The Arts Junction: Press-Release: The Poetry Peepshow is a First at the 2008 Junction Arts Festival

Screenshot: Toronto Junction Arts Festival 2008: Poetry Peepshow, by artjunction.blogspot.com

Screenshot: Junction Arts Festival 2008: The Poetry Peepshow

9 writers and poets
1 at a time
2 minutes is all you get and maybe a rhyme
25 cents lets you peep as they create
2 hours at a time in a 10 by 10 crate
7 city blocks somewhere this room you must find
4 voyeurs at once get to peep into the mind

Media Information – For Immediate Release
Please retain for events listings

The Poetry Peepshow is a First
at the 2008 Junction Arts Festival

Toronto, ON, August 21, 2008 – The Junction Arts Festival (September 3 to 7, 2008 in Toronto), produced by the Junction Forum for Art & Culture, presents a cultural extravaganza like no other and the Poetry Peepshow, taking place during the weekend Dundas Street West street closure on Saturday, September 6 and Sunday, September 7, is a brand new feature of the 16th annual celebration.

Now attracting 150,000 visitors annually, the 2008 Junction Arts Festival, which practices and encourages reducing, reusing and recycling throughout the entire festival location, is set to throw the party of the year as the Junction celebrates its centennial of becoming the City of West Toronto in 1908.

For the first time, the Junction Arts Festival proudly presents Poetry Peepshow during the weekend festivities (located within the festival boundary on Dundas Street West, exact location to be determined).

In true voyeuristic style and for a quarter (25 cents), the viewer will be offered an intimate "fly on the wall" experience with one poet, who will be sitting in a specially built 10-foot x 10-foot wooden room, for a two-minute session to perhaps gain some literary knowledge or peer into an open window of a poet’s soul and see the secret world of the individual writer.

States Junction Arts Festival Executive Director Michael Menegon, "We‘re excited to be presenting the Poetry Peepshow this year and hope it returns as an annual component. It’s new and different, and it adds an important element to the overall creative energy!"

Poetry Peepshow will showcase a roster of nine Toronto based writers, each for two hours at-a-time, as they are in the midst of their creative, and usually private, process.

POET LINE-UP (listed in alphabetical order, schedule times to be determined)

Aisha Sasha John is a writer and dancer living in Toronto. Her work has appeared in such places as Exile Quarterly, Contemporary Verse 2, Carousel and TOK 3: Writing the New Toronto.

Anne-Marie Woods, aka Amani, is a spoken word artist, producer, educator and creative consultant. Known as the "Contemporary Blues Poet", she has been performing spoken word since 1996 and has had the honour of being the headline international poet in Trinidad at the 19th annual Rapso Festival (2008).

Gili Haimovich is an internationally published poet. Her chapbook 'Living on a Blank Page' was released in 2007 (Ice Flow Press). She has also published three volumes of Hebrew poetry. Her work is featured in The Literary Review of Canada (LRC), Tok 1 - Writing the New Toronto, ARC - American - Israeli literary journal and In My Bed Magazine.

Kimberley Orton is a playwright, screenwriter, poet and, most recently, Birth Doula and Reiki Practitioner. Kimberley keeps her word collection in a medium sized old house in an odd corner of the Junction.

Lo Bil, a performance artist, playwright and poet, received an Ontario Arts Council Spoken Word grant tour "A Professional Occupation" – where she sits in public writing poetry and creates performances that relate to the community where the poems were written.

Patricia Archer is a storyteller, poet, performer, editor and publisher. Her most recent project has been to transform her poetry book, ‘The Whiskey-Haired Man’, into a one-woman play. She was co-editor for Descant Magazine and is a former Literary Coordinator for the Junction Arts Festival.

Simla Civelek is an Istanbul-born performer, actor, poet, and dancer. In August 2007, she contributed her installation/performer piece "Poetry Caravanserai" in AleeyJaunt and won the Best Overall Children's Choice Award presented by Darren O'Donnell's Theatre Company, Mammalian Diving Reflex.

Simon Leigh is from Australia and is now retired from teaching English at Seneca College. Short Strokes is his third poetry book. His poems have appeared in the Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Parchment, The Review of Contemporary Poetry, Rhyme and Reason: Modern Formal Poetry and Descant.

For detailed writer biographies go to www.junctionartsfest.com/2008/sites/poetrypeepshow/. Schedule times to be determined closer to the festival date.

PLEASE NOTE: For more details and updated schedules of all events please visit regularly at
www.junctionartsfest.com.

The 2008 Junction Arts Festival will take place along Dundas St. West between Keele St. and Quebec Ave., and will feature free fun and creativity in eight distinct categories; the Visual Art Exhibitions (starting Wednesday, Sept. 3), the Movieola Movie Night (Thursday, Sept. 4), the outdoor Live Music Stages (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and the Dance/Street Performance Artists, the Poetry Peepshow, the KidZone, the Green Village, and the Historic City (during the weekend on Saturday, Sept. 6 and Sunday, Sept. 7).

The 2008 Junction Arts Festival will be supported by title sponsor the Junction Business Improvement Area, and Department of Canadian Heritage Anniversary program, Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Toronto Arts Council, NOW Magazine and The Villager.

The Junction Forum for Art and Culture (JFAC) is an arts presenting organization whose main project is the annual Junction Arts Festival. JFAC was incorporated as a non-profit group in February 2004. The people who make up the Board of Directors of the Junction Forum for Art and Culture are dedicated cultural producers, artists, residents, business owners and politicians all of whom are connected in some way to the Junction.

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For media information, artist biographies and photos and interviews please contact:
Laurie Lockhart,
Publicist
2008 Junction Arts Festival
Tel: 416-988-2530
Email: gtmessage@sympatico.ca
Web: www.junctionartsfest.com

For general information please contact:
Junction Forum for Art & Culture,
2008 Junction Arts Festival
Tel: 416-767-5036
Email: junctionartsfest@bellnet.ca
Web: www.junctionartsfest.com
Councillor Bill Saundercook (Ward 13, City of Toronto), JFAC Chair

links:
Press Release: David Usher Headlines the 2008 Junction Arts Festival
Press-Release: Visual Art Ignites the 2008 Junction Arts Festival
Press-Release: Live Stages Rock for Three Days at 2008 Junction Arts Festival
Press Release: Dance and Street Performers Come Alive at the 2008 Junction Arts Festival
Press-Release: Movieola Movie Night is New at the 16th Annual Junction Arts Festival
Press-Release: The Poetry Peepshow is a First at the 2008 Junction Arts Festival
Press-Release: The Kidzone is Hands-on at the 2008 Junction Arts Festival
Press-Release: The 2008 Green Village is Home Green Home at Junction Arts Festival
Press Release: The Historic City: A New Zone Celebrating the Junction's Centennial at the 2008 Junction Arts Festival
canadianpress.google.com: Poetry peepshow staged for literary voyeurs at Toronto arts festival

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