sheri-d wilson
www.sheridwilson.com
The Mama of Dada – sheri-d wilson (poet, playwright, performer, film-maker, essayist, and educator) is Internationally renowned for her jazz infused performance style laced with a dangerous wit.
In 2005, she was invited to present her work in Ottawa as part of the Alberta Scene celebration to commemorate Alberta’s 100 year centennial, and in 2006 she was honoured with Global TV’s Woman of Vision award, and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry.
Her live performance/readings highlights include: Westcoast Poetry Festival (2005, Vancouver), 2nd Festival Voix D’Ameriques (2005, Montreal), The Bumbershoot Bout 2003 – Winner of Heavyweight title (2003, Seattle), The Superbowl of Poetry – Winner of title (2003, Seattle), The World Poetry Bout 2002 (Taos, New Mexico), Poetry Africa 2001 (2001: Durban & Jo’burg, South Africa), Shakespeare and Co. (2001: Paris), PanCanadian Wordfest (2000, 1995: Calgary/Banff), Vancouver International Writers Festival (2002, 2000, 1995, 1993, 1990: Vancouver), Bumbershoot (1999, 1991, 1989: Seattle), Small Press Festival (1990: New York), Harbourfront Reading Series (1993: Toronto), Spoken Word Festival (1996: Montreal), Brainwash Reading Series (1995: San Francisco).
sheri-d wilson has six collections of published poetry: Bulls Whip & Lambs Wool (1989, Petarade Press), Swerve (1993, Arsenal Pulp Press), Girl’s Guide to Giving Head (1996, Arsenal Pulp Press), The Sweet Taste of Lightning (1999, Arsenal Pulp Press), Between Lovers (2002, Arsenal Pulp Press), Re:Zoom (2005, Frontenac House).
Her poetry CD, arranged by Russell Broom, is entitled sweet taste of lightning (2000, swerve sound). Her VideoPoems produced for BRAVO! TV have been wildly successful. Airplane Paula, 2001, was #1 on BRAVO for many weeks, and was nominated for five AMPIA awards. Spinsters Hanging in Trees, launched in Nov. 2002 (just after Sex In The City), won Gold at the Houston Film Festival; three ACE awards; was nominated for two Rosie (AMPIA) awards, and won a Rosie (AMPIA) for best short or vignette.
She participated in the Word Up project, which included a spoken word anthology, a CD with Virgin Records, and a video with MuchMusic (Toronto). Sheri-D’s work is also featured in Poetry Nation (1998, Véhicule Press), Addicted: Notes From The Belly Of The Beast (2001, personal essay, Greystone Books), Ribsauce (2001, Véhicule Press, Short Fuse: A Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry (2001, Norton Anthology E-Book), and side/lines (2002, Insomniac Press).
She participated in the Action Poetry symposium at The Banff Centre, and participated in the 2000 Woman’s Project at The Playwright’s Workshop of Montreal. In 2000, she participated in Out Loud Alive (PanCanadian Wordfest/Banff Centre Co-pro) now seen on web site www.outloudalive.org.
In 1991 her Spoken Word play Confessions: A Jazz Play, directed by Teri Snelgrove, was performed at Tamahnous Theatre (Van.), published in Theatrum (T.O.), and nominated for four Jessie Awards (Van.). She co-created/performed Boy Wonder with Ballet B.C., and Classic Jam with Decidedly Jazz Dance, in Clagary. Her jazz-play Between Lovers: Poetry As For Play premiered at One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo 2003, and was also presented in March at The Belfry Theatre in Victoria. Her newest Spoken Word play Adventures of the Trick-Riders: During the Apocalypse while Thinking of Jesus premiered at the 2006 High Performance Rodeo in Calgary.
Of the beat tradition, in 1989 sheri-d studied at Naropa, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder. sheri-d’s unique poetry shatters all conventions. In 2003 she won the Heavyweight of Poetry, USA in a Bumbershoot Bout against Andrei Codrescu. sheri-d wilson’s work has been featured on CBC’s Word Beat, Sounds like Canada, Canada Reads and ZED TV and she has written many articles for the Globe and Mail.
sheri-d is a leader; as a poet, innovator and activist; in the revival of Spoken Word Poetry which has grown from a grassroots movement into the literary world. She is the founder and Artistic Director of the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, and a founding member of SWAN (Spoken Word Arts Network).
www.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com
Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen . . . genetically tinker with these Canadians and add a chromosome of Patti Smith and a double-helix strand from Jim Carroll. . . you have sheri-d wilson.–San Francisco Examiner
Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen: here’s action poet sheri-d wilson dancing her way onto the page with rawness and rage. This book is a live performance.
–Anne Waldman
A beautiful work devoted to some of the things that are precious to me. This work understands the importance of giving honour to the anima, the feminine spirit, in fact the Goddess. When in doubt Swerve.
–Marianne Faithfull
sheri-d's poems give the tone-deaf world tone; they take the clumsy world and make it dance; hey use language like a starved puma uses a woodcock, feathers everywhere, meat yum; her work remakes Paris, tropicalizes Canada, and eroticizes the proletariat. Apollinaire loves her, Cocteau illustrates her, the Surrealists fight over her, I endorse her. sheri-d's poetry has women in every port, songs in every cafe, spies in every congrave. she is a courage teacher, Whitman's pal.
-Andrea Codrescu
In the expansive, generous, bloody heart of poetry, in the dark messy places, in the sobs and ROTFL, in the luminous meditative gardens watered with anger and truth, sheri-d wilson lives, writes and stomps. For her a poem is always between lovers, Poet and Reader, e.g. In Leticia Knight she has created one of poetry’s great characters: the Emily Dickinson Frankenstein, a Gaia for the Digital Age. This is Penelope’s Odyssey. O! What fun and pain!
-Bob Holman
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