Community event promises entertainment and healthy eating
Performance poet Ali Riley is featured at Beat Salad: The perfervid poetry 100-mile potluck apotheosis! on Wednesday, June 18, at the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre: 969 Raymer Rd.
What: Beat Salad: The perfervid poetry 100-mile potluck apotheosis!
Who: Award-winning performance poet Ali Riley; musician Rhoneil; guest poets reading their works and Beat poetry cover versions.
When: Wednesday, June 18, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre: 969 Raymer Rd. Kelowna B.C.
Creative Studies students at UBC’s Okanagan campus have brought a new trend to the popular 100-mile diet—combining beat poetry with veggies for a gastronomic and literary smorgasbord for all styles and tastes.
Graduate students Kelly Shepard, organizing the event, along with Clay McCann and master of fine arts graduate Julia Prudhomme, describes Beat Salad as a confluence of performance poetry, local foods, and Beat discourse. The event will feature a number of talented performers including creative writing students who currently hold a monthly Beat Reading in Kelowna, and members of the community. Everyone involved will be encouraged to read personal Beat style poems as well as covers of works by Beat poets.
Special guests include performance poet Ali Riley and musician Rhoneil. Riley’s third book, 33 Million Solitudes, (Frontenac House) explores Canadian themes of isolation and survival with a 21st century twist, and reimagines the fur trade as a modern metaphor for love. Her first poetry collection, Wayward, was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Memorial award, and her second, Tear Down, was short-listed for the Re-Lit award. She was born in Calgary and was the singer/songwriter of the seminal psycho-country band Sacred Heart of Elvis.
In addition to the entertainment, there will be a 100-mile-style potluck and organizers hope to engage a community audience that will bring food and share with each other.
“The potluck will transform the event into a non-conventional reading format that is at once comfortably familiar as well as celebrating local/ regional agriculture,” says Shepard. “The Beats and the 100-mile potluck make sense together, promoting an ethos of sharing, embracing otherness, multiple voices, community and adventure.”
The 100-Mile Potluck encourages the sharing of dishes with food sourced within 100 miles of the participants’ tables. The idea is to encourage dialogue and sustainable practices in a culturally stimulating context.
“Our hope is to promote awareness about where our food comes from and the costs and benefits attached to the decisions we make about our food sources,” says Shepard. “We’re hoping to combine performances and dinner in a non-conventional format.”
Beat Salad is an open event. The community is welcome to take part in the 100-mile potluck and the poetry readings.
Find out more at: http://beatsaladevent.wordpress.com/
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