J Dennie has been a fixture on the
Toronto spoken word scene for a number of years now.
In 1998 he produced and hosted CHRY 105.5's The Poet
Tree, up at York University, a weekly spoken word
radio show with a run of two years. In November 1999,
he was responsible for launching BITE, arguably one
of the most exciting shows to have come along in Toronto
spoken word in a long time. The show remained fresh
and captivating for almost two years, capping off
a great run in the July 2001 finale. He has been published
in Labour of Love, Strange Tongues Anthology and Fire
& Reason, and the internationally acclaimed web
anthology entitled Times New Roman. He has tracks
featured on two spoken word CD's, Unheard of... by
Tupperware Sandpiper Productions and ...Like a Diamond
in the Sky by Labour of Love Productions and ...Like
a Diamond in the Sky by Labour of Love Productions.
He has also collaborated with legendary Toronto poet
Norm Cristofoli on a track entitled You off of Norm's
spoken word CD called Pass the Mustard available at
www.coffeehouse.ca.
J Dennie is also an editorial contributor to www.latchkey.net
and onecoffeehouse.ca. His articles and film reviews
have also appeared in The Catholic New Times, a left-leaning
social justice newspaper with nation-wide circulation.
He has had several spoken word feature appearances
throughout Toronto including: CIUT's Howl (twice),
CKLN’s In Other Words, the Syntactic Sunday
Reading Series (twice), the Art Bar Reading Series,
BITE, Strange Tongues, Parallel Chaos, Anti-capitalisme
Cabaret, Nik Beat's Words and Music Series, We Still
Got Words (twice), Cryptic Chatter, Junction Arts
Festival Greenpeace Benefit, Surburban Spoken Word
Series (twice), and the now defunct Orgasmic Alphabet
Orgy. J Dennie also had the dubious honour of being
the last featured reader at the long standing Idler
Pub Reading Series before they closed their doors
for good.
J Dennie has just completed his first full length
book entitled Natural Machine and is following that
up with Gnosis: Studies in Consciousness. He has also
released three chapbooks: of protest pieces entitled,
declassified, a second entitled funk groove mellow
catzz and third, a collection of travel pieces, called
streetbeat .
J Dennie is also an accomplished conga drummer. He
has provided percussive accompaniment to nationally
reknowned poets including bill bissett, Nik Beat,
Jim Christie, and Taylor Price. He often sits in with
the groovy Subtonic Monks at their monthly show down
at the Blue Moon Cafe on Queen East. He was a member
of the stage band for the successful run of the Toronto
theatre production, WAR: The Musical, in November
2002. He also performed with the once notorious Broken
Cowboy culminating with a performance at the 2001
OM summer solstice festival somewhere off in the middle
of nowhere.
Contact J Dennie at poetguy1974@hotmail.com
Email Addr: jdennie@bellnet.ca
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