Liz Mariani is a poet, spoken word performance artist, visual artist and teaching artist. Toronto's Tracy Kcycl describes Mariani's performance as:
"Liz Mariani took the stage next and enchanted the audience with her dry sense of humour and equally cool poetry. Usually Art Bar features local or Canadian poets, but it was refreshing to hear a voice from south of the border.Mariani started off her set with “Standard Kitchen Heat,” a very sophisticated portrait of an early morning rise. Her next poem, “Game River,” demonstrated the extent of Mariani’s astounding vocabulary. Mariani impeccably balances her impressive diction with a style that is sharp, terse, and shows strong evidence of editorial discipline. Listening to Mariani read reminds me of the first time I fell in love with an avant-garde film. It was like suddenly realizing (or suddenly remembering, rather) that poetry doesn’t need a narrative to give it value. At the end of the day, it’s the form that counts. With Liz, you hear words in combinations you’ve never encountered before and her images reverberate sharply. “Orange Season” is a great example of Mariani at her most talkative, while “Parched” is more clipped, and calculatedly controls rhythm to great effect.
