It’s time for our Van Slam Finals! Poets will slam for their chance to be our Representative for the upcoming Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Championship, and be awarded the championship slam wrestling style belt (with your name engraved on it!)

As always, our event is in our hybrid live & online format. Bring your selves and your words to Community Pizza, 1191 Commercial Dr, or to the Van Slam zoom space. We’ll also have a featured set from NIsha Patel!

A bit about them: Nisha Patel is the Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Edmonton. An award-winning disabled queer spoken word poet & multimedia artist, she is a Canadian Poetry Slam Champion and holds a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University. Her debut poetry collection, COCONUT (NeWest Press) was a finalist of the ABPA Regional Book of the Year. She is currently finishing her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, where she is writing her first graphic novel. Nisha’s latest works include multimodal inquiries into disabled life. She is currently working on promoting her newest chapbook, How to get a Thigh Gap (Collusion Books).