Every December, there’s a slight drop in the frenetic pace of Calgary’s literary scene as the authors cuddle up to their writing desks to escape the cold. Fortunately, Calgary’s newest reading series isn’t going into hibernation.

Passion Pitch Poetry, a spin-off of Kirk Ramdath’s web magazine, Eleventh Transmission, is an open-mic poetry series that spotlights a different feature poet every month. This month’s performer is Vancouver’s Zaccheus Jackson. The fast-talkin’ spoken-word poet, is a veteran of the Vancouver Slam Team, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, the Individual World Poetry Slam and the Bumbershoot Festival. He released his debut CD, huManifesto, in 2006.

Jackson got his start in poetry in the fourth grade, when he had to memorize The Cremation of Sam McGee. “I’ll still recite it out of the blue every once in awhile,” he laughs. “It was that, my love of language and a copy of Leonard Cohen’s Stranger Music that pulled me toward poetry.” Growing up, he zigzagged across Western Canada before ending up in Calgary in 1999, where his partying lifestyle led to a downward spiral.

“When I first got to Calgary, I took some acid and went downtown. This guy asked my name, but I was really high and I said I couldn’t remember. He was like, ‘What? Your name’s Remember?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, that sounds cool.’ I just went with the flow. For the full four years I was in Calgary, I was only known as Remember,” he says. “This performance is going to be interesting, because six years ago, I was a homeless, crack-addicted squeegee kid on 17th Avenue, less than 20 blocks away from where I’ll be reading.”

After leaving Calgary, Jackson wound up in Vancouver and quickly became ensconced in the slam poetry scene, using his personal history as fodder for his writing. “If I had to put my poetry in a nutshell, I’d say it’s about gritty life experiences with a socio-political twist.” Jackson hits up Passion Pitch Poetry at the Oolong Tea House (110 10 St. N.W.) on December 19, 8 p.m. If you want to share some words at the open mic, sign-up starts at 7:30 p.m. There’s no cover charge, but donations are shared between the performer and this month’s charity, The Mustard Seed.

I love to host dinner parties, but my culinary skills aren’t really up to the task. Lucky for me, I’m not alone. The Rebel Cook isn’t a cookbook — rather, it’s a hospitality survival guide, where Linda Kupecek assembles tips, tricks and anecdotes to help you divert your guests from the disaster on their plate. Kupacek will be on hand to sign her book and dish out dining distractions at McNally Robinson (120 8 Ave. S.W.) on December 15, 1 p.m.