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Guerrilla Poetry at WordsFest

10/24/2016

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PictureJaime R. Brenes Reyes reading at a guerrilla poetry event.
Starting at noon on Saturday, Nov. 5th, 2016, volunteers of the Words Literary Festival will take to the streets of downtown London for "Guerrilla Poetry." Participants will travel in groups and take turns reciting poems aloud to listeners and passersby. The poems will range from world classics to the participants' own work. Our guerrilla poets will also provide information on other exciting events in the Words Literary Festival lineup.

This event is organized by London Open Mic Poetry, Poetry London and The Public Humanities at Western.
 
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
 
Do you want to fill downtown London with the poetry you love? We are looking for volunteers for "Guerrilla Poetry" on Saturday, November 5th. During the event, you will travel in a team of four readers-reciters to a designated space in downtown London. Once there, members of your group will take turns reciting poetry to the public. The event will also give you the opportunity to promote the Words Literary Festival by handing out promotional materials. You can perform any poetry you like, from classic works to your own creations! Contact us now to volunteer and join our growing group of guerrilla poets.
 
To register for a spot in our growing squad, email us at guerrillapoetrylondon@gmail.com
 
LONDON OPEN MIC’S NEW GUERRILLA POETRY ORGANIZER
 
Jaime R. Brenes Reyes is London Open Mic’s new organizer of guerrilla poetry. His first task is to co-ordinate the guerrilla poetry event for the Words Literary and Creative Arts Festival, Nov. 5th. Subsequent to that, Jaime will spring other guerrilla poetry events on London.
 
Originally from Nicaragua, Jaime R. Brenes Reyes is a student in Comparative Literature where he tries to explore the intricacies of fantastic literature. Jaime appreciates the force of words to express emotions and feelings that in many instances escape the realm of language. Reciting and reading poetry is one of his main life passions as well as staring at the Moon.

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Guerillas storm Chapters

7/6/2016

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PictureGuerilla Poetry organizer Brittany Renaud reading at the May 2016 London Open Mic.
On Saturday, July 2nd, a group of poets from London Open Mic Poetry, joined by poetry fans, read at our first Guerilla Poetry event at Chapters Bookstore South. Some of us donned our black Guerilla Poetry t-shirts, and we migrated into the fiction section, there reading poems with drama to any and all browsers, dropping on them some of our own, but enjoying even more the chance to read aloud the masters, the way we each felt they should be read. Who gets to do that in public? And who ever gets to hear those great poems read aloud? Very few. We remember the silent versions, silent inside our heads, as we read them so long ago from a text for a class. Moving out of the fiction corrals, we stormed the children's section, grabbing large, colourful books from the shelves, and, with smiles all round, read long poems filled with rhyme, humourous word-play and laughter.

The reading was organized by Brittany Renaud, who had the most perfect poster made up in advance for backdrop and promotion, and who loved, especially, the possibility that the children playing there might stop, listen and enjoy. And how could they not?


From Facebook: 
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Cambridge N Calvin Keenan That's awesome Stan 🌞
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Saturday's Guerrilla Poetry event through Stan's eyes, and ears.

4/25/2016

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Eight of us poets read in rounds for an hour indoors and then we went out on the street for an outdoor session. In the library, about fifteen people stopped and listened to us. For me and others I talked to, not only was it fun, but it was great to read and hear some of the best poems ever written once again. At the open mic, we only get to read our own poetry. So this was a wonderful, unique experience. I read, for instance, Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, Edger Allan Poe's Annabel Lee, and D. H. Lawrence's The Snake. Since it was the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's death, some of his sonnets and selections from his plays were read, including one memorized and recited with perfect annunciation by Kevin Heslop, along with, in the same manner, Do Not Go Gentle into this Good Night (amen), and that last paragraph from Kerouac's On the Road, "So in America when the sun goes down..." which I've hear him recite just as beautifully as did Kerouac himself many times, but each time is just so good, and then Shelly Harder, who read, among others, her favourite poem, Keat's Ode to a Nightingale, just as she describes the experience of reading in her contemplation below, the poem bursting from her in all its myriad ways. Near the end of our hour indoors, a young man we hadn't met before took the stand (the crates) and recited a couple of fast, intricate, and profound performance pieces of his own, then asked us for a word or phrase. Joan said "ecstasy", and he immediately, and without pause anywhere, composed and recited an amazing piece not only with long and rhyming lines, entangled but perfect grammar, with profundity built upon profundity into a whole that took our breath away. How could he do that? But he had. I was lucky to get his name: Clint Ruttan. And so the afternoon went. Those who missed it, missed it. Those who were there, revelled.
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Reminder: Come and read at our new library series: Guerrilla Poetry

