and the Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award goes to…

Charlie C Petch

Charlie C Petch is an award winning playwright, spoken word artist, haiku deathmaster, host and musical saw player. Petch is touring their spoken word theatre piece, “Mel Malarkey Gets the Bum’s Rush” which got “Best of 2017” from Electric City Magazine for the radio play accompanying album “Odes & Acts”. They have published books with WordPress and LyricalMyrical and poems with Descant, The Toronto Quarterly, Matrix and Oratorealis journals. They will be publishing a full length poetry book with Brick Books in Fall 2021.  Petch is the creative director of “Hot Damn It’s A Queer Slam” a multi-city touring poetry slam series, was the 2017 Poet of Honour for Spoken Word Canada, a member of the League of Canadian Poets and a Youth Mentor with TDSB Creates.

Thank you to the 2020 Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Jurors: Hal Hart, Johnny MacRae and Tanya Neumeyer.

Read “Glom Glom Sunraises” by Charlie C. Petch and order a copy of one of their spoken word and music albums.

Read an exclusive interview discussing poetry, process and pandemic with Charlie C Petch.

The Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award is an annual literary prize crafted specifically to highlight the unique strengths and values of spoken word poetry. The Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award honours an established Canadian poet with a history of achievement and performance in spoken word.