Sherbrooke group collecting poems
For the fifth year in a row Sherbrooke Prend la Parole (Sherbrooke speaks ), a volunteer group of students with a flair for the literary arts, is collecting poems from amateur poets across the region. Working this year around the theme of “the unknown,” the group hopes to collect as many poems by local poets as possible in the name of sharing the work with the world to show that poetry is for everybody.
“People think that poetry is this inaccessible art form,” said Maude St-laurent, coordinator with Sherbrooke Prend la Parole, explaining that the assembled collection of poems will be shared both through a public performance on or around international poetry day, March 21, and through a partnership with businesses in downtown Sherbrooke. In the latter arrangement the poems are put in display throughout the city’s central core for all to see and to read over the week of March 16 to the 23.
The performance, currently scheduled to take place on the evening of the 23, is more than just a poetry reading. This year, the coordinator said, visual artists are being asked to create works based on the poems that are submitted, and a theatre troupe will be creating a short play based on the theme and poems.
St-laurent said that over the course of the last five years the collection has gathered more and more poetry, with roughly 40 to 50 people participating in the most recent editions. Each year the theme is drawn from the public and kept open so that people can interpret it in various ways.
Although Sherbrooke Prend la Parole operates in French and its event will take
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place in French, the coordinator said that the group is not against the sharing of a small number of English poems as a part of the festivities.
“We are open to it,” St-laurent said, adding that the general feeling toward the poem collection is that more is better.
Although the group shows every sign of intending to go ahead with their announced presentation schedule, this year’s performance is currently seeking a new venue. It was originally meant to take place at the Irisium event space on Wellington Street North, but that business recently announced that it will be closing its doors as of the end of this week. In a post on their Facebook page, Sherbrooke Prend la Parole says that they will provide an update on the new location as soon as possible.
Anyone wishing to submit a poem is invited to reach out to the group via a private message on facebook or by email at Sherbrooke_prend_la_parole@outlook.com prior to January 27.