Vancouver's poet laureate boycotts Cultural Olympiad; teaches taxes

Brad Cran, the Vancouver poet laureate, a longtime contributor to Geist magazine and twice the curator of Poetry Bash in the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival, is boycotting the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad because the organizing committee (Vanoc) forbids participants from criticizing the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Cran had been invited to read a poem at one of the Olympics celebration stages, with the theme of "equality", says a story in the Vancouver Sun . 

In his website, Cran wrote that, "I didn't think they would appreciate a reading of the one Olympic poem I had written on equality called In Praise of Female Athletes Who Were Told No, for the 14 female ski jumpers petitioning to be included in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver."

Cran said not only is this an "unjust attack on free speech" but Vanoc is misrepresenting Vancouver, which has a "strong history of political activism."

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Brad Cran is more than a poet, he's also a tax accountant and he is offering writers, artists and freelancers of all kinds a 3-hour workshop on the personal income tax return. It's on Saturday, March 6 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Listel Hotel, 1300 Robson Street, Vancouver. The fee is $50 and, as the notice in Geist points out, it is tax deductible.