ORAL METHOD is an experimental reading series, curated by Esmé Hogeveen, that invites writers and artists to create new work in response to a shared prompt.

This spring, we will co-host three ORAL METHOD events that explore themes related to BREAKAGE—asking writers and artists to consider how breaking up, breaking down, and breaking through can rupture old meanings, patterns, and selves, and potentially spark new paths or alternative futures.  Readings are free, open to the public. June’s theme is Breaking Through and will feature work from Zoe Imani Sharpe, Melissa Vincent and Alex Chouinard-McLellan.

Zoe Imani Sharpe is a poet, editor, teacher and workshop-maker. Her writing embraces desire and intuition, the sensuality of aesthetics, lineage, loss and mourning, women’s labour and practices of vitality. Her recent collaborations include an exploration of “life writing” called Bout That Life (Gallery TPW), a workshop gathering disparate citational materials; WhAt She SAid: Promiscuous References & Disobedient Care (Contingencies of Care, OCADU/TBA), and the intersubjective text Power, Baby! (with Claire Freeman-Fawcett). She was the 2023 Poet-In-Residence at Gallery TPW. You can find her recent work in YYZ Artists’ Outlet, carteblanche and Best Canadian Poetry 2021.

Melissa Vincent is a music journalist and researcher based in Toronto. Her work broadly investigates inquiries of equity, intimacy, and community formation as it relates to music, technology, and culture. In 2022, she was nominated for a Digital Publishing Award in the category for Best Science and Technology Storytelling for her essay, “Ethical AI has Not Solved Tech’s Problem with Racism. She’s a frequent on-air music correspondent for The National, CBC’s flagship nightly news program. Her work has appeared in Pitchfork, Elle Canada, The Globe and Mail, Billboard, NPR Music, and The Fader among others. She’s a Prism Prize juror, a SOCAN Songwriting Prize Panelist, a member of the Toronto Music Advisory Committee, and the Polaris Prize jury foreperson. Vincent is an inaugural research fellow at the Collaboratory for Black Poiesis.

Alex Chouinard-McLellan is a studio technician and ceramic artist living and working between Toronto and Haliburton, ON. She received her certificate in ceramics from the Haliburton School of Art and Design, and has since assisted various clay artists with their studio practices. Alex utilizes the functional capacity of ceramics to make objects that ode to rituals of collective care and connection. Alex has participated in residencies, woodfirings, and workshops throughout Ontario, and in Newfoundland and North Carolina. Currently, her work is being shown at the Alberta Craft Council in Edmonton and Calgary. Alex was the Ceramic Artist in Residence at the Haliburton School of Art and Design in 2022, where she now works as studio technician and maintains her own clay practice and local material research.