Stroll of Poets Society

On behalf of the Stroll of Poets Board of Directors, we wish all of our members much peace, joy and happiness during the Holiday Season. May the Spirit of this time of year fill your thoughts, your hearts, and your homes and we hope that the start of the New Year will also fill you with hope and wellness.

The board members also wish to extend their thanks to all of you who took part in the numerous Stroll events over this past year including our AGM, the Blinks and Edmonton Poetry Festival events, The Stroll of Poets in Calgary and other shared presentations, and, of course, the Haven Reading Series. We were blessed with the wonderful words and talents many of our members shared during these gatherings. Thank you all for supporting us and each other in our adventures in poetry. After another special Haven-at-Home this week, we conclude this wonderful year of Haven Reading Series events on December 16th at the Upper Crust Cafe. I hope to see many of you there.

We also very much appreciate your participation and input, through our Reaching Out Committee get-togethers and surveys, into the direction the organization is heading into in the upcoming year. We are excited to be opening new doors and new avenues of participation for you all so stay tuned and please stay involved.

🎉Happy New Year!🎊
In peace and poetry;
Max Vandersteen
(On behalf of the Stroll of Poets Board members)

Sunday, January 12, 2PM
Audreys Books
10702 Jasper Ave

The Stroll of Poets is proud to offer another version of Fresh Verse to enrich our Haven Reading Series. This season the Haven committee has decided to change the venue to Audreys Books and reschedule the Fresh Verse event to mid-season instead of at the end of it.

Come out to see fledgling writers soar, come out to hear rising voices roar, enjoy open mic, good company and more. Come out to see some new faces, hear some new voices, and appreciate fresh verses presented by several of Edmonton’s emerging young poets, Ashleigh Wiggins, Janel Lope, Amy Bacon, Ashley Alton, Anindita Mukherjee, Natasha Riddell, Joshua Querijero, and Zachary Jickling. As usual, an open mic will follow the featured readers. Our mic host will be Max Vandersteen.
 
The Stroll of Poets is honoured to promote the messages of young voices in order to encourage youth to create poetry such as these powerful words borrowed from a poem by Zain Rishi, a British Indian writer based in Edinburgh:

I Want to Be the Moonlight on Gaza

Take my body

and make it
moonlight
for the rivers
and children
of Gaza.

Take my world—
I do not want it.

Give me another
where the sky
promises nothing
but light
and love
and more of it.

Upper Crust, 10909 86 Ave NW
Monday, January 6th, 7:00-8:30 pm
(Doors open at 6:30)

Features Poetry by: Kenneth Brown, Pierrette Requier, Megan Stobbe, and Hugh McAlary

Mic Host: Kenneth Brown
Joining Anne Gerard Marshall as door hosts: Terry Elrod

Open Mic: Sign-up (2-min. poem)

Welcome all! See you at the Haven! Bring your friends! New and first readers are always welcome and given priority during the Open Mic.

Attention all Stroll members;
In an effort to minimize the hazards and maintain a safe place to meet in person for residents of our local community, masks and hand sanitizer will be provided for attendees at our Haven Reading Series events and distancing will be maintained to the best of our ability.

The Haven Committee also requests that you refrain from attending the event if you are experiencing any symptoms such as a cough, runny nose or fever.

**Please note: Anyone who has signed up for a reading spot and wants to make changes or needs assistance with it, or to be added to the Haven waitlist, please email: haven@strollofpoets.com and the Haven committee will help you.

To check the Haven Master Schedule, click here.

Haven-at-Home: An Online Haven Reading

Topic: Haven at Home reading series
Time: Monday, December 9th at 7:00 PM
Online via Zoom

The Haven Committee of The Edmonton Stroll of Poets Society will be hosting an online version of our Haven Reading Series on December 9th. This event will be similar to the Haven-at Home events that were held via the Zoom platform during the past Covid restrictions. As we desire very much to reconnect with the out-of-town poets we shared poetry with during that time, invitations have been sent out to those folks to sign up for the featured reader spots.

As the featured readers represent other poetry organizations it is the desire of the Haven committee to establish a connection with these groups and an opportunity for Stroll members to participate in activities sponsored by them and vice versa as well. We invite all local members to join in as well to listen to their poetry presentations and take part in the open mic session included afterward.

Featured Readers:
Kim Ports Parsons of Cultivated Voices Live Poetry
I.B. Iskov of The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS)
Darlene Witte Townsend of Poetry and Performance Green Mountain Writers
Amit Dahiyabadshah of Delhi Poetry

Our mic host will be:
David Fraser

Our tech host will be:
Max Vandersteen

Below is the information to attend the Haven-at-Home Reading event. We hope to see you there!

Join Zoom Meeting: https://writersguild.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b24514035c387db6b77908b93&id=4583e94c9c&e=cb0a089b3e
Meeting ID: 822 9136 4741
Passcode: 1234

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