Tag Archives: Lucas Crawford

Sideshow Tour Diary #11 | “Hometown”

Sideshow Concessions has a lot of poems about living in the Annapolis Valley (Kingston), so it’s only proper that this mini-tour ended there. My old friend and outstanding human Mike Beazley put together an intimate event in New Minas. This was very special to me (see, words still failing). A poetry-tour dispatch from Invisible author […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #10 | Lonely Trans on a Halifax Pier

Except I’m not at all lonely in Halifax, surrounded by family, old friends, new friends, proper pepperoni, donair pizza, and the talented and amazing Kaleigh Trace. (Yeah, that’s right, a sentence fragment!) Kaleigh and I read together at Venus Envy, where I performed with my mentor Jeanette Lynes in 2004. It flattered me excessively then […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #9 | Class of 2005

Ten years ago, I graduated from St. FX University in Antigonish, NS. The longest piece in Sideshow Concessions is about a particular series of experiences I had there. I never read this piece publicly (in part because its length makes it tough to fit into shorter sets), so I thank this amazing Antigonish audience for […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #8 | Flying On Your Own

Reading in Sydney was just incredible! The wonderful Sheila Christie put together an event at a local queer café called Doktor Luke’s (not named after me, by the way, haha). The local poets blew me away with their performance texts, slam poems, narratives, and attitude. Performance poetry in a Cape Breton accent needs to be […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #7 | Scuttling, Shuttling, Farts, and Sore Parts

My partner and fellow poet Carmen Ellison came on this entire tour and took almost all of the great pics you will see here. Carmen and I rode shuttle vans and buses all over the place. Here we await the Robert Q shuttle from London to Toronto. From there, we will fly to Sydney, NS, […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #6 | Old Haunts, Odd Fonts

I lived in London, Ontario for a quick eleven months (Aug 2005–July 2006) while I completed my MA at the University of Western Ontario. My visit to the city’s second annual Words festival was, therefore, a bit of a homecoming for me. I was honoured to be hosted by festival director Josh Lambier, my former […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #5 | Literary Press Group’s 40th Anniversary Party / Real Vancouver Writers’ Series

There’s not really any way to describe my pleasure of reading alongside Jane Munro (2015 Griffin winner!), Leah Horlick (curator of Reverb, and new Women’s Centre staff at SFU), and Lana Pesch (author of Moving Parts, in town from Toronto) and to be hosted by the hilarious duo of Sean Cranbury and Dina del Bucchia. […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #4 | Vancouver Launch Party: Little Sister’s and the Sea

This was the second of my ‘hometown’ launches, and I was fortunate enough to have Ali Blythe join me again to launch Twoism, and 2015 Dayne Ogilve-prize winner Alex Leslie read as well. We jammed the maximum amount of bodies possible into the reading corner of the store; we had young folks sitting on the […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #3 | Toronto’s Naked Heart LGBTQ Literature Festival: CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

It is the night before your first-ever reading in that minor metropolis known as Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Have you heard of it? Your main decisions tonight are what to eat for dinner and what time to go to bed. What will you choose? A. Eat some protein, vegetables, and grains, and then go to bed […]

Sideshow Tour Diary #2 | Edmonton Launch: Hearts May Be Fist-Sized Muscles, But Tear Glands Are Almond-Shaped Alchemists

Emotions! They happen, among other places, in poetry. Or, they are witnessed there, caused there, repressed there, and so on. Sometimes after doing a highly personal reading, audience members will kindly ask or exclaim about the challenges of sharing such texts with seeming strangers. I’m never quite sure what to say, though I do sometimes […]