"One of the most dynamic and intelligent performance poets on the globe" - Chair, Spoken Word Canada
One of the country's most accomplished competitive performance poets, Brendan McLeod is a former Canadian SLAM poetry champion, Vancouver SLAM champion, and was the runner up at the 2005 World SLAM poetry championship. Since then, he has performed at over 350 poetry readings in 10 countries. His first novel, ‘The Convictions of Leonard McKinley’, was nominated for the 2008 Re:Lit Award, Canada's top prize for independent fiction. That same year his music group, The Fugitives, was up for a Canadian Folk Music Award.
He has toured extensively all over the world, and has been a featured performer at over forty European events. In Canada, he has been a featured main stage performer at the Saskatchewan Festival of Words, South Country Fair, the Festival Voix D'Ameriques, and a featured performer at the West Coast Poetry Festival, and Word on the Street. He has toured cross-Canada twice, and has featured at reading series and performed solo in every province from Vancouver to Nova Scotia.
Performance Video Footage
Brendan performs at high schools and universities across the world. He has been a guest facilitator for a workshop on the Harlem Renaissance at the University of Bamburg, Germany, and as a youth poetry facilitator at the Runnymede International Poetry Festival in England. He is a member of the 'Poetry in Schools' project in Vancouver.
His latest solo spoken word album, “Little Troubles” was released in 2009 at the same time he was given the honor of becoming one of the 2009/2010 Vancouver East Cultural Centre’s Curator-in-Residence. His latest endeavor is an original one-woman/one act play aptly called ‘The Big Oops’ which takes on contemporary social mores with abnormal humour and pathos.
Brendan has a BA (Honors with Distinction) in Philosophy from the University of Victoria, and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Waterloo. Excerpts from his first novel were published in the academic journal Sophia.
Brendan is a non-stop, high-energy storyteller equally at home with social and political commentary, family histrionics, surreal love poems, obscure adventure stories, and powerful personal stories. He runs the gamut of performance poetry, making him an effective live performer and an artist well equipped for collaboration.
Turner Music & Events
Suite 1104 - 207 West Hastings Street - Vancouver, BC V6B 1H7
Phone: (604) 662-4144 • Fax (604) 662-4116
Email: jeff@turnermusic.com
