Word Ruckus 2012:

A Festival of Words & Community

On Saturday, March 3, 2011, from 4:00 p.m. to late-ish, at the Laurel Packinghouse, Okanagan College, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, will present Word Ruckus 2012: a Festival of Words & Community.

What is Word Ruckus? According to the organizers Beks Croker, Jake Kennedy and kevin mcpherson eckhoff, “Word Ruckus is an all-ages literary shin-dig, a pay what you can writerly free-fer-all, a poetic hoe-down and a magical linguistical brouhaha.”  In other words, Word Ruckus is not your grandfather’s poetry reading.

This year, Word Ruckus will be featuring 6 professional writers reading from their poems and stories and novels. The event will also have a car that everyone can cover in words, a Poem Maker Machine, prank calls to literary celebrities, Poet Dress-Up time, Alice B. Toklas Cookbook taste tests, afforable wine and beer (Tree!), free books, kids’ typewriter and art area, open mic slots, and couches and chairs for poetic people to lounge on.

In the early hours of the Ruckus—from approximately 430-7 p.m.—all of the programming will highlight the literary creations of some of the Okanagan’s most talented young folks. The Ruckus begins at 4:30 with a viewing of a collaborative story-video created by some Kelowna Waldorf School Grade 1 & 2 students and then the event moves into some sound poems built by Casorso Grade 4/5 students.  The Ruckus will then feature performances from several Kelowna Secondary high school poets, too. Excitingly, novelist-poet-ukulelist Anne Fleming will also close off the Young Folks section with a short reading.

Okanagan College professor and book-maker, Jason Dewinetz, and some of his Writing & Publishing Diploma students, will also be present to hand-set everyone’s name on a flat-bed letterpress.

The night will also include rad music from Luke Mortenson (of Paperboy) and of course the spectacular literary readings of John Lent, Jason Christie, Rachel Zolf, Jacqueline Turner, Nikki Reimer, and Nancy Holmes. Our writers will also be backed by a trio of musicians. Finally, the night will conclude with an open jam and a LCD-projected chat roulette poetry trivia event.

This year, the fourth year in a row that this big literary party has been thrown, the organizers are expecting about 300 people to attend. Admission is pay what you can and the doors open at 4 pm. For more information about the event please knock on this electronic door: jakedavidkennedy@gmail.com