Brainstorming With Ritallin
Featuring Greg Frankson, a.k.a. Ritallin
Poet, Media Personality & Arts Educator
January 14, 2014
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Greg “Ritallin” Frankson has drive, like a car. Never envious, the only green he admires is in nature. As of late, skillful manoeuvring of the vehicle that carries him forward, spoken word poetry, has shifted him into a new gear as resident poet on the CBC Radio One show Here and Now Toronto and a highly sought after arts educator. His membership on the 2012 Canadian team slam championship team is proof positive that the mileage on his body adds character to his reliably transformational and inspirational poetry.
Greg was a pot washer at Rideau Hall on the day in January 2006 when Stephen Harper was sworn in as the country’s Prime Minister.
In March 2012, he was one of four national finalists in the CBC TV special Canada’s Smartest Person. He finished third.
If you look at the program from the official opening ceremony for St. Bede Catholic School in spring 1993, he was listed as a member of staff. At the time, he was a co-op student teacher in his final semester of high school (at age 18), and his name was included alongside those of his more senior colleagues.
When he was in high school at Pope John Paul II CSS in Scarborough, he was in a hip-hop group with Juno Award winning rapper Choclair. At the time, Choclair was going by the stage name Cirum B. Greg’s stage name in those days was Tony G. — a reflection of his legal name, Anthony Gregory Frankson. He did not become Ritallin until he performed in his first-ever slam in Ottawa in July 2003.
He leaves you with this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art.