It was almost 8:00 pm, an hour after the “official” start of Slant Reading that I arrived. A month old, Slant Reading Series is young, still trying to find it’s niche in a community made of niches. It was hosted around College & Spadina, where the Windup Bird Cafe once stood. Now the Montreal Bar & Grille, a classy bar/cafe that sounds like a pricey bar/grille chain.

Inside, it still holds onto its indie cafe appeal, except with more wood in its wall and furniture. The layout is the same, with the back-end already clustered with the audience. The room is full of punchy enunciations of a poem of harassments being constantly checked for a legitimacy, never demanded from white people. I’ve walked into the thick of Dane Swan’s performance. His words are a playlist of staccato phrases, weaving together the everyday indignations of black Canadian living.

After a flurry of applause, Justin Lauzon, founder of Slant, takes to the mic to announce a break. Even as he congratulates Dane, he doesn’t waver, and his confidence holds together well for a first-time host. Personality shines as he chats up his audience, with stories on how he met Dane. Being introduced to him by a friend at Slackline, another emerging series, that has already made a splash in the literary community. It’s a refreshing story of how anyone, Justin in particular, can build up a network of current and potential readers.

“Slant reading is about social issues in our readings. But we’re still building our audience,” he says when I ask him what Slant is. I ask why Wednesday of all days, the most popular (busiest) night for literary events. Four other lit events were happening that night, including a reading series less than a block away from Slant. “I decided 1st Wednesday of every month was the best,” he notes with a rueful grin.

He returned to the mic to announce Angela Wright. She stepped up from a table full of friends and family, and she immediately hit against gun violence. “From womb — to prison — to grave”, speaking of her personal pain of dead cousins. Next is a poem of struggling against the insidious excuses for why she can’t be a black ballerina dancer. It was easy to stay rapt and find a stir of anger while enveloped by her experience.

After another break, a flurry of open-mics come one at a time to the front. They’re a slew of decent pieces, rougher than the readers, but entertaining all the same.

As Justin brought the night to close, Slant ended with a flurry of applause for both him and his readers. It was a captive experience, with poetry infused with what bleeds, cries, uplifts, and most of all, matters. So long as Justin can find more readers who can weld stories to their work, Slant Reading Series has a bright future ahead.

Quick Lit Facts

Host: Justin Lauzon

Location: Montreal Bar & Grille

When: 1st Wednesday of each month

Pay: Free

Work: “Slant Reading Series is the only reading series in Toronto that exclusively highlights the many ways in which Canadians are engaging with social issues through writing, and seeks to provide a platform for diverse, often underrepresented voices.”

Open Mic: Yes

Structure: Two readers and a open-mic, 10-minute breaks in between

Founded: 2017

Online: Facebook & Lexical.ca

A reading series lives by its community. A rule that the Brockton Writers Series has managed to abide by for nearly a decade in the Brockton neighbourhood. It was a peculiar thought to chew on, standing in front of Glad Day Bookshop, halfway across the city. A sandwich board beside me, “Brockton Reading Series 6:30 pm” scribbled in white chalk.

It’s Brockton’s first season in a bookstore still in its first year at this new location.

New bookshop.

New reading series.

I aim to be impressed, by Brockton’s community and the new.

Walking in, I’m immediately taken by Glad Day’s layout, which puts the toothpaste squeeze of narrow bars and their backrooms to shame. The first thing I noticed was the bar. An entire wall dedicated to fancy-named teas and local beers. The opposite wall was bookshelves stuffed with the LGBT genre, and chairs packed in the middle. A full AV setup is at the far end, including a projector. Literary series are rarely equipped with projectors. I’m mildly impressed already.

I pushed through the crowd of Brockton’s audience, readers, and friends. They’re slouched against the bar, or chatting it up in their cliques. By the window are a couple tea-drinking “regulars” keeping an eye down in their cups, an eye up at what is about to happen. Brockton has not suffered from heir location change. Reader popularity could explain that. But reader popularity explains most audience. Despite the crush of people, I pick myself a seat before most sit down, and dump my bag in front of me.

