Raving Poets press

Peace Talks Reaches #1 - Raving Poets CD series tops the charts!

According to the Edmonton Journal Entertainment Section (Saturday, Feb. 16th, 2002), "Peace Talks" - featuring oodles of great Edmonton poets and The Raving Poets Band, – reached NUMBER ONE on the CJSR FM charts.

The Raving Poets on Bravo!

Michael Hamm of Frame 30 Productions produced an hour-long video from the 2001 summer Raving Poets series – titled "Backroom Beat" – and aired on the BRAVO Network.

Thursday, July 5th, 2001 at 6 p.m., the Backroom Vodka Bar hosted the "world premiere" of "Backroom Beats," a one hour documentary of Raving Poets series. This impressively-produced documentary from Frame 30 Productions, featured poets such as Terence Harding, Liam Kelly, John Chalmers, Darlene Sponge-Henderson, Thomas Trofimuk and The Alberta Beatnik.

Thanks, Bravo, for supporting Edmonton performance poets!

Performance Poets at Teachers' Convention

Four of the Edmonton's most celebrated poets had a performance gig at the Greater Edmonton Teachers' Convention on Friday, March 1, 2002. John Chalmers, Kathy Fisher, Mark Kozub and Thomas Trofimuk roared through a 90-minute session from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon in the 260-seat Zeidler Theatre at the Citadel.

They were accompanied by The Raving Poets Band -- Mark and Thomas plus Randy Edwards and Mysterio. Of course, the session was recorded on CD and the entire cast was thrilled to be part of the program.

The poets presents a program of some of their best-known and proven pieces, plus a couple of new ones.

CRITICAL "RAVES" FOR THE RAVING POETS

Backroom Beat documents the literary madness of the poetry bashes that have been the Backroom Vodka Bar the most interesting spot in Edmonton on Tuesday nights.

Local production Frame 30 filmed a series of readings one evening in fall 2000 and blended the footage with artist interviews. "It was an absolute hoot," says Thomas Trofimuk, who co-hosts the poetry series with Mark Kozub. "This series put poetry, or spoken word performance, improv music, alcohol and one of Edmonton trendiest’s bars together and stirred it all up. What we came up with quite phenomenal."

Backroom Beat premieres today at 6 p.m. on Bravo!

Todd Babiak, Edmonton Journal Thursday, July 5th, 2001

The Globe and Mail

It’s a pleasure to see people on TV who are drunk on the power of language and not merely infatuated with images.

Nobody is going to win a Nobel Prize with the material they read at the Backroom Vodka Bar in Edmonton, but they’re compellingly charming in their devotion to poetry.

The Globe and Mail - Thursday, July 5th, 2001

Raving Poets definitely not your typical poetry reading.

It’s certainly not what most Edmontonians think of when they envision a poetry reading, traditionally an art form associated more with high tea and biscuits than cocktails and bar bands.

Gilbert Bouchard, Edmonton Journal - Thursday, Sept. 12th, 2000

The Edmonton Journal

The Beat Goes On, a weekly poetry night at the Backroom (Vodka Bar), has grown from a regular crowd of six into a local phenomenon.

Tonight is Jack Kerouac’s birthday, a special Tuesday, and the spoken-word poets are drinking, clapping, reading and testifying at the Backroom Vodka Bar… It is a warm adoring group, here as much for the words as the vodka.

When they are not about love, most of the performances are political in nature, railing against "the lies" and "them." People don’t seem to write poetry when they think the Alberta government is doing a crackerjack job. The poets want you to listen.

"We are the freaks of Edmonton," says (Mark) Kozub, as he introduces the second round of performers. "Thank God for freaks like us."

Todd Babiak, Edmonton Journal - May 2002

See Magazine

The Raving Poets Band is a local quintet who always takes their lyrics seriously, even if the audience writes them. What is unusual about this band is that it provides a heady atmospheric soundscape for stand-up, hep-cat narratives."

Linda Alberta, SEE Magazine - November 2001

The Edmonton Journal

The Tuesday night Peace Talks at the Backroom Vodka Bar have been part of a mysterious and intangible force of love and understanding.

"Since Sept. 11, it’s been easy to get extremely down about the direction the world is heading," Kozub says. "On the news you see the worst of humanity highlighted. What we’re doing on Tuesday nights fulfills a human need to go in the opposite direction, not to be complacent or cynical."

Todd Babiak, Edmonton Journal - December 2001