Oft in the springtime, sweet words of affection

Are whispered by thee in thy tenderest tone,

And in the winter dark clouds of dejection

By thee are dispelled till all sorrow has flown.

So said New Zealand poet Thomas Bracken in Spirit of Song. This is our invitation to you to celebrate Bracken, spirits, song, various poets and other ne'er-do-wells.

The ne'er-do-wells booked are Gein Wong, Adam Sol, and Plasticine's very own Susie Berg, plus the open mic and poems from a hat.

Adam Sols fourth book of poetry, Complicity, was published in the spring of 2014 by McClelland & Stewart. His previous collections include Jeremiah, Ohio, which was shortlisted for Ontarios Trillium Award for Poetry; and Crowd of Sounds, which won the award in 2004. He teaches at Laurentian Universitys campus in Barrie, Ontario, and lives in Toronto.

Susie Berg is the co-curator of the Plasticine Poetry Reading Series. She is the author of the poetry collection, How to Get Over Yourself Piquant Press, 2013, the chapbook Paper Cuts CreativeJames Press, 2007, and the blog The Starbucks Poetry Project. Her work has appeared in such journals as carte blanche, Arts Medica, Misunderstandings Magazine, and Switchback, and in the anthologies The Mom Egg Review, Desperately Seeking Susans, and Body and Soul. Lately, she has been writing essays, the first of which appeared on Dear Wendy www.dearwendy.com in November 2014.

Susie is a graduate of the summer writing programs at Humber College 2004, working with Olive Senior and St. Francis Xavier 2006, working with Anne Simpson and 2007, working with Jeanette Lynes. Her chapbook, There Will Still Be Birds, a conversation in poetry with Elana Wolff, is due from Lyrical Myrical Press in September 2015. Visit her online at www.sber40.wix.com/susieberg, or follow her @SusieDBerg on Twitter.

Gein Wong is an interdisciplinary director, playwright, spoken word poet, composer and video artist. Her works focus on obvious things like gender, class and race....as well as things a little less obvious, like gender, class and race. She is a 2012-13 Canadian Stage RBC BASH Director in Residence, a 2013 Harbourfront Centre HATCH Resident Artist, a two-time Philadelphia Asian Arts Initiative Resident Artist and is collaborating on a New York HERE Arts Centre Residency. She was shortlisted for the Ontario KM Hunter Theatre Awards in Theatre 2010 and Literature 2013. Her art have been shown and performed across Canada, in the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, East Asia and the United States. She is published in the Playwrights Canada Press AnthologyRefractions Solo and is a featured artist in Diaspora Dialogues 5th Anniversary Commemorative Book. Gein is a New York Kundiman Poetry fellow and is featured on the Dig Your Roots Canadian Spoken Word CD. She has released two CDs Thousand Mile Voice and Burning Money for You which are a warm and distinctive blend of East Asian acoustic instruments and electronic brushed beats. She is classically trained in piano and french horn and has trained with the erhu Chinese violin virtuoso Shao Lin. Gein is the Artistic Director of Eventual Ashes, the Asian Arts Freedom School and a co-owner of the Gladday Bookshop.