Ariadne’s note: World Poetry hosts Ariadne Sawyer and Israel Moto welcomed Lavana and John La Brey, owners of the popular Renaissance Bookstore in New Westminster. A fascinating interview about the world of bookstores , community and our relationship with books. Music by Westfall Mountain Band , Ablaye Cissoko and Volker Goetze. E poem by Nasima Yasmin from Bangladesh : Regards for You.
To hear the radio interview, CLICK HERE!
Featured poet
Ariadne’s note: The World Poetry Cafe Radio Show with hosts Lucia Gorea and Israel Mota welcomed the talented poet Sonja to the studio. TO HEAR THE SHOW CLICK HERE!
Sonja Grgar writes poetry, essays, and short fiction. She has been a featured reader at Hogan’s Alley Café and the TWS (The Writers Studio) Reading Series in Vancouver, and at New Westminster’s Poetic Justice. She has both opened for the Surrey Muse Open Mic, as well as hosted the group’s meetings. Sonja also regularly contributes to Surrey Muse’s blog in her new capacity as the group’s Media Coordinator.
Sonja’s work has been published in an Ontario based anthology called That Not Forgotten (Hidden Brook Press, 2012), in the “Globe and Mail”, and has been broadcast on CFRC 101.9 FM Radio (Kingston, ON).
In the past year Sonja has created four short magazine style television stories for a Shaw TV program titled Local Connection. The latest of those stories is a profile of the Surrey Muse group, and can currently be found on utube. She has also been a guest on Shaw TV’s Money and You, where she spoke about her writing and her salsa dance classes.
Most recently Sonja co-hosted an episode of This Night Wounds Time, a radio program airing on CFRU 93.3 FM (Guelph, ON) devoted to avant-garde music. The episode Sonja was involved with explored Serbian music in the context of cultural identity and nostalgia. She was also just featured as the book signing author at Renaissance Books in New Westminster where she presented the That Not Forgotten anthology.
Olga
By Sonja Grgar
Her eyes have known
It all;
The silent cry of a
Child who doesn’t belong,
The lonesome lullaby
Of bodies hushed to sleep
Where the soul
Feeds a silent storm
All night long.
Her eyes have known
The will to
Make any seed grow,
To snatch it from the gloomy soil
And the hungry rain,
And have it reach
For itself again.
Her eyes have known
A wisdom others barely touch,
Which seeps from her
Like incensed breath,
Like water that carves
A love letter out of rock.
Copyright Sonja Grgar 2012
Ariadne’s Note:
It is with great pleasure that we announce the award winners for the World Poetry Canada International Peace Festival 2013.
Each entry was nominated by one or more people, and went through a background check. The awards are based on humanitarian and peace efforts to make the world a better place.
Many of the award winners are youth. They show a wonderful commitment for peace and the respect of others. Each award winner has sacrificed to promote peace and understanding and in some instances have shown great courage in the face of adversity.
For the first time ever, we had 10 film, doc entries. With help from our community parter Cinevolution, we were able to include the film award winners this year. The two films will be shown during the peace festival.
Please welcome the World Poetry Canada International Peace Festival 2013 Award Winners:
A flower for our award winners
Empowered Poets:
Empowered poet, Wanda-John Kehewin.
Empowered Poet Yilin Yang.
Godwin Barton.
Empowered Poet Saleh Mazumder.
Empowered poet, Penn Kemp.
Empowered poet, Oswald Okaitei.
Empowered poet, Olawuyi Mutiu.
Empowered poet, Ljubomir Mihajlovski,
Empowered poet, Ljupce Zahariev,
Empowered poet, Michael Kwaku Kesse Somuah.
Empowered poet, Selene Bertelsen.
Empowered poet, Caroline C. Nazareno, (Ceri Naz)
Empowered Poet, Yaman Saleh.
Rio Samaya, (Pancho and Sal) Empowered Band.
Yoshifuma Sakura, Empowered Composer
Angelo Moroni, Empowered actor.
Sattar Saberi , Empowered artist.
Kwame Agyare Yirenkyi, Empowered Graphic Artist.
Atia Abawi, Empowered Journalist.
Film:
Sharif Saedi, Empowered filmmaker (Silence)
Rahmat Haidari , Empowered Director (Broken Voices of Poetry)
Sajia Hussain Azmat , Empowered Humanitarian & Director (Broken Voices of Poetry)
Photography:
M&M, Empowered Photographer
World Poetry Ambassador to Nepal, Mk Shrestha.
World Poetry Ambassador to Japan: Frederico Gordo.
Greetings from our winners 2012!
Award winners 2012!