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Fortner Anderson

Fortner Anderson Known for the performances of his poems, read a cappella, Anderson has been an active member of the Montreal spoken-word scene for years prior to the common use of the term "spoken-word".

He was a co-founder and a producer with the audio publishing venture Wired On Words (wiredonwords.com, or "WOW"). He participated in the development of the Ultimatum II Urban Poetry Festival of 1985. He is the host of a radio show, Dromostexte, a one-hour show which plays only poems and spoken word recordings, heard each week on CKUT-FM (ckut.ca). Past projects include: The Odyssey, an itinerant software, Montreal's Dial-A-Poem service, and Oralpalooza the Montreal spin-off from the Lollapalooza shows; the "Outloud Live" at the PanCanadian Wordfest in Calgary, Alberta and dozens of poetry readings and festivals in Quebec, with the occasional foray to Toronto, Vancouver, and New York.

His poems have been recorded on the Wired On Words compilation (WOW, 1993), Millennium Cabaret (WOW, 1998) et La Vache Enragée (Planète Rebelle, 1998), and have been published in Poetry Nation (Vehicule Press, 1998). His own CD sometimes I think appeared in 2000 (WOW). Recent performance venues have included the Banff Centre (Alberta), Cabaret (Montreal), the Rivoli (Toronto), and St-Mark¹s Church (New York). In June of 2002, he was invited to Genoa (Italy) to open the 8th edition of the Genoa International Poetry Festival . In February of 2004 he was a featured performer at the Festival Voix D'ameriques in Montreal reading works in english and french, and in November of 2004 he was a featured reader at the Monde Parallèlle 50//littérature festival in Lille, France. Work has been completed on his new CD recording project, "Six Silk Purses" which will appear in the spring of 2005 on the Ambiance Magnetiques label.

His website is fortneranderson.com.

The following tracks were excerpted from Anderson's spoken word album Sometimes I Think, published by Wired On Words, and released in 1999:

All the Sweet Lies
The Night Sky

- February 2005