Klyde Broox’s Profile from The Dub Poets Collective website http://www.dubpoetscollective.com/klyde-broox/

Steeped in oral traditions, Broox’s gesture-enabled, dance and song-oriented, performances are consistently pitched to engage, entertain, and invite audiences to experience poetry as social communion.

- Original, internationally seasoned, 70s vintage, Jamaican groomed, dubpoet, steadily consolidating, gradually widening recognition

- Self-invited, privately-funded participant of the historic, 1993 International Dub Poetry Festival; coordinated the 2004 edition in Toronto and the 2007 edition in Hamilton

- 2005 City of Hamilton Arts Award for Literature

- 2005 collection My Best Friend is White (McGilligan Books); 2006 Arts Hamilton Seraphim Editions Best Poetry Book

- MBFiW, 2007 McMaster University and Ontario College of Art and Design reading lists

Bio: Broox published his first poem in 1972. By the 1980s he was recognized as one of Jamaica’s most promising poets and language arts educators, travelling to the U.K. and the United States to do readings, workshops and guest lectures. Meanwhile, he regularly proved impressive onstage among many reggae greats as part of the ‘dubdidexterous’ poet and drummer duo, Durm-I and Akete.

In 1989, Broox launched the dub chapbook, ‘Poemstorm’ in Swansea, Wales. He was a 1992 James Michener Fellow at the University of Miami’s Caribbean Writers Summer Institute.

Migrating to Canada in 1993, Klyde settled in Hamilton with his family and started PoeMagic and for which he received a community service award nomination in 2003. In 2007, partnering with the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, Broox coordinated and hosted the groundbreaking, intercultural multi-arts, community-strengthening event, Hamilton Speaks!

An exceptional teacher, Klyde designed, coordinated and led, a summer youth dub poetry workshop S.T.E.P. U.P. (Speech That Enlightens People Uplifts Places), which was featured on the City of Toronto’s flagship DVD, Arts in the Hood. Broox also edited the S.T.E.P. U.P anthology, R/evolutionary Harvest.

Contact Info: kbroox@porchlight.ca

Sue Leonard has returned to Hamilton where she was born and raised. Sue is a singer songwriter who writes with and for other artists. She’s been on two world tours with kd lang and sang on kd’s hit “constant craving’ and Bon Jovi’s “lay your hands on me”. She’s worked with Bruce Willis & Johnny Neel (Allman brothers), recently won female vocalist of the year at the Twirlie Awards out of Sacramento. “Bye Baby” received a Twirlie Award for the most plays on Twirl Radio in 2012. Her songs are a mix of americana, adult contemporary, pop, jazz & blues & folk and jazz.

Plus an opening set by Mimi Shaw (vocalist of Hamilton rockabilly band The Highnote Ramblers), with Orange McFarland (bass).