Poetry Night: Ann de Leon & Uche Peter Umezurike

During our HAPPENING: Poetry Nights we celebrate poets who, among other things, identify as newcomers, refugees, or immigrants. Despite the fact that poetry inhabits many geographical locations and speaks in different accents and languages, Literature continues to be the most exclusive of arts and the most resistant against outsiders. An immigrant’s linguistic, cultural, and political accents mark them as alien, and hence, undesirable company or colleague among fellow writers and poets.
Date: Thursday, May 23rd
Time: 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Facebook Live

About the poets:
Ann De Leon
Ann De León is an Associate Professor and settler scholar in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta on Treaty 6 territory. She teaches courses in Spanish, Latin American Studies, Women in Latin America, Indigenous and Colonial Latin American history and culture, Translation, and “Aztec” history and Nahuatl. Hailing from Mexico City, her research has centred on Mexican Indigenous pictorial manuscripts (amoxtli or códices), cross-cultural translation practices in Colonial Mexico, and contemporary community translation practices. More recently, she has been exploring representations of the “Aztecs” in popular culture. She is also a closet poet.
Social Media handles:
Ann De Leon (Facebook)

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike
Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike is an assistant professor in the Department of English, University of Calgary, Canada, and the 2021 winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism. An award-winning creative writer, Umezurike is the author of literary works such as there’s more, Double Wahala, Double Trouble, Wish Maker, and a co-editor of Wreaths for a Wayfarer.
Facebook: uumez
Twitter: @UcheUmezurike
Instagram: uche_peter_umez

About the curator:
Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, essayist, and poetry curator, with more than 300 published pieces and three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry open mic (inception 2012). It is a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Bänoo is the co-editor of the poetry anthology: Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution.

HAPPENING Multicultural Festival is the first and only Toronto festival created by community artists, giving center stage to the talent and skills of immigrant, newcomer, and refugee artists. This multi-arts platform includes music, dance, visual arts, community-engaged arts, storytelling, spoken word, and poetry. HAPPENING gives space to embrace the cultural richness of our city while creating professional development opportunities for artists, as well as offering a platform for organizations to connect, and form meaningful collaborations.