About the featured reader:

Medgine Mathurin is a Haitian-born spoken word artist and advocate. She is the author of the multilingual poetry chapbook Waiting in the Land of the Living / Attendre dans le monde des vivants published by The Polyglot. She currently serves as the Poet Laureate for the City of Edmonton.

Her work has been featured on CBC, Global TV, at SkirtsAfire Festival, and the Edmonton Poetry Festival. In 2025, Medgine attended the Banff Centre for Creativity 2025 Summer Writers Program where she received mentorship from award-winning American poet and performer Douglas Kearney. Medgine was selected as a participant in the 2022 Mentorship Program with the Writers' Guild of Alberta and became a mentor in the 2022 Horizon Writers Circle, a mentorship program for underrepresented writers living in Edmonton.

Over the years, Medgine was diagnosed with Lupus (SLE), CIDP, Polymyositis, and Raynaud’s — experiences that have fueled her commitment to merge storytelling with patient advocacy, particularly for those living with chronic illnesses. She recently completed her two-year term as Chair of the Patient and Family Advisory Committee with Health Quality Alberta, a provincial committee that promotes patient-centered care across the health system. Medgine is a two-time recipient of awards from the National Black Coalition of Canada (NBCC), having received the Fil Fraser Award for outstanding contributions to the literary and performing arts, and the Dr. John Akabutu Award for resilience.

Follow her at @medginespeaks and medgine.ca.

Poster artwork by Destiny Davidson.