Upcoming Rochdale Rhymes and Readings

On Oct. 5 Phoebe Tsang and Valentino Assenza will feature at Rochdale Rhymes and Readings at the Regal Beagle, 335 Bloor St. W. I'm excited as both are fantastic writers. Phoebe Tsang is a page poet, but often commits herself to reading her poetry from memory. Her work is quite impressive and worth listening to live. Valentino Assenza is often considered a spoken word poet, but has published three chapbooks, and in my opinion, is more of a page poet than a performance poet when in comparison to many of the spoken word poets in Toronto. He's performed very well on the spoken word/slam scene. Personally, I think it's because the poetry he brings is so good. He needs not to yell, speak fast, etc. Audiences just connect with him and his honesty.

Not so Fast

That new job I was telling you about crashed and completely fell apart. I won't go into details. For now I've found a job at a clothing/sporting goods store.

So I was at Toronto Poetry Slam last night. Valentino Assenza won and was thrilled. I was thrilled for him. He's a great guy and good things sometimes do happen to good people. I was pulling for him in the finals because he was that good. He'll be featuring at some point at RDRR. He will be featuring with me at the Plasticine Poetry Series on Tuesday (Aug. 19th) as well. Rochdale Rhymes and Readings will be on Sept. 7 and will feature Tomy Bewick and Phlip Arima.