Anyone with an elementary understanding of the Brockton (or read the Facebook event description) knows of Brockton’s writerly workshops. Teva Harrison, the graphic novelist, starts the night and her workshop with an acknowledgment of indigenous people. It’s a preface and an understanding that is spreading to other lit events around Toronto.

Her talk: “The Constraints of Form” is less a presentation rather a reading in a methodical tone. Her performance is interjected with powerpoint images and mixing charts and flipbooks into story.

“Thank you for your time and attention is a gift” she ends.

A 16-minute break follows, and audience cluster back into their familiar relations. I chat with an elderly woman next to me, all the while mentally guessing which reader she came to see. I guess wrong.

Eventually, Farzana Doctor, Brockton’s founder, came to the mic. She rattled off the name of her volunteer team, expounding on their contributions that keep the Brockton thriving.

Sarah: guest speaker coordinator

Dan: blog/co-host

Sonia: photographer

Nancy: publicity

As she gushes each name, it’s clear to me that Farzana’s ability to inspire that has led to a tight-knit team, any lit reading series would aspire to attract. Someone taps me on the shoulder. My neighbour hands me a jug. Marked on the side is “PWYC: $3–5”. I put in a crumpled $5 and send it along.

Next was the main attraction, the readers. The readers began:

Manasi Nene: Traces of her Indian accent still cling to off-normal poems of fairy parents and the drugged hallucinations of the 3 bears. In her sappy-tone, fairy tales are ruthlessly deconstructed of racism, classicism, and sexism.

Casey Plett: A transgender writer, whose words are sci-fi intersectionality, performed in low-tone buildups and reaching high climaxes.

Giovanna Riccio: An Italian poet whose dry enunciations mould her poems.

Kateri Akiwenzie Damm: Native American artist and small-press owner. She doesn’t begin herself with an intro, only a hard pounding language transcribing an ode to women.

At the end, when short salutations and thanks to the readers would wrap up any other reading series, instead Farzana brings the readers back up where they take questions from the audience. “What is the future for feminist writers?” and “What is your favourite coffee?”, are the highlights, prompting much thought and winging it from the readers.

The Brockton Writers Series is no longer in the Brockton neighbourhood. But it wasn’t the location or its writerly workshop that makes Brockton a literary powerhouse. Rather it is the tight-ship of enthusiastic volunteers and a careful curation of savvy readers that makes attending Brockton an utter wow.

It’s a typical Toronto January and walking from Dundas West station to the Common Reading Series. My feet are numb, except for the rush of pain with each step on frozen pavement. Being the westernmost reading series in Toronto, the commute can be a pain.

I arrive, half an hour late, and there is already a crowd of English students to freelance writers, writers all, stretched out across the entire length of the bar/cafe from the stage to the washrooms. Beer comes in mason jars, and getting to the washroom means squeezing through mid-conversations of who’s published what, and how cold Toronto is.

A fitting audience for the Belljar cafe, an indie director’s vision of a bar staffed with hipster cowboys. An entire wall is a chalkboard scrawled with demons smoking pipes. A typewriter sits on a corner table underneath a wall crawling with fancy looking mirrors and paintings you would find in your gran’s house.

Daniel Renton, current host of the Common, is in the middle of a grove of people. It’s easy to imagine he is a creative writing prof: sporting glasses, growing beard, along with a tweed jacket and stressed jeans. Except he wears a red toque like a fisherman marooned in the city.

“We strive to match emerging writers with more established ones in order to create dialogue within the literary community that otherwise might not exist.” he said when I asked him what defined the Common Reading Series.

After nearly an hour, and the slowly crowding Belljar, Dan comes to the stage. “Thanks for coming out in winter to hear people read” he declares. He gets laughs.

