ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band

ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band

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T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

Highlights - JOY GORMAN WETTELS - Exec. Producer “UnPrisoned”, “13 Reasons Why”, "Home Before Dark”, “Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground”

Highlights - JOY GORMAN WETTELS - Exec. Producer “UnPrisoned”, “13 Reasons Why”, "Home Before Dark”, “Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground”

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Award-winning Executive Producer of UnPrisoned starring Kerry Washington & Delroy Lindo
13 Reasons Why · Home Before Dark · Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground
Founder of Joy Coalition

With UnPrisoned and with really my whole body of work as a producer, I'm really drawn to stories that make people feel seen that take issues that have stigma and shame attached to them, and making those issues just more palatable and more human. And few people realize that 50% of American families are touched by incarceration. And when you meet someone like Tracy McMillan, who really is a miracle, this is a woman who's now in her fifties who grew up in 22 different foster homes because her father was incarcerated when she was so little. And yet for all of his mistakes, the fact that he was a career criminal, he still, when he could change her diapers, he was present when he could be there. He braided her hair, and there was real love there. But they were separated not only by his mistakes, but by a system that is really unforgiving and really unfair, especially to black and brown men. So, the idea that we could tell a story where a young woman who was raised that way and by that person turns out to be Kerry Washington. You know, turns out to be somebody who you want to be, turns out to be "Olivia Pope", this woman that we all see as so beautiful and such a hero and so strong and so powerful, I felt was just an incredible opportunity. And when we first put Tracy and Kerry in the same room, Kerry said to Tracy, "You know you're a miracle, right?"

JOY GORMAN WETTELS - Exec. Producer “UnPrisoned” starring Kerry Washington, “13 Reasons Why”, Founder of Joy Coalition

JOY GORMAN WETTELS - Exec. Producer “UnPrisoned” starring Kerry Washington, “13 Reasons Why”, Founder of Joy Coalition

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Award-winning Executive Producer of UnPrisoned starring Kerry Washington & Delroy Lindo
13 Reasons Why · Home Before Dark · Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground
Founder of Joy Coalition

With UnPrisoned and with really my whole body of work as a producer, I'm really drawn to stories that make people feel seen that take issues that have stigma and shame attached to them, and making those issues just more palatable and more human. And few people realize that 50% of American families are touched by incarceration. And when you meet someone like Tracy McMillan, who really is a miracle, this is a woman who's now in her fifties who grew up in 22 different foster homes because her father was incarcerated when she was so little. And yet for all of his mistakes, the fact that he was a career criminal, he still, when he could change her diapers, he was present when he could be there. He braided her hair, and there was real love there. But they were separated not only by his mistakes, but by a system that is really unforgiving and really unfair, especially to black and brown men. So, the idea that we could tell a story where a young woman who was raised that way and by that person turns out to be Kerry Washington. You know, turns out to be somebody who you want to be, turns out to be "Olivia Pope", this woman that we all see as so beautiful and such a hero and so strong and so powerful, I felt was just an incredible opportunity. And when we first put Tracy and Kerry in the same room, Kerry said to Tracy, "You know you're a miracle, right?"

Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

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Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker & Speaker
Creator of the Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move

Technology has very much changed the way we read and take in information and shortened it into quick bursts and attention spans. We're living in a new world, for sure. And how do we communicate in this new world? Not just in a way that gets the reach, because there are whole industries aimed at what do I do to get the most likes or the most attention, and all of that, which I don't think is very fulfilling as artists.

It's sort of a diminishing of our art form to try and play the game because then we're getting the attention and getting the hits, as opposed to what do I really want to create? How do I really want to create it? How do I want to display this? And can I do it in a way that breaks through so that if I do it my way, it's still going to get the attention, great. But if it doesn't, can I be cool with that? And can I be okay creating what I want to create, knowing that that's what it's about. It's about sharing in an honest, authentic way what I want to express without letting the tentacles of social media drip into my brain and take over why I'm literally doing the things that I'm doing.

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

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Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker & Speaker
Creator of the Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move

Technology has very much changed the way we read and take in information and shortened it into quick bursts and attention spans. We're living in a new world, for sure. And how do we communicate in this new world? Not just in a way that gets the reach, because there are whole industries aimed at what do I do to get the most likes or the most attention, and all of that, which I don't think is very fulfilling as artists.