4/22/2016

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PictureDuring the Nov. 2015 Words Festival in London, Aileen House took to the milk crates to read her poetry on the notorious corner of Dundas and Richmond. Organizer Tom Cull provided enthusiastic support.




​
Saturday at 2 pm, London Open Mic Poetry Night is launching its new monthly series called Guerrilla Poetry, to be held in the central branch of the London Public Library. This may very well be a world 1st. So come and get your name on the reading list.
​
WHERE: The reading will be held just inside the doors of the library proper, in the open area called Discovery Place in front of the circulation desks . The hosts of the event will wear black t-shirts decalled with "Guerrilla Poetry". The library will also provide a poster to back up the readers.

WHAT: Co-hosts Stan Burfield (burfield@live.com) and Joan Clayton, will sign up readers, who will read in rounds. At each reading, they will read a maximum of two short-to-medium poems. Anyone wanting to read after the event has begun can sign up at the bottom of the list. Poets can read their own poetry, or that of others. Audience members will be encouraged to find poems they like in the poetry books brought to the area for this purpose by the librarians, then sign up and read them. (We only ask that they have read a poem at least once before reading it to the audience.) This first event will only last one hour, ending at 3 pm.

GENRES: Every type of poetry is suitable, although some would definitely go over better than others. Performance poetry, by its extraverted nature, should be at home here. Any narrative poetry, with it's story-like quality, is fairly easy to follow in a reading. Many other types, however, fare much better when read more slowly than is possible in an oral reading. A bit of an introduction in these cases can certainly help to orient the listeners' minds ahead of time. Considering many in our audience will be very poetry illiterate, it would be good to introduce most poems.

TABOOS: We will have to make a couple of compromises between the wild freedom of true guerrilla poetry and the demands of our library setting. The library doesn't allow photos to be taken without authorization from the photoees. So its staff photographer will take any and all photos. Also, of course, what we read must be suitable for children. So "no profanity or very graphic violence".

WHY: The idea of guerrilla poetry is to take unsuspecting passersby by surprise. Those checking out books at the circulation desk, or wandering to or from the escalator, or youths from their area behind the circulation desk, or people playing chess to one side, or working a jig-saw puzzle, or a colouring book, people who might not otherwise expose themselves to poetry, could end up listening, becoming interested in poetry for the first time, and might even take to the milk crates themselves to read to others. (For those people, the library is bringing down a selection of poetry books and anthologies.) And to many, this will be their first exposure to the poetry open mic scene. If they enjoy it enough, they might even come out to our regular events.

This London Open Mic version of guerrilla poetry was inspired when London poet Tom Cull brought guerrilla poetry to his home town during the Nov. 2015 Words Literary and Creative Arts Festival. Several groups of readers stood on milk crates at various places on downtown sidewalks and read poetry to pedestrians. The main difference between that version and the London Open Mic one is that the new one takes place inside a building, the library, where there is no traffic noise to compete with, and which probably has a larger number of literary-minded strollers to fascinate. Also, the library, being a destination for people, has already slowed them down and opened them up. The sidewalk outside is just the opposite.

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If you find some Guerrilla Poetry, snap it and post it!!