First, comes Andrew Faulkner. His slow intonations of his poem, “A Vast pornography of Snow”, is a multi-bit layer of words piling over into peaked moments of lyrics without music.

After Andrew is a break long enough to encourage conversations to bubble among clumps of people.

“Why did you come?” I asked my bar buddy, a guy who had kept to himself while audience naturally cling to familiar acquaintances.

“I’m Dan’s neighbour” he replied. We try to toast glasses but our fingers get in the way, and so we awkwardly knuckle bump with glasses in our grasp

Next, Leigh Nash comes onto the stage. Her poem “Outdoor Noise” echoes with clear cut “There are no stats on colours” and “The story is always than shame” slide into our ears with a quiet tone.

Shari Kasman brings up the rear, her careful deliberate performance holding the static attention of us, the audience. All the while, Dan leans beside an old piano, his head uplift catching every word.

Often, to say that a reading series brings writers together is like saying a watering hole can bring a cheetah and water buffalo together. It goes without saying. Yet, you couldn’t find a better definition of the Common Readings, actively inviting the budding writer fresh from undergrad to the experienced author with several publications under her belt. Bringing someone who lived in the Junction all their life to one all the way from the Maritimes. It’s the reliable place to meet for writers who often live in the solitude for their craft.

Quick Lit Facts

Host: Daniel Renton

Location: Belljar Cafe

When: 3rd Monday of each month

Pay: Donation Jar

Work: “I tell every writers that they can read whatever genre they like. It has mostly been poetry and fiction but I’d like to see as wide a range as possible, even drama.”

Open Mic: No

Structure: Three readers, 10-minute breaks in between

Founded: 2013

Online: Facebook & Twitter

The front of the Steady Cafe resembles a small theatre, and standing outside in the rain, the black retro-lettered sign announcing the Pivot Reading Series glows. Inside, I navigate through the crowded front room, through a narrow hallway, and in the backroom where attendees are waiting for this night’s readings to begin. Beers in hand, writers, editors, professors, and usually combinations of all three, mingle. Spread out in the room, everyone faces the performance stage at the back. On the wall a neon pink sign flashes out “Steady” and the DJ booth is a faux palm grass hut.

Odd aesthetics out, the Steady fits well with the Pivot Reading. Great location, medium-sized space for the medium-sized audience. A reliable fit for any event organizer’s need. It may be choices like this that allow the Pivot to make its mark in Toronto’s literary community for more than 5 years. On Facebook and website, it proclaims itself “Toronto’s Great Literary Series”. a cheap sales word, but I was going to find out.

After finding a seat, I wait for the readings. Beside me, a couple students and an adjunct professor are gripping about academics. I am soon sucked into an earful of finding a new college for the upcoming semester and war stories of getting kicked out of classes.

Soon the room hushes as Jacob Mooney, the ginger-bearded, spectacled event director of the Pivot, comes to the mic. First up: Mat Laporte, a familiar figure in the literary community. He introduces himself with an observation that there is an open tin of cookies beside him. Reading from his latest book, “Rats Nest”, its a curious story about blinking lights and singular brain cell.

After Mat, Jason is back. Explaining with dry jokes thrown in how the rest of the night will work. With only three readers it will be reader, break, reader, break, reader. A common scheduling for a good mix of readings and socializing. He ended his host litany with the never forgotten plea to donate to the jar. A beer jug that will be passed around during the break.

The break ends with Adèle Barclay, a poet with poems in well-known lit mags and winners of poetry contests. She came offering little anecdotes behind each of her poems including a poem of resurrecting sparrows and recovering a bad party. Eric Beck Rubin bringing his foray into fiction.

It was a great lineup. Reader bios with books of poems published in one of the many small presses, or published pieces in magazines like the Fiddlehead. Their words themselves fly farther than their voices. Jason rounded up a pleasant evening, with a reminder that the evening would be recorded and broadcasted on Ryerson University’s: The Scope. It’s a nice pledge to commemoration to reader’s performances, that often disappear under the clutter of readings and launches that fill up Toronto’s evenings.

