Address:

St. Francis Centre
78 Church Street South Ajax, ON L1S 6B3
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Category:

• Arts and Culture
• St. Francis Centre

Event Details:

Appropriate for all ages.

Hosted at the St. Francis Centre for Community, Arts, and Culture.

Free of charge.

Celebrate Black Canadian literary voices of all genres—join us for a night of amazing performances and Q+A with the artists. Sign-ups for open mic sessions start at 6:30 p.m. Speak to a staff member on-site to be added to the line-up. Poetry and written prose both welcome. Visit blacklitdurham.com for more information.

Featured Performers:

Gloria Blizzard is an award-winning Black Canadian woman of multiple heritages. Music, dance, science, spirit, and culture intersect in her work, which has won the Malahat Review Nonfiction Prize, and been nominated the prestigious Pushcart prize. Essays, reviews and poems have been published by the CBC, the Globe and Mail, Wasafiri International Contemporary Writing and World Literature Today. Gloria holds an MFA from the University of King’s College and has recently released a book of essays, "Black Cake," "Turtle Soup," and "Other Dilemmas: essays on music, memory and motion," is published by Dundurn Press.

Scarborough-born poet Joshua “Scribe” Watkis has performed Spoken Word and Hip-Hop across Canada; opening for Hip-Hop legends like Saukrates and The Roots. He was a four-time finalist at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, winning the national championship in 2019. Scribe has authored two chapbooks and was featured on the first Spoken Word Audiobook on Audible: "Power In Poetry; Moods That Move." Most recently, he curated and hosted "The Old Black Maple," for the NAC’s debut Hip-Hop Theatre Festival.

By sharing his story he hopes to help audiences share their own, in their words, out loud.

Location:

St. Francis Centre