Polar Incantations

Polar Incantations is an unmissable night where poetry and magic collide. Four distinctive poetic voices take the stage alongside an electrifying magician for an evening of spellbinding stories and shared wonder. Magician Russell Comrie will conjure original, one-of-a-kind magic acts inspired by each poet’s personality and performance, weaving magic directly into the heart of the words.

Doors open at 6:30 and your first poet takes the stage at 7:00 pm sharp. Tickets are $10 at the door. The event will be hosted by Kim Mannix.

A portion of the nights proceeds will support the work done by the League of Canadian Poets.

The Artists:

• RAYANNE HAINES is the author of eight books, host of the literary podcast Crow Reads and president of the League of Canadian Poets. Tell the Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac) won the 2022 Stephan G. Stephansson Alberta Book Award for Poetry. What Kind of Daughter? (2024 Frontenac) was shortlisted for the same award. A previous Writer in Residence for the Edmonton Region of libraries she’s had work published in places like the Globe and Mail, Fiddlehead and Prairie Fire and has performed across Canada.
• DANIEL POITRAS is from the Paul First Nation and writes vicious Native poetry while residing in Beaver Hills House. He has been published in the Home and Away anthology (House of Blue Skies, 2009), The Malahat Review, Grain Magazine, Poets Re-Imagine Canada, a Primer for a Land beyond Acknowledgments anthology, and featured in the Poetry Pause with the League of Canadian Poets. He is the curator of the Dapper Dan’s Indian & Outlaw Extravaganza show featured in the Roxy Theatre for the Edmonton Poetry Festival 2025.
• JENNIFER BOWERING DELISLE‘S new poetry collection is Stock (2025), a response to stock photography. Her book of lyric essays, Micrographia (2023) won the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize and the Writers Guild of Alberta Memoir Award. She is also the author of Deriving, a collection of poetry (2021) and The Bosun Chair, a lyric family memoir (2017). She is on the board of NeWest Press and lives in Edmonton on Treaty 6 territory.
• MEDGINE MATHURIN is a Haitian-born multilingual poet and patient advocate. She is Edmonton’s current Poet Laureate. She is the author of the multilingual chapbook Waiting in the Land of the Living / Attendre dans le monde des vivants published by The Polyglot. She is the recipient of the 2023 Edmonton Artist Trust Fund award. In 2025, she attended the Banff Centre for Creativity 2025 Summer Writers Program where she received mentorship from award-winning American poet and performer Douglas Kearney.
• RUSSELL COMRIE is an award-winning South African magician currently based in Edmonton. Known for his skillful and elegant presentations of classic and original magic and mind-reading, Russell’s performances weave philosophy, psychology, and prestidigitation into a charming tapestry that, in the words of one reviewer, “makes you believe in the magic of magic!”