The Pivot doesn’t do anything that makes it unique, no catering, or focus on diversity or new writers. If it holds up its title as the “greatest” it would be in its utter quintessential ness. It hits all the checkmarks for many literary series in Toronto, except open mics. The scheduling is as efficient as they come.

If you want a first-hand experience of what makes a reading series a reading series, then the Pivot is the place to be.

I arrived for the Wild Writers reading series, 20 minutes after the Facebook event start time. Walking through the door of the Poetry Jazz Cafe, I was immediately chastened as I scurried past the first reader. Georgia Wilder, host and spirit of Wild Writers, who, with a donation jar beside her, nods me onwards to find a seat. I excused myself through the narrow gauntlet between the bar and jutting knee-tall tables until I can find a stool, right by the food table.

Finally settled down, I fall into the headspace of the amusing moments of working in a hospital bookstore, as buoyed the practiced performance of spoken word poet, Trevor Abes. He was also bathed in neon red from the Jazz Cafe’s curious lighting choice, a colour that is not quite red, maybe pink of the light. Just across the front door, perched on a stool was Georgia Wilder, nodding to each uplifting twist of his rhymes.

For nearly two years, Wild Writers, a Toronto reading series, has brought poets and performance artist together to a monthly Wednesday night. It has taken a less structured program with just two readers sandwiching an open mic lineup. Inserting an open-mic segment to the detriment of a longer feature reader lineup is always a curious choice. It means fewer friends/family of featured readers and a possibility that every audience member will find themselves behind the mic. This is not always bad, and under the guiding energy of a talented host, can lead to a sense of community among those who attend.

Georgia was more than up to the task in keeping her audience engaged. Between the clapping to congratulate Trevor, she segued into an encouraging story of how they met and continued amusing anecdotes from happenstance to coincidence, and finally friends. As she encouraged the audience to sign-up for the open-mic during the upcoming break, more people came trickling through the door with eyes downcast and embarrassed smiles. Likely assuming Toronto’s notorious literary event start times or not realizing live entertainment that night was poetry, not guitars.

As people chat and the donation jar passed through the crowd, I grab some food, loading a plate full of cucumber sushi rolls, and sliced up bell peppers dipped in hummus. On a projector above the bar, a black and white Western film was playing. I catch the ending and when the DVD menu I catch the title “Dead Man”, the bartender hits play again. Barflys, no doubt, have by now captured the black and white coloured chemistry of a bespectacled cowboy and his chubby native American friend without knowing a word of dialogue.

After the break, the open-micers came up to shoot off one or two poems, including the co-founder of the newly revamped ArtBar reading series and a migrant from Yukon looking for a place to sleep that night. The night was brought to a close by Wes Ryan, the second feature reader, another performance artist who delivered a slam of his poetry.

As I am lulled by oft-monotone recitations to some more energetic displays of emotion I realize I am snacking on a plateful of food that puts every reading series to shame. To host a monthly reading series usually, mean that food and drink is the organizer gently begging audience members to drink enough to reach the drink minimum the bar requires to turn a profit. To be able to provide a dinner’s worth of food (vegetarian at that) for an uncertain number of audience members and the bare number of featured readers is an achievement that doesn’t make Georgia so much as ‘wild’ but bountiful.

Wild Writers may at first look like another reading series that fills the email listing of the Patchy Squirrel. More often than not, relegated to second choice if a press launch or a reading series, with a longer featured reader lineup, is happening on the same night. However, beneath this one-of-many reading series facade, is something literal about “Wild Writers.” Georgia has managed to deliver a evening that still heralds all the elements of a poetry series, injected with the performance of spoken word. It makes for a scrappy, foodie, and entertaining night.

