Thursday, February 27, 2025, from 7 to 8:30 pm
Somehow, Somewhere We Rest: An Evening of Poetry and Music
Joshua “Scribe” Watkis, David Delisca, and DJ Grumps
In the Pavillion
Presented in Partnership with the Afrosonic Innovation Lab and the Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University
In response to their experience facilitating breath recordings to expand Charles Campbell’s Black Breath Archive, David Delisca and Joshua “Scribe” Watkis will present newly commissioned poetry followed by DJ Grumps spinning hip hop and reggae tunes.
Delisca and Watkis’ poetry will address Black breath as a powerful repository of African diasporic inheritance. Their poetry will present a testament to the indomitable force of Black ancestral lineages defying and resisting all attempts across colonial geographies and histories to extinguish Black life. Scribe and Delisca’s poetry explore the power of Black breath, specifically its ability to defy and evade any efforts to suppress or contain it.
David Delisca is a writer, poet, actor, and art educator. Born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in Florida, Delisca currently resides in Toronto. As an artist, Delisca’s work centers stories of diasporic experiences, family dynamics, and various human realities such as grief and joy to bridge realms of communication. He has published collections of poetry, I Grew Up Right Beside You and Goodness Griefness, and had his work included in the anthologies The Great Black North and Basodee. He is the founder and creator of art-based social engagement poetry projects Right Beside You; is a member of social justice poetry group Five Fingers, One Fist; and has performed at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche arts festival, on stage as part of “When Brother’s Speak,” and on media outlets including CBC and Netflix.
Scarborough-born poet Joshua “Scribe” Watkis has performed spoken word and hip hop across Canada, opening for hip hop legends like Saukrates and The Roots. He was a four-time finalist at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, winning the national championship in 2019. The two-time Tedx speaker has authored two chapbooks, Tethered and Black Blossom/Harsh North, and was featured on the first spoken word audiobook on Audible, Power In Poetry: Moods That Move. Most recently, he co-curated and hosted The Old Black Maple for the National Arts Centre debut Hip Hop Theatre Festival. Additionally, Scribe is an arts educator and mentor, sharing his story to help other share their own: in their words, out loud.
As DJ Grumps, Mark V. Campbell spent the last three decades as a DJ, starting his radio career on the Bigger than Hip Hop Show on CHRY 105.5fm in 1998 and has since mixed and remixed Afrosonic life across several platforms from radio to mixtapes to live events such as The ROM’s Friday Night Live series, the Manifesto Festival, and events at Harbourfront Centre and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Moving across the Afrosonic diaspora from lovers rock to house, back to hip hop and afrobeat, Grumps has been fortunate to have DJed across the globe in cities such as Vienna, Tokyo, and Kingston, Jamaica.
