VERSeFest, Ottawa's International Poetry Festival, returns for our fourteenth glorious year of events.
This year's festival, as part of our ongoing rebuilding year, will feature a wide range of award-winning performers in English and French.
A mix of readings and performances will allow participants and poets to gather once more under the roofs of some iconic Ottawa establishments.
Third Night Part 1 Features:
Chris Turnbull is the author of cipher forthcoming from Beautiful Outlaw Press in spring 2024, [ untitled ] in own (CUE Books 2014), and Continua(Chaudiere Books 2015). Her poetry chapbooks, collaborations, and installation pieces are in print, online, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails (www.etuor.wordpress.com).
Jaclyn Piudik is the author of To Suture What Frays (Kelsay Books 2017) and Seduction: Out of Eden (Kelsay Books 2022) co-authored with Janet R. Kirchheimer, as well as three chapbooks, most recently, the corpus undone in the blizzard (Espresso Chapbooks 2019). Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including New American Writing, Columbia Poetry Review, Burning House and Barrow Street. She received a New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing as well as the Alice M. Sellers Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her poem “Clepsydra” won the 2022 Very Small Verse Prize from the League of Canadian Poets. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies and Jewish Studies from the University of Toronto. Forthcoming from Beautiful Outlaw Press in 2024 is her collection of translations of Paul Celan’s French poems. Piudik teaches creative and academic writing at the University of Toronto and has a private mentoring practice. She also works as an editor of poetry and academic monographs. You can find Jaclyn online at https://www.jaclynpiudik.com/.
Mark Goldstein is the author of five trade editions including the award-winning Her Process (Beautiful Outlaw, 2021), and Form of Forms (BookThug, 2012). Goldstein is a writer, translator, and editor whose poetry and criticism have appeared in periodicals and journals such as The Capilano Review, Periodicities, and Jacket2. He is also a graphic artist, musician, and the founder of Beautiful Outlaw Press. Goldstein’s sixth book, Thricelandium, a translation of poems by Paul Celan, will be published in the spring of 2024. He lives in Cabbagetown, Toronto, and is online at www.markgoldstein.ca
Derek Webster's Mockingbird (2015) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poems in Canada. He received an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied with Carl Phillips, and was the founding editor of Maisonneuve magazine. He lives in Montréal and Toronto.His new collection of poems, National Animal, is published by Signal Editions.
Third Night Part 2 Features:
Sandra Ridley is the author of three chapbooks and five books of poetry, the most recent of which is Vixen, published by BookHug Press in the fall of 2023.
David O’Meara is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Masses On Radar (Coach House Books, 2021). His play, Disaster, was nominated for four Rideau Awards. He is a winner of the Ottawa Book Award and the Archibald Lampman Prize, is the director of The Plan 99 Reading Series, was the founding Artistic Director for VERSeFest (Canada). In 2016 he was awarded the Ottawa Arts Council Mid-Career Artist Award. His debut novel, Chandelier, is forthcoming in autumn 2024.
Madeleine Stratford is a poet, a literary translator and a professor at Université du Québec en Outaouais. She was awarded the Orpheus Prize in France for her first poetry book, Des mots dans la neige (Anagrammes, 2009). Four of her translations were shortlisted for the Governor General award in Canada (2016, 2019, 2021, and 2023). Her recent translation work includes Swallowed by Réjean Ducharme (Véhicule Press, 2020) and Courir vers le danger by Sarah Polley (Boréal, 2024). She is currently writing a book of poems, thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council.
Red Bird is an intimate, 80 capacity music venue with excellent sound and sight lines from every seat.
We are licensed and have a selection of locally crafted beers and ciders plus a small but fine selections of wine and spirits.
We also carry a selection of non-alcoholic beverages such as locally made sodas and non-alcoholic beers, and a small menu of snack foods such as pressed sandwiches, hot dogs, soft pretzels and pastries.
Unless otherwise noted, all shows are all ages. Everyone must have a ticket, regardless of age.
Doors open one hour ahead of the performance time.
Parking is available at the south end of our building and on side streets (please be respectful of parking restrictions).
Regrettably, our space is not accessible. There are six gradual and wide steps to our front door with railings on each side. Once inside, everything is on one floor including an accessible washroom.
Event end times will vary depending on the artist.
There is no phone number for the venue. Please email bookings@redbirdlive.ca or reach out via social media with inquiries.
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