Sheri-D Wilson

Last updated
Sheri-D Wilson
Sheridwilson.jpg
Occupationpoet, educator, speaker, producer, activist
NationalityCanadian
Literary movement Dada, Surrealism, Spoken word
Website
www.sheridwilson.com

Sheri-D Wilson, CM [1] D. Litt, [2] (also known as "The Mama of Dada") [3] is a Canadian poet, spoken word artist, educator, speaker, producer and activist. [4]

Contents

From 2018-2020, Sheri-D Wilson was Poet Laureate of Calgary. [5] In 2019 Sheri-D was appointed one of the country’s highest honours, The Order of Canada, for her contributions as a spoken word Poet and her leadership in the spoken word community. [1] In 2017, she received her Doctor of Letters—Honoris Causa from Kwantlen University. [2] In 2015 Sheri-D was awarded with The City of Calgary Arts Award, for her contributions as an artist and community activist and was named, Best of Calgary many times. [6]

In 2019, her play, "A Love Letter to Emily Carr," was produced by Handsome Alice Theatre in Calgary and published by Frontenac Press. [7] Her collection, "A Book of Sensations," addresses our relationship with the earth. [8]

Her 9th poetry collection, "OPEN LETTER: Woman Against Violence Against Women," tackles difficult terrain. Conceived from improvisation, this collage of poems culminates in a flood poem as the desecration of the earth is compared to the treatment of women. Throughout the work a drumbeat, a heartbeat, a healing chant pervades. "OPEN LETTER," was nominated for the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Award and the ReLit Award. [9]

Her last collection, "Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe," is the first poetry book to use QR codes that connect to video, audio, and interactive talk-back. [10] Her collection, "Re:Zoom" (2005, Frontenac House), won the 2006 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the CanLit Award. [11]

She has three Spoken Word CDs, [12] and 4 award-winning VideoPoems including: Airplane Paula (2001), Spinsters Hanging in Trees (2002), all produced for BravoFACT. [13]

A strong advocate for social change and community building in Sheri-D Wilson founded The Spoken Word Program at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She was director and faculty of that program (2005-2012). [14] At which time Tanya Evanson took over as director of the program. Sheri-D Wilson also edited The Spoken Word Workbook: Inspiration from Poets who Teach in 2011 (CSWS/BCP), an educational tool for teaching and writing Spoken Word. [15]

In 2012, she was featured in Chatelaine Magazine, in a story about the creative mind. A regular on CBC, [16] In 2013, she was interviewed by Canadian icon Sheilah Rogers. In 2011 she was honored to be presented by The National Slam of Canada in “Legends of Spoken Word.” In 2009 CBC called her one of the Top 10 Poets in Canada. In 2003 she won the USA Heavyweight title for poetry, and in 2006 The National Slam of Canada presented her with the Poet of Honour Award. Of the beat tradition, in 1989 Sheri-D studied at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, in Boulder, Colorado.

Her influences include Guillaume Apollinaire, T.S. Eliot, Diane di Prima, Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg. [10]

Community

Other awards

Reading highlights

Other highlights

Selected works

Poetry

Editor

CDs

Plays

Related Research Articles

George Harry Bowering, is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Brett</span> Canadian poet, journalist, editor and novelist

Brian Brett is a Canadian poet, journalist, editor and novelist. He has been writing and publishing since the late 1960s, and he has worked as an editor for several publishing firms, including the Governor-General's Award-winning Blackfish Press. He has also written a three-part memoir of his life in British Columbia.

Myrna Kostash is a Canadian writer and journalist. She has published several non-fiction books and written for many Canadian magazines including Chatelaine. Of Ukrainian descent, she was born in Edmonton, Alberta and educated at the University of Alberta, the University of Washington, and the University of Toronto. She resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shane Koyczan</span> Canadian spoken word poet, writer, and member of the group Tons of Fun University

Shane L. Koyczan, born 22 May 1976, is a Canadian spoken word poet, writer, and member of the group Tons of Fun University. He is known for writing about issues like bullying, cancer, death, and eating disorders. He is most famous for the anti-bullying poem “To This Day” which has over 25 million views on YouTube.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alison Pick</span> Canadian writer (born 1975)

Alison Pick is a Canadian writer. She is most noted for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Far to Go, and was a winner of the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for most promising writer in Canada under 35.

The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word is an annual festival produced by Spoken Word Canada and planned by a local Festival Organizing Committee in each host city.

Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, focusing primarily on underrepresented genres such as underground literature, LGBT literature, multiracial literature, graphic novels, visual arts, progressive and activist non-fiction and works in translation, and is noted for founding the annual Three-Day Novel Contest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontenac House</span> Canadian publishing company

Frontenac House is an independent publishing house located in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, founded in 2000 by Rose and David Scollard. The publishing house focuses on poetry, but has reached into other genres as well, including fiction, photography, Children/YA books, and non-fiction. Since its founding in 2000, the press has published over 120 original titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angie Abdou</span> Canadian writer

Angela "Angie" Abdou is a Canadian writer of fiction and nonfiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Coyote</span> Canadian spoken word performer and writer

Ivan E. Coyote is a Canadian spoken word performer, writer, and LGBT advocate. Coyote has won many accolades for their collections of short stories, novels, and films. They also visit schools to tell stories and give writing workshops. The CBC has called Coyote a "gender-bending author who loves telling stories and performing in front of a live audience." Coyote is non-binary and uses singular they pronouns. Many of Coyote's stories are about gender, identity, and social justice. Coyote currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Jill Robinson</span> Canadian writer, editor and teacher (born 1955)

Jacqueline Jill Robinson is a Canadian writer and editor. She is the author of a novel and four collections of short stories. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and literary journals including Geist, the Antigonish Review, Event, Prairie Fire and the Windsor Review. Her novel, More In Anger, published in 2012, tells the stories of three generations of mothers and daughters who bear the emotional scars of loveless marriages, corrosive anger and misogyny.

Murdoch Maclean Burnett was a Canadian poet, performance artist, editor, and community activist.

Maureen Hynes is a Canadian poet.

Sheri Benning is a Canadian writer from Saskatchewan, Canada. Her two books of poetry, Earth After Rain and Thin Moon Psalm have garnered numerous awards. Her poetry, essays, and fiction have also appeared in many Canadian literary journals and anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orunamamu</span>

Orunamamu was an American/Canadian professional storyteller, raconteur and griot. Her peripatetic storytelling led her on extensive, demanding and often impromptu journeys across the United States including Alaska, overseas to the United Kingdom and Egypt and finally to Canada. She is included in a number of books, journals, articles and two documentaries. Her performance medium was the spoken voice in performances to audiences. For Orunamamu storytelling became her cause as well as her art form, because "[s]torytelling demonstrates the humanity in every culture." Orunamamu died in Calgary, Alberta on 4 September 2014 at the age of 93. She was booked to perform at the Calgary Spoken Word Festival in the summer of 2014. Orunamamu has been the subject of countless portraits over many decades and in many countries, including photographers such as Arthur Koch (Oakland), Kenneth Locke (Calgary) and Jim Hair. Many of these are shared through social media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Micheline Maylor</span> Canadian poet and academic

Micheline Maylor is a Canadian poet, academic, critic and editor.

Ian French is a Canadian Spoken Word Artist and poet that goes by the handle IF THE POET, or, IF. Among his championships he was Canadian champion in 2014, and placed third in the 2015 world championship. French was the focus of the 2015 documentary film IF the Poet.

Arielle Twist is a Nehiyaw (Cree) multidisciplinary artist and sex educator based in Halifax, Nova Scotia located in Canada. She is originally from George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan. and identifies as a Two-Spirit, transgender woman She was mentored in her early career by writer Kai Cheng Thom and has since published a collection of poems in 2019 in her book Disintegrate / Dissociate, began working as a sex educator at Venus Envy and become an MFA candidate at OCAD University Graduate Studies in the Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design (IAMD) program. Twist has also expanded her artistry past poetry into visual and performance art. Over her time as an artist, Arielle Twist has had her work featured in Khyber Centre for the Arts, Toronto Media Arts Centre, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, Centre for Art Tapes, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Twist has also won the Indigenous Voices Award for English poetry and the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for emerging LGBTQ writers in 2020.

Jillian Christmas is a Canadian poet from Vancouver, British Columbia. Her work focuses on anti-colonial narratives, family, heritage, and identity. She is most noted as the 2021 winner of the League of Canadian Poets' Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award for spoken word poetry. Furthermore, she has represented both Vancouver and Toronto at 11 national poetry events and was the first Canadian to make the final stage at the Women of the World Poetry Slam.

This is a list of Municipal Poets Laureate in Alberta, Canada.

References

  1. 1 2 "A list of new Order of Canada recipients". National Post. 27 December 2019.
  2. 1 2 "KPU awards honorary degree to award-winning spoken word poet Sheri-D Wilson".
  3. Steward, Gillian (29 August 2011). "Steward: Ranching, oil and . . . poetry". Toronto Star . Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  4. 100 Sheri-D Wilson profile
  5. "Calgary Poet Laureate". 18 February 2022.
  6. "Best Author/Poet: Sheri-D Wilson".
  7. "A Love Letter to Emily C | Arts Commons".
  8. "The Book of Sensations Copertina flessibile" (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-10-10.
  9. "Calgary poet Sheri-D Wilson wants women to realize their strength after reading Open Letter".
  10. 1 2 Hagen, Tanya (1 March 2012). "FFWD - Calgary Arts - Books - No return to the urn". Fast Forward Weekly . Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  11. "Alberta Literary Awards Finalists and Winners".
  12. "Official Store of Sheri-D Wilson". 18 September 2018.
  13. "Sheri-D Wilson - YouTube". YouTube .
  14. "A Brief History of Literary Arts at Banff Centre".
  15. Wilson, Sheri D. (31 March 2011). The Spoken Word: Inspiration from Poets Who Teach. ISBN   978-1894773409.
  16. Dirks, Doug (10 September 2014). "Orunamamu". The Homestretch. CBC. Retrieved 10 September 2014. In this interview with Doug Dirks, Sheri-D talked about storyteller Orunamamu.