The Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery once again participated in the annual global initiative 100 Thousand Poets for Change, which takes place in hundreds of international locales at the end of each September. We have been part of this worldwide celebration of poetry’s power to effect change since its co-founding in 2011 by the late Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion. As with last year’s event, we were also part of Centre Wellington Township’s Culture Days, with this year’s theme of “celebrating diversity and artistic expression in Centre Wellington” being reflected in our program featuring Kevin heronJones and Jerry Prager.

Kevin heronJones, who recently played Henry “Box” Brown in the Centre Wellington Black Committee’s production of BHM Awakened Voices Narratives at Melville United Church in Fergus, is the first writer-in-residence for the city of Brampton. An author, poet, journalist, editor, actor, and lecturer, Kevin is perhaps best known for his spoken word performances, as founder of the PoeticSoul poetry series, the Duel of the Iron Mic poetry series in collaboration with Unblind, the Iron Mic Slam at Ryerson [now Toronto Metropolitan University], the 1 Ness poetry series in collaboration with Al St. Louis, and When Words are Spoken. An exemplary Poet for Change, Kevin designed PoeticSoul as an organization dedicated to promoting the poetic arts scene, creating PoeticSoul Online Literary Journal in 2004 as the first online publication focused on the spoken word community in Canada. He also joined energies with AIM, the African Image Makers, an organization that has created scholarships for African students, organized fundraisers, and released a clothing line “with thought provoking designs and poetry that reflect the beauty of the Black Caribbean and African Community.” He writes “in the tradition of the ancient African griots who used stories and poetry to educate as well as entertain,” and his performance on Sept. 28 included both storytelling and poetry.

Jerry Prager really needs no introduction at the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery, having performed his poetry here a number of times, premiered a table reading of Covenant Chains: A New Folk Opera (with music by Peter Skoggard), and created “The Composition of Anti-slavery” from wood, salvaged from the Chalmers Presbyterian Church in Elora, the remarkable sculpture that is now mounted behind Beaver House. Having recently returned to Elora, Jerry enhances our arts community with his varied and colourful experiences as a writer, poet, playwright, sculptor, dancer, and heritage stone worker. He has published three books on the history of the Underground Railroad in Wellington County and reprised a long poem related to this subject that has become a favourite at the Elora Poetry Centre, titled “Echoes in the Timbers.” This time Jerry read this remarkable poem at dusk in a Son et Lumière setting in which the acclaimed Elora-based photographer Wayne Simpson created a backdrop by providing lighting from within Beaver House, the Elora Poetry Centre’s 1832 log house that was part of the Canadian Underground Railroad in its original locale south of Aberfoyle.

This event was in conjunction with the national Culture Days initiative, with funding from Centre Wellington Township. Additional funding of Jerry Prager’s reading was from the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts.