Event Update: This event has moved to the Granville Island Stage.
Our Spoken Word event series, curated and hosted by award-winning poet and spoken word artist Jillian Christmas, is a varied, powerful highlight of our youth programming every year. This Word! features three exceptional performers sharing poems about identity, nature, belonging, and finding your way in difficult times. Lucia Misch (The Problem with Solitaire) is a poet and performer who has performed spoken word in Poetry Slams across North America, and who facilitates workshops for young people across the coast. Alessandra Naccarato is an award-winning poet and essayist of Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene and Re-Origin of Species, whose unique perspective on our natural world and our place within it has won multiple awards. Wali Shah is a poet, international speaker and TED talker, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Mississauga, beloved for his freestyle poetry and new book, Call Me Al. Grades 8–12. Hosted by Jillian Christmas.
Themes: Identity, poetry, spoken word, nature, social justice, activism, performance
Curriculum Connections: English Language Arts 8–9, Spoken Language 10–12, Physical and Health Education 8–10
More information about the Festival:
Box Office | Accessibility | Venue Map
Event Participants:
JILLIAN CHRISTMAS is an artist, creative facilitator, curator, consultant, and arts advocate. She is the long-time spoken word curator of the Vancouver Writers Fest, and former artistic director of Verses Festival of Words. She is the author of The Gospel of Breaking, The Magic Shell, and My Sweet Baby Book.
LUCIA MISCH is a writer, performer and facilitator from unceded Muwekma Ohlone land. Lucia's spoken word has found a home everywhere from historic theaters to high school auditoriums, and their first collection of poetry, The Problem With Solitaire, was released by Write Bloody North in 2020.
ALESSANDRA NACCARATO is the author of Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene (Essays) and Re-Origin of Species (Poems). Based in Tkaronto (Toronto), she is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the Bronwen Wallace Award from the Writers' Trust of Canada and the CBC Poetry Prize. A founding editor of Write Bloody North Publications, she has toured nationally and internationally as a spoken word artist and supported emerging writers across the country for nearly two decades.
Growing up, WALI SHAH faced pressure from his Pakistani-immigrant parents to choose a profession that would justify their sacrifices. He surprised them by becoming a poet and public speaker, inspiring youth at hundreds of schools with his powerful verse, delivering TED talks and serving as a poet laureate for the city of Mississauga.
