Join icehouse poetry to celebrate the 2.0 launch of Daniel Scott Tysdal's THE END IS IN THE MIDDLE: MAD FOLD-IN POEMS.
The event will take place in the Living Room at the Tranzac Club (292 Brunswick Ave) and open with readings by Leanne Toshiko Simpson and Natasha Ramoutar. Daniel Scott Tysdal and Rudy Ray will then take the stage for a poetry and music collaboration. Noah Farberman will host.
Doors open at 1pm. Readings start at 1:10pm sharp.
Rudy Ray Kwaku is a Ghanaian-Canadian actor and trumpeter based in Toronto. Famed for his involvement with the Wu Tang Clan, winning the 2020 Juno award for best rap album recording with TOBi, and Guillermo del Toro's movie NIGHTMARE ALLEY, CBC articles identified the Ghanaian royal as a rising thinker and cultural icon. With a growing list of cameos and appearances on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video focusing on black culture, Rudy Ray advocates peace and poetry. Rudy Ray and Polly Vee are the book band "The latecomers" for Charlie Petch's 2021 Relit Award Winner WHY I WAS LATE. This year in theater, Rudy Ray joined Ahmed Moneka in SPACIOUSNESS, a recent play that shed light on the contributions of black soldiers in the war of 1812 and the construction of Fort York. Rudy Ray graces modelling, music, theatre and film, providing an energy sincere with a sound like none you ever heard.
Natasha Ramoutar is a writer of Indo-Guyanese descent by way of Scarborough (Ganatsekwyagon) at the east side of Toronto. She has been published in THE UNPUBLISHED CITY II, PRISM INTERNATIONAL, ROOM MAGAZINE, AUGUR MAGAZINE and more. Her first collection of poetry BITTERSWEET was published in 2020 by Mawenzi House and she was a co-editor of FEEL WAYS, an anthology of Scarborough writing. Her most recent project was TYTYTY, a Canada Council for the Arts funded video game co-created with @localkristine for Hand Eye Society’s SUPER FESTival.
Leanne Toshiko Simpson is a mixed-race Yonsei writer, educator and psychiatric survivor from Scarborough. She is a graduate of UTSC Creative Writing and the University of Guelph’s MFA, and is currently completing an EdD in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto. She teaches classes in disability arts and BIPOC literature at Trinity College and runs workshops for mad writers in mental health centres across Toronto. Her debut novel NEVER BEEN BETTER will be published by HarperCollins next summer.
Daniel Scott Tysdal is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher. An Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Tysdal's works include the ReLit Award-winning poetry collection PREDICTING THE NEXT BIG ADVERTISING BREAKTHROUGH USING A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS METHOD, the short story collection WAVE FORMS AND DOOM SCROLLS, and the poetry textbook THE WRITING MOMENT: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO CREATING POEMS. THE END IS IN THE MIDDLE is his fourth collection of poetry.
Noah “Noah Farberman” Farberman is a Toronto writer and comedian. Noah has been published in West Branch, Storm Cellar, Pioneertown, and elsewhere. Noah received his Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing and English at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Books will be available for purchase, and, of course, the authors will be signing!