Scream 15 Unveils Festival Calendar
The Unlikely Alchemy of Poetry and Science
July 3 to 9, 2007  

Tuesday July 3rd
Phosphorescence! The Launch of Scream 15

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen Street West
8 pm
PWYC, $7 suggested

It's no surprise that the fifteenth periodic element to match our fifteenth year is Phosphorus. We've attained radiance! Our opening alumni night promises a luminescent slurry of this year's poetry and science theme. Dennis Lee's fractured syntax provides an angered reflection of our post-rational age. Souvankham Thammavongsa celebrates the microcosmic world

with her Small Arguments. Award-winning author and poet George Elliott Clarke illuminates verses on the stage while Shapour Shahidi's robots draw on the walls. And you finally get a chance to scissor those old loved and lugged science textbooks. 

Wednesday July 4^th
Strange Alchemy: The Science and Poetry Panel and Matrix Launch Reading

Supermarket
268 Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market
7 pm and 9 pm
PWYC, $7 suggested

Looking for a universal solvent, elixir of life, spontaneous gold?

Expect science and poetry to bond in startling ways during our critical panel.  Moderated by Clive Thompson, panellists Christian Bök, angela rawlings, Ken Babstock and postdoctoral candidate, Lisa Betts (who is studying the neuroscience of vision at York) will set their giant brains to task on the emerging transmutations taking place between science and poetry. The discussion will be followed at 9 pm by the launch of the newest issue of Montreal's Matrix Magazine with readings by the panellists and others who have engaged science in their poetic practice.

Thursday July 5th
Scream at Toronto Women's Bookstore

Toronto Women's Bookstore,
73 Harbord Street
7 pm
$5

A returning favourite, Scream at TWB is a literary evening worthy of replication.

This year promises strong performances by three notable writers at the intersection of poetry and science - Nalo Hopkinson, Daniel Heath Justice and Tara-Michelle Ziniuk. Not to be missed!

Thursday July 5th
Decibels and Accretions: The Scream Sound Installation

Thursday July 5th to Sunday July 8th (gallery open daily 12 to 6 pm)
Opening with performance Thursday July 5th (8 pm)
AWOL Gallery
76/78 Ossington Avenue
just north of Queen Street West
Free, Donations Welcome

Lines lost in a heckling crowd? Stanza washed away in a downpour? The Scream has recovered its recorded history and placed it in the hands of artist Heather Olsen-Seabourne. The resulting interactive installation features sound assemblages from fragments of 15 years of Scream events. Peruse our card catalogue, listen for familiar and new sounds, accrete some decibels.

Fantasias and otherworlds

Thursday July 5^th
Type Books
883 Queen Street West
11 pm
Free, Donations Welcome

Under cover of darkness, we're transforming the basement of Type Books into a science experiment gone awry.  Participants will read scientific fantasias, old and new, while strange movies are projected on the walls. Part science, part abject fascination, this is sure to be a surreal experience that you'll remember (or forcefully repress) for a long time.

Readers include Maggie Helwig and Stephen Cain.

Friday July 6th
The Dewdney Principle: A Book-Length Dinner Reading

Don Valley Brickworks
8 pm

High evening
this secret joyous darkness internally
illuminated by a fossil sun ...

Christopher Dewdney has led Canadian poetry into new explorations of  science and the natural environment, and The Natural History is a distillation of this work, an erotics of the ecosystem. Now, you can hear him read the book in full, as darkness descends on the wetlands, forests and limestone escarpments of the Don Valley ravine, in the old industrial buildings, half-reclaimed by nature, of the Brickworks. The reading will be complemented by a catered three-course vegetarian (plus optional fish dish) dinner designed around the text.

... fragrant darkness spills
down the shallow fossil valley

$35 for a ticket including dinner and free shuttle bus to the Brickworks from the Broadview TTC station. $10 for reading-only tickets (these tickets do not include transportation to the site)

Tickets are tickets available at www.thescream.ca; at Type Books, 883 Queen St West; and at Another Story, 315 Roncesvalles Ave.

Co-sponsored by NOW Magazine and Evergreen.

Saturday July 7th
Poets in Their Natural Habitat: A Field Trip

Coach House Press
401A Huron St
Noon
Free, Donations Welcome

Join seasoned poetologists Nadia Halim and Steve Venright on a field trip through Toronto's Annex ecosystem as they observe the distinctive vocalizations, social behaviour, foraging habits, and mating rituals of various species of poet. Participants are encouraged to bring binoculars, cameras, and other recording devices. Many Scream events feature well-known poets in captivity. This event offers you the rare opportunity to observe wild poets in their natural habitats!

Saturday July 7th
Ephebiphobia: The Scream Youth Reading

KHE (Kerr Hall East) 222, Ryerson University
Go to the Kerr Hall East entrance at 340 Church St. on the
Ryerson Campus; follow the signs to the Scream Youth Workshop
in KHE 222 on the second floor.
3 pm
Free, Donations Welcome

This year's youth reading is a hands-on venture in applied science and poetry. Participants will engineer free-standing towers using nothing but mung beans, tooth picks and steady hands.  Toronto poet and performer Sonnet L'Abbé will lead a poetry workshop full of constructive restraints.  Expect spirited readings from emerging young poets Jap Nanak Makkar, Gianne Ortega, and Otiena Ellwand.  Poet Nashira Dernesch rounds the festivities out with a reading of her own. 

Saturday July 7th
Spontaneous Combustion: The Scream Gala

Hugh's Room
2261 Dundas Street WestA half block south of Bloor Street and north of
Roncesvalles Avenue, in the High Park area.
8 pm
$10

Recent studies, involving live human subjects, have confirmed that human beings have a predefined maximum capacity for poetry consumption within a specific time frame. For this reason, the Scream Gala is an unmistakeably non-literary affair. The evening is given over socializing, imbibing, and a high probability of rocking out.

Featuring: Rock Central Plaza, with stellar guests to be named at a later date.

Invite-only reception at 7 p.m., with the doors wide open at 8.
Sunday, July 8th
Under the Microscope: The State of Poetry Criticism

Tinto
89 Roncesvalles Avenue
3 pm
Free, donations welcome

New York Times critic David Orr, music critic and Zoilus.com creator Carl Wilson, and poets Elizabeth Bachinsky and Damian Rogers discuss why poetry is missing from popular critical consciousness. Moderated by Toronto writer Marianne Apostolides, the panel questions whether the lack of conversation about poetry is due to a failure of critics, not a failure of poets. Is there a way out of this predicament? Come find out.

Sunday, July 8
Behold What We Have Wrought: Welcome to the Laboratory

Type Books
883 Queen Street West
8 pm
Free, Donations Welcome

The Surrealists may have produced some okay art in their day, but they really shone when it came to parlour games. The best of these is the Exquisite Corpse, in which the assembled create collective new art, through the partial exchange of words and visuals. So start with that notion, then add the text of Frankenstein, and you'll get a sense of what this collaborative evening holds.

Monday, July 9
The Scream in High Park

CanStage Amphitheatre, High Park
7 p.m.
PWYC, $10 suggested

For the 15^th consecutive year, The Scream takes over High Park for one glorious night. Twelve performers cast their voices into the sky as darkness descends. For many, it's the only poetry event they ever attend. For the rest, it's only the best poetry event they ever attend.

Scream 15 readers:

• Elizabeth Bachinsky
• Sean Dixon
• Christine Duncan
• Shane Koyczan
• Naila Keleta Mae
• David McGimpsey
• Roy Miki
• A.F. Moritz
• Steve Price
• Priscila Uppal
• Zoe Whittall
• Rachel Zolf