Upcoming

Please join us for our third edition of Tree Online (and our last reading before the summer break) on Tuesday, June 23. This will be a celebration of our 40th anniversary, featuring a reading by legendary Toronto poet and novelist Anne Michaels, and a guest-filled celebration of the work of Ottawa's own Michael Dennis. Ahead of the reading, Ottawa poet Sneha Madhavan-Reese will lead a workshop discussion on selected Black American protest poem

Register for the reading, workshop, and/or open mic

Please note that you’ll receive the event link in a confirmation email a few days prior to the event. Workshop attendees will receive workshop materials ahead of time as well.

We have some new commitments we'd like to share with you:

Tree reading series is committed to using our platform in a way that amplifies the poetry of Black, Indigenous and POC communities. We are committed to taking the following concrete actions.

• This summer, we will develop a programming strategy to ensure that future seasons (starting with the upcoming 2020-2021 season) consist of at minimum 50% BIPOC workshop facilitators and at minimum 50% BIPOC featured readers.
• Additionally, in acknowledgement of the fact that the poetry world is incredibly diverse and that the publishing world does not yet reflect that diversity, we will sunset our current internal policy that featured readers should typically be published authors.

Passing the Hat

Those who have attended our first two virtual readings know that, instead of "passing the hat" for Tree, we've been encouraging attendees to put their money towards supporting the works of our featured and open mike readers. This month, we encourage you to make a donation to one or more of the following Canadian organizations, or to other organizations that support Black lives and anti-racism:

• Family-led GoFundMe in memory of Regis Korchinski Paquet
• The Nia Centre, a multidisciplinary centre for Black youth and emerging Black artists
• Black Women in Motion, supporting the advancement of black womxn via workshops, education, and community outreach
• Black Youth Helpline, addressing psychological breakdown in communities through a focus on education, health and community development
• Black Lives Matter Toronto, Black Lives Matter Vancouver - a platform upon which black communities can actively dismantle all forms of anti-black racism, liberate blackness, support black healing, affirm black existence, and create freedom to love and self- determine