, the headliner for the event will be a familiar name to East Vancouverites, Barbara Adler and Fang. The accomplished spoken word artist cut her teeth at the local slam and has made a successful go of combining her poetry with her other passion, music.

This festival is not just slam based though. It truly lives up to its name of  a literary festival by having such literary greats as Joe Rosenblatt, Bryant Ross, Dennis E. Bolen, Daniela Elza and Heather Haley, just to name a few. There will be free workshops running throughout the day as well. 

For the festival to make the switch from it's long-time Stanley Park location is an important step for the festival's founder and executive producer, Bonnie Nish.

“Trout Lake has always been our ideal spot for the festival, “Nish states.
“While Lumberman's Arch obviously has a lot going for it too, East Van really is a huge centre for the city's writing scene. So many of our performers consider this (Commercial Drive) to be home, and because Pandora’s Collective - the non-profit literary organization which created and runs the festival – has put on so many events on the Drive, we can't help but feel like we are coming home as well.”

As one might expect, putting on a big event with 3 stages, a children's area, a market place and 90+ performers is a lot of work, so the more help the festival can have the better.  Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community.  Those interested can sign up on The website at www.summerdreamsfest.com.


For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Jah Jireh Family Soapworks at the Trout Lake Farmer's Market

Jah Jireh Family Soapworks will have a table at the first

Trout Lake Farmer’s Market

of the season, this Saturday, May 26. The market is located in the parking lot of the Trout Lake Community Centre on Victoria Drive at E.14th.

We’re new to the market and have only been able to secure a few dates so far this summer, (we’re hoping for more) so keep your eyes peeled for us!

Of course you can always get our soaps at one of our retailers:

Drive Organics, 1045 Commercial Drive

Virgin Mary’s, 1035 Commercial Drive

and always online at www.naturalpod.com.