Poetry London Online presents Madeline Bassnett and El Jones with Melissa Schnarr

This is the third reading of Poetry London's 2020/2021 Season, featuring Madeline Bassnett, El Jones and Melissa Schnarr. (time stamps, book purchase links, & sponsors below.

00:00:13 Welcome and Land Acknowledgement
00:03:14 Melissa Schnarr - Local Opener
00:07:34 Introduction to Madeline Bassnett (by David Huebert)
00:09:05 Madeline Bassnett, Feature Reading Part 1
00:18:29 Madeline Bassnett, Feature Reading Part 2
00:29:09 Introduction to El Jones (by Terese Mason Pierre)
00:31:44 El Jones, Feature Reading Part 1
00:44:03 El Jones, Feature Reading Part 2
00:59:53 Thank You and Closing Notes

POET BIOS:

Madeline Bassnett is the author of the poetry collection Under the Gamma Camera (Gaspereau 2019), and two chapbooks, Pilgrimage and Elegies. Her work has recently appeared in The Scales Project, Watch Your Head, long con magazine, Prairie Fire, Hamilton Arts and Letters, The New Quarterly, and in the anthology, In Fine Form, 2nd Edition: A Contemporary Look at Canadian Form Poetry. She teaches in the Department of English and Writing Studies at Western University.

El Jones is a spoken word poet, an educator, journalist, and a community activist living in African Nova Scotia. She was the fifth Poet Laureate of Halifax. In 2016, El was a recipient of the Burnley “Rocky” Jones human rights award for her community work and work in prison justice. She is a co-founder of the Black Power Hour, a live radio show with incarcerated people on CKDU that creates space for people inside to share their creative work and discuss contemporary social and political issues, and along with this work, she supports women in Nova Institution in writing and sharing their voices. El served as the 15th Nancy’s Chair of Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University for the 2017-2019 term. Her book of spoken word poetry, Live from the Afrikan Resistance! was published by Roseway Press in 2014. El writes a weekly column for the Halifax Examiner, and was an Atlantic Journalism Award winner in 2018. El would like to pay tribute to the many nameless and unrecognized women whose work makes it possible for her to be here today.

Melissa Schnarr is an Anishinaabe/Mohawk writer, poet and scholar from Deshkan Ziibii (London, Ontario). Her work has appeared in the Windsor Review, TNQ, Luna Station Quarterly and Yellow Medicine Review. She is currently working on a collection of 'poems and peculiarities' to be released next year.

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