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TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS SPOKEN WORD
SERIES
1998-2003
VANCOUVER, CANADA
Tales of Ordinary Madness
was one of Vancouver, BC's longest running weekly
spoken word series from 1998 to 2003, second only to the Black Sheep
Books series. It took place every Tuesday
night in the heart of East Vancouver at Bukowski's
on Commercial Drive. It was yelled, spilled, broken, spoken word in an
open mic format with frequent special guests from across the
city, country and continent in the spirit of free
expression.
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The series was
founded by poet Susan Mullen
in
August of
1998. She ran it for two years before
passing
it on to Tanya Evanson/Mother Tongue Media from July 2000-2002. It
then passed on to poet Andrea Papineau
for six months and finally to poet The Svelte Ms. Spelt
until summer 2003 when it gracefully passed into Canadian spoken word
history.
Tales
was the subject of several
radio commentaries,
community television documentaries and at the end of my run, film
students from Vancouver Film School made a
documentary about the series called Speak
Up (2002) which featured poets The Svelte Ms. Spelt,
Salmon Avalanche and Zeechillah the Great (RIP).
Bukowski's was a regular gathering place for
scores of independent local and international poets, writers,
musicians, performers
and artists. I'd like to
give a big thankful shout out to all the artist barflies - you are all
blessed: Susan Mullen,
Andrea Papineau, The Svelte Ms. Spelt, Ted Joans, Jim Christie, C.R.
Avery, Shane Koyczan, Kagan Goh, Fernando Raguero, S.R. Duncan, Laurie
Bricker, Susan Cormier, Conrad Sarsnick, Rocco de Giacomo, Salmon
Avalanche, R.C. Weslowski, Abby Wener, Angelo Renai, Al Mader, Anna
Martin, Mark Berube, Shayne Koyzan, Jim Christie, George Scaba Koller,
Diane Laloge,
Gary Carlson, Katrin Bowen, Laurent Fough, Marc Callender, Mahatma
Slim, Noelle Pion, Vic Licorish, Vincy Kamberk, Reese McBeth, Roger Blenheim, Rachel Flood, Robert
Waltz, John
from the Bukowski
kitchen, Zeechilla the
Great (RIP) and T.Paul
Ste.Marie (RIP); forgive
me if you are not listed here... contact me
if you think you
should be.
It’s spoken word madness.
It’s wholesale lip-dribbling dub/sonnet/hiphop mania.
It’s back-to-bacchanalia.
It’s a rib- sticking wake. GEORGIA STRAIGHT
2001
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