UGLY's back cover text

What is spoken word?

Is it an art form, or forum, or arts practice? Where is spoken word art situated on the spectrum of literary and performing arts?

Perhaps, it’s something like trying to pin down wind. One can see the effects of wind from sculpted snow and sand dunes to toppled trees and goosebumps on yours arms.

One artist will be a storyteller unaccompanied, or with a deerhide drum. Another performs with a turntableist spinning and scratching vinyl platters to build their soundscape. Yet another appears in costume, in character, similar to an actor delivering a monologue on stage. The next performs with the reggæ-stylin’s of live musicians . . . or elements of stand-up comedy, a crew of graffiti artists, soapbox evangelism, street theatre, guerrilla art, a multichannel universe . . .

Inside this paper packet of carbon-based powders, fused with the energy or channelled heat of the sun, are pieces by spoken word artists gathered in Banff, Alberta, in April 2007, before the second gathering of [SWAN] Spoken Word Arts Network.

­—Joe Blades, editor

UGLY will be a limited-edition (first printing 100 copies), 40 page, saddle-stapled, digitally-printed chapbook with tan end-papers and a full-colour cover, ISBN 978-1-55391-063-3. Copies will be donated to the Paul D. Fleck Library and Archives @ The Banff Centre, and with the Legal Deposit Office of Library & Archives Canada. Copies will be available for $12 prepaid postage-paid purchase from the publisher, Broken Jaw Press, Box 596 Stn A, Fredericton NB E3B 5A6.

T-shirt: Gaspereau Press
loc: 411 Lloyd Hall, The Banff Centre
temp: 6 C
sound: Muntant X on Space channel