Soaring Pulse Poetry Festival
Submitted by Jeremy on June 10, 2012 - 11:19pm
The spring pulse poetry festival (northern Ontario’s largest annual poetry/arts event) had its most successful year. The big news was the PoeTrain Express group arriving from Toronto for the weekend. The fifth annual festival felt the pulse of 34 poets, musicians, media, and documentary film crew. Sharing a historic ONR “Northlander” trip from Union Station to Cobalt. Toronto’s Poet Laureate Dionne Brand read us a send-off train poem while we waited to board. Never before had a poetry festival started on a train. The programme included homage poems to railways, historic poems of stations/area, open mic readings, book launches. Poet/musician Ian Ferrier Montreal and Honey Novick singer/poet Toronto received Canada Reading Tour Grants for their special performances. League president Susan McMaster, Allan Briesmaster Toronto rep, and league poets Kate Marshall Flaherty, Marsha Barber, Marianne Jones, Lynn Tait, Debbie Okun Hill, and Mick Burrs participated too.Toronto poets included Ian Hanna ,Kent Bowman, Shannon Pass,PeterMartin, and Roki (roghyeh) Ghanbaralizadeh,
The PoeTrainers were met by an enthusiastic crowd of Cobalters and those who support Ontario government investment in a vital public transportation infrastructure that’s being sold to the private sector.