Congratulations to Dwayne Morgan, The Winner of the 2018 Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award!

2018 SHERI-D WILSON GOLDEN BERET AWARD WINNER

for lifetime achievement in Canadian spoken word poetry

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.

The Grand Prize for the Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award is $2000.

With this prize, the League is excited to be focusing on spoken word poetry—including dub poetry, sound poetry, and slam poetry, among many other subgenres—and it’s rich and powerful history that has grown to take the international stage by storm.

The Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award was founded by Sheri-D Wilson and the Calgary Spoken Word Society. Past iterations of this award have honoured Canadian spoken word artists who made substantial contributions to the development of spoken word, through the originality of their writing/performance works and involvement in the expansion of the spoken word community.

The Winner of the 2018 Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award is Dwayne Morgan!

Thank you to the jurors: Jury: Sheri-D Wilson, d’bi.young anitafrika and Ian Ferrier!

Dubbed by his peers as “The Godfather of Spoken Word,” Dwayne Morgan has been a spoken word community-builder for years. He tours schools and communities extensively, and with support from the York Region District School Board, he created Ontario’s first school poetry slam league! In 2016, Dwayne was a finalist for the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and he was also the recipient of the African Canadian Achievement Award. For his extensive community work and achievements, Morgan was also inducted into the Scarborough Walk of Fame.