Victoria Spoken Word Festival

Brendan McLeod is a Vancouver-based writer and musician. He is a former Canadian SLAM poetry champion, a World SLAM runner-up and was the 2012 Poet of Honor at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

Janet is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in southern Ontario. She is the former Poet Laureate for Victoria. She has published three poetry collections to date and three CDs. You can hear Janet on the radio as she hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV fm and Tribal Clefs on CBC radio one fm in Victoria BC.

PrufRock Shadowrunner is a 2 time national champion an accomplished DJ & MC. He has released 3 albums, and travels nationally and internationally performing his work. Pruf's hard hitting words and concepts allows him to continue to grow & shine. Isaac Bond wishes he was PrufRock Shadowrunner.

Erin Dingle is Calgary's Poetry Slam Champ for 2 years running, and placed 2nd in 2014 at the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam. She has brought flurries of words to festivals and workshops across Canada. Erin is also a board member for Calgary's InkSpot Collective and the Single Onion Reading Series.

Olivia (Jo) B. can offer you hugs (probabibbly), cinnamon (definitely), and poetry (???). Jo was a participant at VSWF in 2013, has been on multiple poetry teams in 'Vancouver', and was Vancouver's 2011 grand champion. They really dig dancin', bein' queer, makin' spoopy faces, and teachin' u how 2 flirt.

Sabrina was part of the 2014 Toronto Poetry Slam team which was crowned national champions this past October in Victoria, BC. Sabrina’s poems float along the spectrum of love, pain, identity and Beyonce. She wears her voice on her sleeve and hopes to share it with the world.

Isaac Bond is a writer, performer, and social entrepreneur from Saskatoon. He has traveled across Canada sharing his passion for hip-hop, spoken word, and arts education. More than anything, he loves hearing what people have to say...Well, everyone except Prufrock Shadowrunner.

Born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, raised in West Palm Beach, Florida , David Delisca is a spoken word poet, actor and comedian. A versatile artist, he uses stories of the immigrant and diaspora experiences, as well as other various human realities, to bridge realms of communication. He is a four-time member of the Toronto Poetry Slam’s National Team, a finalist at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW) Saskatoon, in 2012 and a National Champion at CFSW Montreal, in 2013.

Brendan Flaherty was born with his mouth open. He was a member of the 2013 Saskatoon Slam Team, who placed 3rd at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. He has managed to say his poems into microphones at music festivals, house parties, concerts, open mics, street fairs and writing workshops without annoying too many people.

Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon was a member of Edmonton's 2012 Slam Poetry Team. Her poetry has been published in Ricepaper Magazine, and screened at the 2010 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. She currently lives in Vancouver, where she is completing a Masters at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning.

The 2013 Victoria Spoken Word Festival Poet of Honour, Johnny MacRae’s poems “combine a respect for traditional poetic structure with an impishly postmodern sense of humour” (Vince Tinguely, LitLive.ca). A long-time high school workshop facilitator, since August 2013, Johnny has been Program Director for two youth outreach programs: WordPlay (Vancouver) and Raising Voices (Vancouver Island).

Colin Matty is a writer, performer, and a real gentleman about town. He is a national slam champion, has been a member of two Edmonton slam teams, and placed third at the 2012 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam. A self described: Real wolf man from the swamp sort of fellow.

Aaron Simm is a poet, playwright, hip-hop artist, and llama enthusiast, living in Victoria, BC. He has been a featured artist at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, and was the co-founder of the Winnipeg Spoken Word Festival. He is a multiple time slam poetry champion, and his work has been featured on stages all across the country.

Chim Undi is an avid human, a laugh track, and a poet. Her full name is 24 points in Scrabble. In 2014, she was on the Winnipeg Poetry Slam Team, a featured artist at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, co-ran Winnipeg's Voices, Ink. Youth Slam and realized she could say pretty much whatever on stage. It was all hell from there.

Zoe is a young local poet and artist who was recently elected as the 2015 Youth Poet Laureate for the city. She's a women's studies and religious studies major, and is working on on her first collection of page poetry and illustrations, called I Must Look Like A Fury.

Writer, critic, teacher and poet, Yvonne Blomer is Victoria's new Poet Laureate. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing and is the Artistic Director and Host of the Planet Earth Poetry reading series in Victoria BC.

Dave Morris and Missie Peters are the improvised spoken word duo SpeakEasy. They have performed their particular brand of poetry at festivals as far away as London and Berlin.

Broken Rhythms is a Victoria-based dance company under the artistic direction of Dyana Sonik-Henderson, and a multiple winner of Pick of the Fringe.