It's sort of a diminishing of our art form to try and play the game because then we're getting the attention and getting the hits, as opposed to what do I really want to create? How do I really want to create it? How do I want to display this? And can I do it in a way that breaks through so that if I do it my way, it's still going to get the attention, great. But if it doesn't, can I be cool with that? And can I be okay creating what I want to create, knowing that that's what it's about. It's about sharing in an honest, authentic way what I want to express without letting the tentacles of social media drip into my brain and take over why I'm literally doing the things that I'm doing.

Highlights - Gloria Pacis - Artist

Highlights - Gloria Pacis - Artist

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Artist

I just feel there is already a connection, something I have to come to, but that I'm trying to search it out or see what's already there. I feel that we are truly connected as a world. And I'm just trying to make people aware of an existing connection we already have, to send that message out there. And I like to do it in the form of...I guess you'd call it a mundane image, where it's not really about bells and whistles, but it's about something in it makes you want to look, and you want to know why. And it's because you've been there before, regardless of whether you are a dancer or that particular guy in the subway, you know you've been in his head in that mood that he's experiencing.

Gloria Pacis - Artist

Gloria Pacis - Artist

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Artist

I just feel there is already a connection, something I have to come to, but that I'm trying to search it out or see what's already there. I feel that we are truly connected as a world. And I'm just trying to make people aware of an existing connection we already have, to send that message out there. And I like to do it in the form of...I guess you'd call it a mundane image, where it's not really about bells and whistles, but it's about something in it makes you want to look, and you want to know why. And it's because you've been there before, regardless of whether you are a dancer or that particular guy in the subway, you know you've been in his head in that mood that he's experiencing.

Highlights - Sonnet L’Abbé - Poet, Songwriter, Editor of “Best Canadian Poetry in English”

Highlights - Sonnet L’Abbé - Poet, Songwriter, Editor of “Best Canadian Poetry in English”

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Award-winning Poet · Songwriter · Author of Sonnet’s Shakespeare
Editor of Best Canadian Poetry in English

Sonnet’s Shakespeare itself came out of thinking about the form of erasure, what working in that form could do and mean… And I was looking at critical writing about it, and I couldn't find anything that talked about the role of the poet who is doing that as censorial or as somehow violencing the original text. I was thinking about my resonance with the word erasure and thinking about censoring and deleting what somebody else has already said resonates with me as an analogy for being black, being mixed race, being racialized, and non-European in spaces that are predominantly Anglo-Canadian. One tries very hard. At least I did as a child, as a teenager, to just try to fit in and make my visible difference as minimal, as invisible as possible. So it's a way of thinking about erasing the self. And so I took that theme and thought, How do I show through a poetic erasure this dynamic of self-erasure and feeling erased?

Sonnet L’Abbé - Award-winning Poet, Songwriter, Author of “Sonnet’s Shakespeare”

Sonnet L’Abbé - Award-winning Poet, Songwriter, Author of “Sonnet’s Shakespeare”

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Award-winning Poet · Songwriter · Author of Sonnet’s Shakespeare
Editor of Best Canadian Poetry in English

Sonnet’s Shakespeare itself came out of thinking about the form of erasure, what working in that form could do and mean… And I was looking at critical writing about it, and I couldn't find anything that talked about the role of the poet who is doing that as censorial or as somehow violencing the original text. I was thinking about my resonance with the word erasure and thinking about censoring and deleting what somebody else has already said resonates with me as an analogy for being black, being mixed race, being racialized, and non-European in spaces that are predominantly Anglo-Canadian. One tries very hard. At least I did as a child, as a teenager, to just try to fit in and make my visible difference as minimal, as invisible as possible. So it's a way of thinking about erasing the self. And so I took that theme and thought, How do I show through a poetic erasure this dynamic of self-erasure and feeling erased?

Highlights - Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Musician & Writer - “Calling England Home”

Highlights - Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Musician & Writer - “Calling England Home”

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Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Musician & Writer - “Calling England Home” “Who Will Save the World?”

Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Musician & Writer - “Calling England Home” “Who Will Save the World?”

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Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.