Robert Burns aka Toddish McWong was interviewed today on Co-Op Radio's Wax Poetic – hosted by Steve Duncan and Diane Laloge.
http://poetryradio.blogspot.com/
Wax Poetic recognized the first day of Celtic Fest by highlighting the “Battle of the Bards” event featuring celtic poets Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats and Robert Burns, played by Todd Wong.
Diane and Steve asked Todd about the origins of Gung Haggis Fat Choy http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com
and how he became interested in Robert Burns.
Todd described the first meeting of the Battle of the Bards for a CBC Radio interview with Paul Grant.
Todd also read poems “My Luv Is Like a Red Red Rose” and “A Man's a Man For A' That and A' That”.
Burns poetry is full of love, social justice, equality, and love of life. The issues he wrote about are still relevant today.
Todd then closed with a rap version of “Address to a Haggis.”
Steve describes The Battle of the Bards as a fun event inspired by the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl:
to the Scotch and Irish would be appropriate, so we are raising the
dead for this show and bringing in Robbie Burns to help celebrate.
Yeats and Burns (really two great performers, Mark Downey and Todd Wong) will be going head-to-head, along with Dylan Thomas (Damon Calderwood) in a unique literary event this year on Thursday, March 13: The Battle of the Bards Literary Pub Crawl, a
combination pub crawl/poetry slam where the legendary poets go from pub
to pub downtown performing their works and being judged by members of
the audience armed with scorecards. The event culminates in a Jack Karaoke-style match at Ceili's Pub, where they must do their pieces accompanied by a DJ (All Purpose's Michael Louw) and fiddler Elise Boeur. Once the contest is over much drinking and dancing is done into the wee hours. Click on the image below for more details.