Speaking Music for P.E.E.R.S

Alison Boston performing Sziget Silk Fire at Sziget Festival, Budapest, Hungary.

Drop in for a Poem, or come for the whole show!
Poems from a lifetime of writing – poems inspired by Mother Earth, Canada’s Forests, Hungarian Jazz, Swimming, Running, Cycling, Politics, Social Justice, Feminism, Love, Lust and of course, unrequited Love and Lust.
There are poems that rhyme and rap, poems that sing and poems that speak…and some poems that have never been read publicly.

I’ve been writing poetry all my life – since I was 10 – and for a short time in the mid to late 80’s enjoyed the support of Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council through the Ottawa arts and poetry community, and often performed at S.A.W. Gallery and Gallery 101, as well as Ottawa’s annual Festival for the Arts. When I left Ottawa, I continued to write poetry, and created 2 one-woman shows based on my poetry.*

There have been many poems since then…I’ll read random selections from my full collection with anecdotes about the source of inspiration – like Cycling With David – inspired by a road cycle with a racing cyclist out along the Saanich Peninsula. Then there’s the more recent poems, with concerns about war, political corruption and the planet.

This event is for the Ministry of Casual Living’s fundraiser for P.E.E.R s Victoria. There will be a voluntary donation box on hand for people to make donations to what I consider very important work.

I hope you can drop in, even if you can’t stay the full hour.

From the P.E.E.R.s Victoria Facebook page:

” We provide support, resources and programs specifically for past and current sex workers—male, female or trans —& help with housing, training opportunities, advocacy and public education around exploitation & the issues of adult sex work
Mission
PEERS is a non-profit society established by former sex workers and community supporters and is dedicated to the empowerment, education and support of sex workers, by working to improve their safety and working conditions, assisting those who desire to leave the sex industry, increasing public understanding and awareness of these issues, and promoting the experiential voice.”

*Belladonna’s Adventures – a 45 minute rap about the commodification of desire, first produced in 1986 at the Rainbow Room, Ottawa for Ottawa’s Festival of the Arts.
Again, in 1993, as a co-production with Theatre Inconnu, Victoria, directed by Clayton Jevne.
Revised and remounted for the Montreal Fringe 2000, directed by Paul Hawkins, with Brenda Anderson – Dramaturge.

Carmannah’s Magical Forest – a play for one-woman with puppets, based on poetry inspired by trail building in the Walbran – presented for Montreal’s Centaur Theatre Petro Canada Children’s series.