“So what if Vancouver has become one of the hottest venues on the North American spoken-word circuit? Is there any correlation between the groundswell of so-called ‘street poetry’ in Vancouver and the West Coast’s domination of all those august literary prizes?” Perhaps… but perhaps not. Even those who practice the art can’t agree. Some of them don’t even like one another. And they don’t like the publicity. Or even necessarily the artform. “To treat poetry as performance is crude and extremely revolting.”