Speakers for this event

• Chiedza Pasipanodya

  Chiedza Pasipanodya

  Chiedza Pasipanodya is an artist, curator, and writer. In their multidisciplinary practice, Chiedza continually engages with questions regarding remembering, permanence, care and gesture. They have been published in Canadian Art, Macleans, Akimbo, Aguanile Journal, The Westend Phoenix and The Art Momentum, and contributed to publications such as Water, Kinship, Belief: Toronto Biennial of Art 2019-2022 (Art Metropole/ Toronto Biennial of Art) and Impact: Women and Concussion (University of Alberta Press). Their writing includesgrace: Notes on Survival, published in 2014 and more recently The Sweet Spot published by Hush Harbour Press in 2025. Chiedza lives and works in Bloomfield Hills, US, Toronto, CA.

• Desiree Mack

  Desiree Mack

  Desiree Mckenzie is an award-winning poet, arts educator, national poetry slam champion, and voice actor living in Toronto. Her poetry and voice have been featured in works for CBC’s Poetic License series, When Sisters Speak, Clearco Financial, Button Poetry, Kids Help Phone and Home Depot. She facilitates a range of community poetry programs for organizations such as JAYU, VIBE Arts, Unity Charity, and Poetry in Voice. Her debut spoken word EP, Wet Hair, is now available on streaming platforms. In December 2022, she opened for Rupi Kaur on her world tour stop at Massey Hall. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and is working on her first book of poetry.

• Honey Novick

  Honey Novick

  Honey Novick was born on Yorkville Avenue in Toronto, her home base.  She is a singer/songwriter/voice teacher as well as a poet. She directs the Creative Vocalization Studio and facilitates groups at the Secret Handshake Gallery (Voice Yoga), creative writing at the Diane Frankling Cooperative, and artist resource at the Friendly Spike Theatre Band. She is active on Facebook and her website is www.honeynovick.com. She states that “Poetry that speaks to me, as in lyrics, or sounds or philosophy, is my preferance. Poetry that tells stories and gives me perspective and changes me and touches me is what I seek. I love the poetry of Daisaku Ikeda, Kazuko Shiraishi, bill bissett, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, June Clifton, nikki giovanni, Joy Harjo, John Trudell, Mary Oliver, Shel Silverstein, the poetry of the Song of Solomon and many many unsung poets, people in the community who value the language of the poetic soul.”

• 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. Her most recent collaborative book was with Gary Barwin and Gergory Betts, Muttertongue,  Exile Editions 2025, 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.

  URL http://www.lillianallen.ca/

• Mansour Noorbakhsh

  Mansour Noorbakhsh

  Mansour Noorbakhsh writes and translates poetry, and fiction in both English and Persian language (Farsi), his first language. He tries to be a voice for freedom, human rights, and environment in his writings. He believes a dialog between people around the world is an essential need for developing a peaceful world, and poetry helps this dialogue to echo the human rights.Mansour is the York Region Branch Manager and a Member-at-Large on the Executive of “The Ontario Poetry Society” and a member of “The Writers’ Union of Canada” and “League of Canadian Poets”.He has presented “The Contemporary Canadian Poets” in a weekly Persian radio program (https://persianradio.net/ ). The poet’s bio and poems are translated into Farsi and read to the Persian Canadian audiences. Both English (by the poets) and Farsi (by him) readings are on air. This is a project of his to build bridges between the Persian speaking people with Canadian communities and culture.Mansour has published the following books, several articles, and poems in Persianlanguage (Farsi):به سراغ من اگر می آیید / زندگی وشعر سهراب سپهریLife and Poetry of Sohrab Sepehri, Morvarid, Tehran, 1997.دیدار با فلق / زندگی و شعر منوچهر آتشیLife and Poetry of Manuchehr Atashi, Jameshenasan, Tehran, 2024.خمار صد شبه / مجموعه شعرOne Hundred Nights of Yearning, poems in Persian Language, Asemana, Toronto, 2025.One Hundred Nights of Yearning – Asemana BooksHis books in English Language are as follows:In Search of Shared Wishes, FriesenPress, Canada, 2017.In Search of Shared Wishes by Mansour Noorbakhsh | The FriesenPress Bookstore

• Momo Quazi

  Momo Quazi

  Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Momo Quazi discovered her love of literature at a very early age. Books became an early refuge and shaped her lifelong relationship with words. After immigrating to Canada in 2007, she began writing personal reflections that gradually led to contributions to blogs, magazines, and newspapers, and eventually to the publication of three books. Her work often reflects migration, memory, womanhood, belonging, and life between Bangladesh and Canada. Momo is also passionate about literary translation and has translated an extensive selection of poems by acclaimed Canadian poet and former Toronto Poet Laureate A. F. Moritz. For her, writing and translation are ways of carrying emotions, memories, and human experiences across languages and borders.

• Patrick Connors

  Patrick Connors

  Patrick Connors first chapbook, Scarborough Songs, was released by Lyricalmyrical Press in 2013, and charted on the Toronto Poetry Map. Recent publications include Spadina Literary Review, Asemana Magazine, Spirit Fire Review, and Dissident Voice. His first full collection, The Other Life, was released in 2021 by Mosaic Press. His most recent chapbook, Worth the Wait, was released in 2023 by Cactus Press. His latest collection, The Long Defeat, was released in 2024 by Mosaic Press.

• Patrick De Belen

  Patrick De Belen

  This Toronto-based Filipino spoken word poet, performer, speaker, host and educator is one whose formidable acclaim as a performance artist and writer is equaled by his commitment to his community, and his status as an enduring source of insight, energy and mentorship for young poets across North America. As a performer, Patrick has garnered praise and admiration for his ability to blend sharp social commentary with an exhaustless wit, charm and creative candour. This combination of talents has made him a national slam champion, as he was at the 2012 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, and a performer of note on such platforms as CBC, TED Talk, NEXE and others. He is also the first ever recipient of the Spoken Word Poet of Honour award at YouthCanSlam–Canada’s national youth poetry festival, an award he won on the basis of his dual talents as a poet of remarkable ability and an educator of enduring devotion, passion and intelligence.

• Reem Rizk

  Reem Rizk

  Reem Rizk is an Egyptian-Canadian writer with roots in Prince Edward County. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Petal Projections magazine, Founder of Siren’s Muse Publishing, and creator of the submission platform SlushPile. Her debut novel, Ard, explores land, displacement, and the bureaucracies that shape life across borders. Her work is driven by an interest in accessible storytelling and bringing voices typically at the margins to the forefront.

• Sonja Greckol

  Sonja Greckol

  Sonja Greckol lives in Tkaronto and is grateful for subways, LRTs and bike lanes wherever. No Hay Linea En El Tiempo / No Line in Time (Manofalsa Press (Lima/Mexico City) is her latest book. She published Monitoring Station (2023), No Line in Time (2018), Skein of Days (2014) and Gravity Matters (2008). Monitoring Station was listed for the Robert Kroetsch Award, No Line in Time for the LCP Raymond P. Souster Award. Her long poem ‘No Line in Time’ won the 2017 Briar Patch Writing in the Margins Poetry Contest. Her translation of Rosío Cerón’s ‘Trances’ appeared in Jan 2025 Asymptote Journal and above/ground press published her translation of Cerón’s Materia Oscura as Dark Matter, Dark Matter —Diverted. She is the founding poetry editor of Women and Environments International and a member of the Feminist Caucus (LCP). sonjagreckol.com