ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

In January 1999, Wakefield Brewster stepped onto his first stage as a poet and spoken word artist. Today, he is known as one of Canada’s most powerful professional performance poets.  

A Black man raised in Toronto by parents from Barbados, he has resided in Calgary since 2016, and it is in the “New West” where Wakefield has been able to truly flourish as a Poet and as a person.  

Throughout his career, Wakefield has been published in several anthologies, such as T-Dot Griots (2004), The Great Black North (2013), The Calgary Project (2014) and The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology (2019). Since moving to Calgary, he has produced two Professional Recordings to his credit, such as da lyrical pitbull (2007) and east2west (2008).  

He is a three-time Calgary Poetry Slam Champion & Team Captain (2006, 2008-2009), the inaugural Poet of Honour at the 2011 People’s Poetry Festival, a former poet-in-residence at Arts Commons and The Grand Theatre, and a member of the Canadian League of Poets. In 2021, he was named the Peter Gzowski Foundation for Literacy Calgary Poet Laureate from 2022-24, and in the 2021-22 season at Arts Commons, he was a participating artist in the TD Incubator program at Arts Commons under the guidance of Incubator Fellows Contra and Jae Sterling.  

Wakefield is a registered massage therapist and owner of WakeFull Wellness Registered Massage Therapy & HealingSpace, and expands his community practice as a volunteer and mentor for Calgary youth through the arts and an advocate for literacy, healing arts and alternative medicine, addiction recovery, and mental wellness.  

After all that the stage has given him, he has discovered other ways that he may repay his beloved poetry and arts communities by performing silently, backstage, for them. Underneath the many hats and hoodies he wears resides a wonderful life. 

wakefieldbrewster.com
Facebook: Wakefield Brewster