Black History in 1880s Vancouver
London Open Mic Poetry Archive
  • Home
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Stan Burfield Blog
    • Fred Burfield's Homestead Memoirs
  • Our Events
  • News
  • PHOTOS & SUMMARIES
    • Season 5: 2016-2017 >
      • June 7th, 2017: Summary & Photos featuring Stan Burfield
      • May 3rd, 2017, Summary & Photos featuring Jason Dickson
      • April 5th, 2017 Summary & Photos, feeaturing James Deahl & Norma West Linder
      • Mar. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Andy Verboom
      • Feb. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Ron Stewart
      • Dec. 7th, 2016: Photos & Summary featuring David Stones
      • Nov. 2th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring Don Gutteridge
      • Oct. 5th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring David Huebert
    • Season 4: 2015-2016 >
      • June 1st, 2016: Photos and summaries: featuring Lynn Tait
      • May 4th, 2016 Photos and Summary: featuring indigenous poetry
      • April 6, 2016 Photos & Summary, featuring Steven McCabe
      • Mar. 2nd, 2016 photos, summary: featuring Andreas Gripp
      • Feb. 3rd, 2016 photos: 3 Western students.
      • Dec. 2, 2015 photos: featured reader Peggy Roffey
      • Nov. 7, 2015 photos: Our Words Fest open mic
      • Nov. 4, 2015 photos: featured reader Charles Mountford
      • Oct. 7th, 2015 photos: Madeline Bassnett featured
    • Season 3, 2014-15 >
      • Aug. 16, 2015 photos: The Ontario Poetry Society's "Sultry Summer Gathering"
      • June 3rd, 2015 photos: John B. Lee featured
      • May 6th, 2015 photos: Laurie D Graham featured
      • Apr. 1st, 2015 photos: John Nyman & Penn Kemp featured
      • Mar. 4th, 2015 photos: Patricia Black featured.
      • Feb. 4th, 2015 photos: feature Gary Barwin
      • Dec. 3rd, 2014 photos: Feature Debbie Okun Hill
      • Nov. 5th, 2014 photos: feature Julie Berry
      • Oct. 1st, 2014 photos: feature Roy MacDonald
    • Season 2, Sept. 2013 to June 2014. >
      • June 4th, 20114, featuring Monika Lee
      • May 7th 2014, featuring Susan McCaslin and Lee Johnson
      • Sept. 4th, 2013 featuring Frank Beltrano
      • April 16th, 2014, featuring Penn Kemp and Laurence Hutchman
      • March 5th, 2014, featuring Jacob Scheier
      • Feb. 5th, 2014: featuring four UWO students of poetry; music by Tim Woodcock
      • Jan. 2nd, 2014: featuring Carrie Lee Connel
      • Dec. 4th, 2013, featuring M. NourbeSe Philip
      • Nov. 6, 2013 , featuring Susan Downe
      • Oct. 2nd, 2013, featuring Jan Figurski
    • Season 1: Oct. 2012 to June 2013 >
      • June 4th, 2013 featuring David J. paul and the best-ever open mic
      • May 1st, 2013, featuring Sonia Halpern
      • Apr. 24, 2013 featuring Frank Davey & Tom Cull
      • Mar. 6th, 2013, featuring Christine Thorpe
      • Feb. 6th, 2013, featuring D'vorah Elias
      • Jan. 3rd. 2013: John Tyndall featured.
      • Dec. 5, 2012: RL Raymond featured
    • Dig These Hip Cats ... The Beats
  • Poet VIDEOS (open mic & featured readers)
    • 5th Season Videos (2016-2017)
    • 4th Season Videos (2015-16)
    • 3rd Season Videos (2014-2015)
    • 2nd Season (2013-2014) videos
  • BIOGRAPHIES - Featured poets & musicians
  • INTERVIEWS & POEMS (featured poets)
    • SEASON 6 - Interviews & Poems >
      • Kevin Shaw: Poem & Interview
      • David Janzen - Interview
    • SEASON 5 INTERVIEWS & POEMS
    • SEASON 4 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 3 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 2 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (only from Dec. 4th, 2013)
    • Season 1 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (& 1st half of Season 2) >
      • INTERVIEWS of Featured Poets
      • POEMS by Featured Poets (1st Season & to Nov. 2013)
  • Couplets: Poets in Dialogue
  • Future Events
  • Past Events
    • 5th Season: 2016-2017
    • Season 4: 2015-2016
    • Season 3: 2014-2015
    • Season Two: 2013-2014
    • Season One: 2012-2013
  • Who we Are
  • Testimonial
  • Our Mission
  • Links
  • Contact us
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • New Page

We hosted The Ontario Poetry Society's "Sultry Summer Gathering" Aug. 16th at Mykonos: 
                               
                                   Scroll down for SLIDE SHOW

The Sultry Summer Poetry Gathering at London’s beautiful Mykonos Restaurant on Aug. 16th, 2015, was enjoyed by everyone in spite of it being one of the hottest days of the summer in a terrace room with no air conditioning. Twenty hardy poets read to an audience totaling about thirty at the annual gathering of The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS). 
.
The normal London reading series at Mykonos, London Open Mic Poetry Night, regularly turns out substantially larger audiences, but the weather reports had predicted a very hot day, so it was no surprise that many people decided to stay home. The London Branch Manager had tried to obtain folding paper fans for everybody in advance, but none were available anywhere in the city, so free rental and real-estate magazines were supplied in their place and seemed to do the job for most of the audience.

Thirteen TOPS members read: Carmen Falconi, Wayne Ray, Stan Burfield (London Chapter Manager), Fran Figge (TOPS President), Debbie Okun Hill, I. B. (Bunny) Iskov (TOPS founder), Keith Inman, Leona Harris, John Ambury, Nancy Walden, Roy James, Dunlaith O'Heron, and Carmen, a holocaust survivor. Carl Lapp was present but didn't read. 
.
Additionally, seven non-members read at the open mic: Martin Hayter, Joan Clayton, Lorna Pominville, Kevin Heslop, John Nyman, Dorothy Mahoney, Laurie Smith.
.
Readers drove into London from all over SW Ontario just for this event, from Toronto, Newmarket, Windsor, Sarnia, Thorold and more. 





A Personal Note from Stan Burfield, London TOPS Chapter Manager & organizer of London Open Mic Poetry Night: WOW!!!

From my point of view as co-host (with Bunny Iskov, TOPS founder), the afternoon certainly was a success. In fact it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. 

After a long life of serious shyness, this was the first time I have ever been totally calm in a gathering largely of strangers. It was the culmination of five years of self-therapy. Initially, I forced myself out into the community to attend Ron Stewart's great monthly poetry workshop, and when that became easy I tried to read to an audience, and, finally, for lack of a regular reading venue, I created one by organizing London Open Mic Poetry Night. That idea was sparked by a TOPS reading/open mic I attended in Sarnia. Moreso than attending workshops and reading in public, It was the organizing itself that did most of the work of ridding me of shyness. 

So, after three seasons of London Open Mic, here I am actually co-hosting this year’s version of the TOPS event I had attended in Sarnia that got me going on this course in the first place. And, by lovely coincidence, this event happens to be the first one at which I’ve ever been totally calm. It felt so good I had to keep myself from constantly grinning. Everything I said as co-host was warm and relaxed, the polar opposite of my tight fear at the first few events of London Open Mic three years ago. It feels like some huge coin has finally settled down on its opposite face. 

I definitely have Bunny Iskov, and the rest of the executive of TOPS, to thank for this, because I would never have thought of becoming a social organizer (“Are you insane!?!?”) had it not been for TOPS.

Proudly powered by Weebly