Thursday, September 15th, VIVO Media Arts Centre, 7:30 PM
Originally from the American mid-west, Fortner Anderson has lived in Montreal since 1976. Known for the performances of his poems, read a cappella, he has been an active member of the Montreal spoken word scene for years prior to the use of the term "spoken-word".
He was a co-founder and a producer with the audio publishing venture Wired On Words (wiredonwords.com). He participated in the development of the Ultimatum II Urban Poetry Festival of 1985. He is the host of a radio show, Dromostexte, a one-hour show which features only poems and spoken word recordings, which is heard each week on CKUT-FM (www.ckut.ca). Past projects include: The Odyssey, an itinerant database, Montreal's Dial-A-Poem service, and Oralpalooza, the Montreal spin-off from the Lollapalooza shows, and recently the Canadian Review of Performance Literature (www.litlive.ca).
His poems have been recorded on the Wired On Words compilation (WOW, 1993), Millennium Cabaret (WOW, 1998) et La Vache Enragée (Planète Rebelle, 1998), and have been published in several anthologies including Poetry Nation (Vehicule Press, 1998). His three solo CDs are sometimes I think which appeared in 2000 (WOW), six silk purses from 2005 and he sings from 2007. He has presented his work at the Berlin poesiefestival, Banff Centre (Alberta), Cabaret (Montreal), the Rivoli (Toronto), and St-Mark's Church (New York). In June of 2002 and in again in 2008, he was invited to Genoa (Italy) to perform at the 8th and 10th editions of the Genoa International Poetry Festival . In April of 2010 he was a featured performer at the Festival des Musiques Actuelles à Victoriaville presenting his poems in the acclaimed multi-media spectacle La salle des pas perdus. A book of poems and a full-length CD entitled solitary pleasures will appear in the October of 2011 on the & books and records label. His current recording project, annunciations will appear in the fall of 2012.