Culture

Free Speech Toronto: Poetry, Prose and Music from Downtown

by Jordan Yerman | September 24, 2008 at 01:28 pm

587 views | 2 Recommendations | 1 comment

Free Speech Toronto kicked off its fourth season, hosted by Johan Hultqvist, a musician and great lover of his neighborhood, High Park.

Free Speech showcases the constantly-developing work of residents of the High Park/Parkdale area of Toronto, a hotbed of creativity and flickering neon signs, where it's so far west on West Queen West that it stops being Queen West.

I arrived two minutes late, which meant that I was half an hour early, as the performers, their friends, café regulars and curious strangers such as myself got situated with coffee, beer, wine, or just a comfy spot on a couch.

The first performer was Paul Vermeersch, who got the show going with a bang. When I heard that he would be reading poetry, I winced, since I'm not normally a fan of poetry spoken aloud. Vermeersch, however, conveyed is work as storytelling, and it was beautiful, adventurous and imaginative. From an ode to mitosis to a view from a down-at-heel high-rise, whole worlds were revealed.

My favorite bit was his elegy to Paul Winchell, who not only voiced Tigger, Gargamel and Mutley, but also invented the world's first artificial heart.

Also performing was Treassa Levasseur, who is best known for cruising Toronto with a vanload of instruments, improvising music with spontaneously-created bands. Last night, though, she performed solo from her upcoming CD.

We also heard from Robert Everett-Green, who read us two short stories: one about a man selling vintage slide projectors who gets involved with strangers at a swap-meet, and another about what happens after the messiah arrives.

We also heard some poetry from Erin Robinsong, who struggled a bit with the multimedia aspects of her performance, which dealt with the study of homonyms. This made it more fun to watch, though, at least for me.

Overall, it was a promising start to the season, and I look forward to hearing more from this oft-ignored neighborhood.

(Video: Hultqvist opened with a monologue about his ongoing apartment-hunt)