Big Mouth Masterclasses in Performance Poetry 2006-2007
Todd Swift
www.toddswift.com
Too often, poets are made to choose between one narrow option, school or clique, or another - it is time to move past the big boy's checkpoints into the wider world, where all poets meet.
Todd's master class will be: The Art and Craft of Poetry Networking, Building Poetry Community
Networking has a bad name in some circles, so let us describe it as building poetry communities instead. The goal is the same - to link far-flung, sometimes isolated and often marginalized literary artists via events, protests and publications. This can greatly enhance one's sense of poetic vocation, advance one's ability to reach new readers (and publishers) and achieve the near impossible: make poetry seem relevant to one's life again.
Todd Swift is one of his generation's leading poetry activists. He will lead the group in exploring ways in which web-sites; The Internet; global anthologies and e-books; protest movements; readings; and other wide-ranging activities, can expand a poet's scope - for action and creativity.
Todd Swift was born in Montreal on Good Friday, 1966. He is the author of three collections of poetry (most recently Rue du Regard, 2004) and an editor of five international anthologies (such as 100 Poets Against the War, Salt, Cambridge, 2003). During his college years he was a champion debater, and upon graduation wrote many hours of TV (HBO, Paramount, CBC etc). In the early 90s he introduced slam to Canada with his regular series, Vox Hunt, and has been an outspoken evangelist of fusion poetry which marries stage and page; more recently he has explored ideas relating to global poetic communities and the use of the Internet.
In 1997 he was given the Young Quebecer of the Year Award in the Arts and Education category, for his poetry projects. He has been short-listed several times for the Irving Layton Award for Poetry. From 1998-2001 he was Visiting Lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, specializing in courses on poetry and film. In late 2001 he moved to Paris where he lived and wrote for two years. He has been poetry editor of the award-winning online magazine nthposition since 2002.
In 2003 he was editorial coordinator for the global peace campaign, Poets Against The War and a special guest reader at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He has reviewed for Books in Canada, Poetry London, and The Dubliner, among others. His poems have recently appeared in Geist (Canada), New American Writing (USA), Other (USA), Orbis, Poetry London, The Shop and are forthcoming in Agenda, Magma and Stand.
In 2004 he was Oxfam's Poet-in-residence. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently compared his poetry projects to those of Ezra Pound in the 10s and 20s. On November 3 2004 he was a guest panelist at Eye to Eye: The British Council's 70th anniversary global conference on cultural relations. His poem "Lost at Austerlitz" appeared on the BBC's Poetry, Please program just before Christmas, 2004. He lives in London's West End with his wife.