Acclaimed Canadian poet and spoken word artist Brandon Wint will open Kometa Academy by sharing poems that foreground the complexities of love within the human condition and within human relationships. Brandon’s delicately-rendered, thoughtful poems will be used as catalysts for a discussion on the ways love presents itself in our lives, and how notions of love are complicated by social factors like race, class and the realities of climate change.
Brandon will also offer a poetry writing workshop, in which participants will explore the ways in which the reading and writing of poetry can strengthen and clarify our relationships to one another, to our family and to the planet.
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Brandon Wint is a nationally acclaimed poet, spoken word artist and arts educator based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Brandon’s work as a writer exemplifies deep attention to the craft of poetry, the nuances of language, and the social power of words. As a performer, Brandon Wint displays
the poise, passion and spiritual generosity of one who has graced stages across the country at music festivals, conferences, universities and grassroots events alike. Brandon is a poet whose work has garnered praise and attention in a variety of mediums. He is a two-time Canadian national poetry slam champion. In print, he is the author of one chapbook, Love, Our Master (In/Words Magazine and Press, 2014) and was a contributor to the only comprehensive anthology of Black Canadian poetry, The Great
Black North (Frontenac House, 2012). As an essayist, his work has most recently appeared in Black Writers Matter (University of Regina Press, 2019), an anthology of personal essays about the lives of Black people in Canada. He has also been a Writer In Residence with Word Travels in Sydney, Australia. Brandon has also released three recording projects, including Devotion EP (2015), The Long Walk Home (2016), and his most recent album, Infinite Mercies, which he showcased at the second annual Black Arts Matter festival in February of 2018. His first book of poetry, Divine Animal, is forthcoming from Write Bloody North in autumn 2019.
Warmest thank you goes to Embassy of Latvia in Canada / Latvijas vēstniecība Kanādā for supporting Brandon’s participation in Komēta festival!