“It’s to pay for the rent and the readers” one of the volunteers explains after I hesitate. I’m used to tipping a couple dollars for poetry but $5 is veering to the largest donation that I will pay to attend a poetry reading. Stuffing a crumpled $5 through the narrow slit cut into the top of the box, I go see what makes Shab-e She’r.

I’m 15 minutes early to the ‘official’ start of the show per the Facebook event, but already there is a good scattering of people. The rows of foldout chairs are mostly empty save for a few buried into their phones. Most are clumped in twos and threes in every visible space of the space, with no awkward spaces that is often the fear of many literary event organizers. What’s surprising is that so many arrived early, in a local community notorious for brutalizing punctuality and the unwritten rule for any poetry event is to start when enough audience have showed.

I looked for the bar, as Beit Zatoun isn’t a bar, it would be the ‘beer’ table with a cardboard sign serving Pabst Blue Ribbon or a bottle of wine to be sold in plastic cups. Instead coffee and sage tea is served in industrial stainless steel percolators and President Choice chocolate chip cookies, which were already being greedily devoured by a middle aged man with a goatee. I grabbed a napkinful of cookies and went to see Bänoo Zan, the organizer behind Shab-e She’r. I knew Bänoo from watching her read as a featured reader at previous reading series or chatting with her outside bars, me leaving, her for a smoke break.

I found her with two bearded white guys. Her frizzy black hair barely adds a couple centimetres to her stature however she holds their attention as they nod along to her voice. I introduced myself again, also signing up for the open mic, which had already grown to a list of 16 readers along with the two established readers for the night.

Shab-e She’r, as Bänoo explained to me, is Iranian for poetry night, creating the unfortunate side-effect of having to explain to many a confused Iranian expats that attend that Shab-E-She’r is not strictly Persian poetry. Instead it is Toronto’s most diverse poetry series. While every series organizer in Toronto will stress their openness for diverse readers for their events, it’s not often that they are actively sought. The diversity also seemed to extended to the audience. Instead of the mostly white audience ranging from post-grad to middle-aged with careers in academia or writing, audience ranged from a grandfatherly man chatting with a guitar-playing woman to a whole family, parents and their little girl, scrunched up in the back seats.

After the seats were mostly filled, Bänoo came up to announce the open mics, always a safe opportunity for budding writers to practice their stagework, with Toronto’s youngest open mic reader. Cue the not-yet-seven-year-old girl, her parents smiling as she came up and read off a poem.

The open mic continued with a litany of aspiring poets (including me). Between the open mics, Bänoo took the mic to congratulate each reader, stressing the need for us and the rest of the audience to go out and develop relationships. As she put it neatly, “poets be brave”. When she wasn’t encouraging the growth of a poetry community like a gardener, she imparted snippets of her life, including how she immigrated to Canada with zero connections in the poetry community and forming her own.

So far her efforts seemed to have borne fruit. After the first round of open-mics were done, David Clink came up, a white middle-aged librarian whose speculative poems often in the form of prose poetry kept the audience attentive with his curious wordplay. After the second cluster of open-micers Aparna Halpé a Sri-Lankan ESL professor finished up. Two day after, a photo album of the night’s events was posted on Facebook. It included congratulations to everyone who attended and pics of the readers, and especially her team.

A reading series only survives with the tenacity of its organizer to overcome the fretting challenges of finding the money and enough readers and audience to have monthly literary performances. While its encouraging stance of diversity is a schtick that sounds great for promotion, She-e She’r reaches above and beyond with the unique event schedule that Bänoo has organized and her showmanship to grow She-e She’r and make it seem more than just a monthly event. If Shab-E-She’r will last it will begin and end with Bänoo.

Quick Facts:

Host: Bänoo Zan

Location: Church of St. Stephen in-the-Fields

When: Last Tuesday of the Month

Pay: Donation ($5)

Work: Poetry

Open Mic: Yes

Structure: Two readers, 15-minute break in between. Open-Mic readers bookend the readers

Founded: 2012

Online: Facebook, Twitter, & LinkedIn