4/21/2016

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For instance, if you take a seat in a public toilet one day and are confronted with a poem in black felt pen on the back of the door, and you find that you just have to read it (how could you not?), then do take a picture of it and post it here, or in London Open Mic Poetry Night's Facebook group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/121795184827333/ .

But definitely DO NOT vandalize a washroom door yourself!! We do NOT condone such illegal activity. If we discovered it ourselves, we would STRONGLY CONDEMN it in no uncertain terms. And loudly enough for all to hear. (Even though we would see no good reason, either philosophical, ethical, legal or otherwise, not to snap a photo of it and post it.)

Some Guerrilla poetry that we do condone, however, will be happening in the central library (just inside the doors, in the area of the circulation desks) this Saturday, April 23rd, at 2 am. (This could very well be the first time in world history in which guerrilla poetry has taken place openly in a public library!) Come, put your name on the reading list, and try to distract innocent library-goers with your delivery of poetry, either your own or some by your favourite poets. Two small-to-average-sized poems per go-round.
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London Open Mic Poetry is suddenly evolving!

4/19/2016

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We are in the process of making a radical departure from our past.

We have always been a single-event organization 
run by a single organizer. But during this month, April, 2016, which is coincidentally National Poetry Month, we are breaking out of that mould, becoming a multi-event organization with each event run by its own organizer.

And now, instead of the one central organizer trying to plan every detail, which is only possible to a certain extent, at least without causing seriously debilitating anxiety, he is stepping back to allow others to take over the planning of their own spin-off events

This relaxation, openness, and "spontaneous" growth of new events and poetic happenings could continue indefinitely, as more people become aware of us, are excited by the possibilities, and create their own ideas. And the more that poetry becomes a part of the landscape of London, the more people will begin to see it everywhere, and not only throughout the city, but also in the community-building social media. Poetry could become the fashionable art of London.

It would follow that this rapid growth in quantity (as we create more spaces for poetry, and so excite more people) could provide a rich breeding ground for changes in quality as well.

Thanks to an idea by Frank Beltrano, we will launch a series of readings in the Chapters book store near the White Oaks Mall, probably in May. At each monthly event, organizer Andy Verboom will be pairing one of the featured poets who has earlier read at our four-season series at Mykonos Restaurant with a lesser-known poet who has not yet been published in book form. Andy is in the process of working out the format but it will include readings by each poet (a longer one by the featured reader), some form of conversation between the two, and of course questions from the audience. These new organizing ideas are so exciting that we may try to adapt them to the larger stage at Mykonos.

We are launching an E-journal, wherein each month the open mic readers at our events will publish one of the poems they read that month (if they would like to), along with a photo of them reading it. Also, the featured poet's three poems, interview and bio would be included, and possibly those of the poets reading at that month's Chapters event. The organizers (publishers, editors) of this publication are Koral Scott and Christine Ellwood.

Our already-announced series of Guerrilla Poetry readings in the central library (if it goes as planned) will have a spin-off in the Chapters book-store near White Oaks mall. It will be organized and hosted by Brittany Renaud. (The original series in the central library down-town is launching this Saturday, April 23rd, at 2 pm.)

London Open Mic Poetry is rapidly changing from a Mykonos event series into an umbrella organization. It now has eleven members. Projects that have been put off for lack of people to run them may soon be launched by new people who may want to work with us in the future.

For instance, we need someone to head our Prison Poetry project, a woman (since it would be in the women's prison in the Kitchener area) who has the time, the energy, the right expertise, and who has experience dealing with institutions.
We need people to try to start workshops and possibly open mics in other long-term care institutions.

We need someone to promote with the city our idea of having city workers stamp impressions of poems into side-walk areas as they are being repaired. This has been done successfully in St. Paul, Minnesota.

We need people to carry out our dream of exciting the city's high-school English students in poetry, possibly by means of a city-wide contest.

As London Open Mic Poetry grows in size, its abilities are also growing. For instance, we now have a social media expert on board, Koral Scott, who is reorganizing our presence on the internet to make it more effective.

We're open to people and their ideas. We're no longer just imposing our own.
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