All The Way to The Stage! Poet Spotlight

Speakers for this event

• Desiree Mckenzie

  Desiree Mckenzie

  Desiree Mckenzie is an award-winning poet, arts educator, poetry slam champion, and voice actor living in Toronto. Her poetry and voice have been featured in works for CBC, Clearco, Button Poetry, Kids Help Phone and Home Depot. In December 2022, she opened for Rupi Kaur on her world tour stop at Massey Hall. She is currently an MFA candidate in the University of Guelph Creative Writing program and working on her first book of poetry.

• Gianna Patriarca

  Gianna Patriarca

  Gianna Patriarca is a multiple award winner of 13 books. Her poetry, fiction and children’s literature is extensively anthologized, adapted for Canada stage, CBC radio drama and appears in numerous documentaries. Italian Women and Other Tragedies is in its fourth printing and translated into Italian. This Way Home, published by Guernica Editions in 2022, is her latest collected and new work.

• Joseph Maviglia

  Joseph Maviglia

  In the great tradition of spoken word, performance poets and singer-songwriters, Joseph Maviglia is renowned for his energized musical performances, written text and non-fiction essays.Joseph lives in Toronto. His most recent collection is ‘In a Cage of Sunlight’ (The Selected Works of Joseph Maviglia) (Guernica Editions 2025).

• Lillian Allen

  Lillian Allen

  Toronto’s seventh poet laureate, Lillian Allen is an acclaimed foremother of Canadian Poetry. She received an Honourary Doctor of Letters from Wilfrid Laurier University for her significant contribution and impact on Canadian literature.A poet, writer/performer, and a long-time arts activist, she is a leading international exponent of dub poetry with its politically charged reggae-infused aesthetic of resistance and poetic calls for justice, peace, joy, pleasure and revolution. Lillian has also been a successful Cultural Strategist, advising three levels of government and played a key role in transforming the Toronto and Canadian cultural landscapes. A mentor to the mentors for individuals and groups across many cultures, she brings her critical and effective equity and community building strategies to institution such as OCAD University. A creative writing professor at OCAD University, she initiated and led the development of a BFA in Creative Writing Program that acknowledges community connected writing, traditional, non-traditional and new writing forms.Over the decades, she created opportunities for new generations of artists and initiated and led community-building youth-supporting arts programs such as Fresh Elements and Fresh Arts. She has received numerous accolades, citations and awards, and is the recipient of The Toronto Cultural Champions Award, The Margo Bindhardt Award for significantly impacting the arts in Toronto through both creative work and activism, the William P. Hubbard Award for Race. She is the recipient of the Writer’s Trust Margaret Laurence Lecture Award, 2020/ and a recipient of the Gustafson Distinguished Poet award 2021.Lillian’s newest collection is Make the World New- selected works, old & new, edited by Ronald Cummings, WLU Press 2021, other books include Women Do this Every Day, Psychic Unrest, plus books and recordings for children and young people. Also, a globally recognized recording artist, Ms. Allen is a two-time Canadian Juno award winner for her recordings Conditions Critical, and for Revolutionary Tea Party which was recently nominated for the prestigious Polaris Heritage Prize in Canada.

• Subrata Kumar Das

  Subrata Kumar Das

  Subrata Kumar Das, a writer and curator, immigrated to Canada from Bangladesh in 2013. A recipient of Nalanda Best Canadian Bengali Author Award in 2023, and Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award in 2018, Subrata has 31 books to his credit and a record of joining the TIFA for three years.