Lauren Best lives where the Pottawatomi River meets Georgian Bay, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (now known as Owen Sound, Ontario). She is an interdisciplinary creative with a multifaceted community arts practice interweaving her work as a poet, musician, and composer/creator.
Lauren left her small Ontario town as a young singer-songwriter keyboardist and returned to become Poet Laureate Emeritus (Owen Sound, 2017-2019). Lauren is included alongside other Poets Laureate Emeritus in the City of Windsor’s South Shore Collections series, A Manor of Words: Poetry at the Manor 10th Anniversary Anthology (Black Moss Press, 2022). Her poems are published in Spike: Poems in the Time of Pestilence (Cannon Creek Press, 2021).
Lauren’s 2010 chapbook Resound Re:Sound is a collection of lyrics written in Owen Sound between 2004-2008. Lauren’s music has been heard coast to coast since her debut album release in 2011, and she’s collaborated across genres and art forms with work in music, poetry, theatre, film and digital media.
During more than a decade of community engaged arts, Lauren has partnered across sectors spanning education, cognitive neuroscience research, healthcare, social service, and cultural organizations. In 2022 she teamed up with Seattle-baed saxophonist Steve Treseler to create the Infinite Improvisation Podcast.
Lauren’s new performance pieces combine poetry from her first full-length poetry book Just Leaves (2023), set within a soundscape of keyboard and vocal improvisation paired with lyric melodies.
You can find Lauren on socials and at https://laurenbest.com or at https://bestpracticearts.com/index.html
Lauren's Top 5 Songs of Encouragement:
1) This Joy by The Resistance Revival Chorus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TbDPwA09Bc&t=15s
2) Soy Yo by Bomba Estereo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxWxXncl53U&t=48s
3) Fool for Waiting by Dan Mangan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W4sCAl1qzY
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjDQ_OzLt8
4) Mississippi Nuthin' by Shovels & Rope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMKxTjo21bI&t=21s
5) Don't Quit on Me by Richard Laviolette
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVBDEsGcj8g&t=95s
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