PO FEST looks like a keeper!!!
February 10, 2009
I am impressed. I recently got a sign-up notice from the good folks at PO FEST – Edmonton’s annual poetry festival. Admittedly, for the longest time, I thought this thing, under the name of “The Edmonton Poetry Festival” was going to be dull as dishwater. There was no way this festival was going to make it with a name like “The Edmonton Poetry Festival.” BUT, I gotta tell you, “PO FEST” works for me. It has a cool factor. It invokes the idea that this festival might include everything from the staid and dusty, to the irreverent and edgy. But it leans heavily toward the edgy. Kudos to the organizing committee: Alice Major, Trisia Eddy, Gary Garrison, Michael Gravel, Jeff Carpenter…and I know there are more of you…but these were the only names on the PO FEST website (a site designed by the website Zen master Michael Gravel). I know, first hand, the work it takes to put on a party like the one you’re about to throw from April 23-26. You are making it happen. God speed, PO FEST. It’s the right name to push the festival into the big leagues and the line-up of guest performers is strong.
3 Comments
1. Mike Gravel had this to say: Feb 10, 2009 ~ 10:02 ~ #
FWIW, I’m not really too involved with PoFest this year. I built the site and I’m doing the web updates. The rest of the crew are doing the heavy lifting…
Thanks for the support in any case, Thomas. It means a lot.
2. thomas had this to say: Feb 10, 2009 ~ 10:33 ~ #
Mike,
Building the site and doing the web updates is a huge contribution!!! Having a logical, functional, professional, and beautiful website adds to the hip factor of PO FEST.
For most, the website is the FIRST exprience of the festival and if it’s a lame, flea-bitten dog, well, it reflects on the whole. So, don’t underestimate your contribution.
Trofs
3. Adam Snider had this to say: Feb 10, 2009 ~ 12:18 ~ #
I dig the name PO FEST, too, although I think an outsider would hear the name and ask, “What’s a PO FEST?” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.
What I like best about the whole thing, especially after seeing what went down last year, is that the new festival basically takes the best elements of the “old” Edmonton Poetry Festival and the Roar and smashes them all together into something better than either original festival.