A Moment At The Maple Leaf

As part of the longest running literary reading open mic event in the USA (40 years!), Dean Bowen (NL) will be featured reader for this May Sunday.

The Maple Leaf Bar hosts the longest continuously running poetry reading series in North America. It is free and open to the public. The poetry series has been a platform for a great diversity of writers to present their work, from the published and well-established to the novice poet alike. The reading series was founded in 1979 by Franz Heldner, Bob Stock, and the consummate poet laureate of the Maple Leaf Bar, Everette Maddox.

Dean Bowen, currently in residency with Deltaworkers, is a poet, performer and psychonaut. He examines the dynamics of the composite identity and how this relates to a political and social positioning of the self. Bowen questions how he and others relate to the idea of their ‘blackness’ in relation to the diasporic spreading of black bodies over different continents. This ethnic and cultural identity marker has become an international transcontinental dialogue that aims to disrupt the alleged hegemony of the western imperialist narrative. Through his writing he feels connected to this larger conversation.

Presented as part of the Maple Leaf Bar Literary Readings

Thanks to Nancy Harris