Andrea Thompson

Festival Participant

Andrea Thompson is one of the most well respected poets in the Canadian spoken word scene. A popular performer at venues and festivals across North America, Thompson’s work has been featured on film, radio, and television; and included in magazines, literary journals and anthologies across Canada for nearly two decades.

Thompson’s debut collection, Eating the Seed (Ekstasis Editions, 2000), has been featured on the reading list at the University of Toronto, and at the Ontario College of Art and Design. She is also the co-editor of Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out, an anthology released by Inanna Publications in the fall of 2010.

Thompson’s poetry takes on a hybrid and unique style – blending elements of jazz, dub, hip-hop and traditional literary verse into a style all her own. In 2009, she was awarded the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s Poet of Honour: For Outstanding Achievement in the Art of Spoken Word, and in 2005, her spoken word CD One, was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award.

Working in a variety of forms, Thompson’s poetry has been featured in the film Slam Nation, on Bravo TV's Planet Poetry; TVO’s Imprint; Carolyn Weaver’s BioLibrary; and on a variety of CBC radio programs.

In 2008, Thompson wrote and performed her one-woman show, "Mating Rituals of the Urban Cougar," which she toured across the country as part of the Canadian Fringe Festival series. In 2009, her essay on the history of Spoken Word in Canada was published by Edition Malestrom (Brussells) as the prologue to the book Le Making of d’un Homme.

Thompson is also a regular visitor to secondary and post-secondary schools across the country, where she works with youth, using writing and performance to help improve literacy, confidence, communication skills, and self-esteem.

She is currently teaching Spoken Word through the Ontario College of Art and Design’s Continuing Studies Department, and completing her thesis for a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing through the University of Guelph.

Thompson is a founding member of the Spoken Word Arts Network, formed in association with the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2005, and has been a member of the League of Canadian Poets since 2001.