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October 11, 2013

Emilia Nielsen and Daniela Elza

Emilia Nielsen is faculty at Quest University in Squamish, BC as a Teaching Fellow in 2013-2015. She holds a BFA from the University of Victoria, a MA from the University of New Brunswick and a PhD from the University of British Columbia. During her studies, she was the recipient of several British Columbia Arts Council Senior Scholarships and two Canada Graduate Scholarships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for Masters and Doctoral research and writing. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals across Canada including The Antigonish Review, Contemporary Verse 2, Event, Descant, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Prairie Fire, Room Magazine, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry by Prism International. Surge Narrows, published by Leaf Press in 2013, is her debut collection of poetry.

 

Daniela Elza’s work has appeared nationally and internationally in well over sixty publications. Her poetry collections are the weight of dew (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2012), milk tooth bane bone (Leaf Press, April, 2013) and the book of it (iCrow publications, 2011). Daniela contributes to the poetry community is a variety of ways: judges contests, organizes and promotes events, conducts workshops, guest-edits for journals/anthologies, volunteers for writing organizations, helps coordinate and host Twisted Poets Literary Salon and is poetry editor at Cascadia Review, where she makes sure Canadian voices from the bioregion are well represented. In 2011 Daniela earned her doctorate in Philosophy of Education from Simon Fraser University.

 

 

October 18

Barbara Pelman and Jeanette Lynes

In conjunction with the Victoria Writer’s Festival

Barbara Pelman is a sort of retired teacher, having taught high school English for many years, and is now teaching part-time in the Faculty of Education. She has two books of poetry, One Stone (Ekstasis Editions 2005) and Borrowed Rooms (Ronsdale Press 2008) and a number of poems in literary journals. She has been an active member of the poetry community, poeming strangers during Random Acts of Poetry, organizing students to paint poems on hoardings downtown (those blank construction walls you're always tempted to write on), reading at the Open Mic at Planet Earth Poetry. She has a daughter, a piano, and an ex-husband.

Jeanette Lynes' sixth collection of poems, Archive of the Undressed (Wolsak and Wynn, 2012) was shortlisted for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Jeanette's poems were also shortlisted for the 2012 Matrix Litpop Award and won the 2010 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Award from  The New Quarterly. Her first novel, The Factory Voice, was long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a ReLit Award; it was also podcast on CBC Radio. Jeanette is the Coordinator of the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan and lives in Saskatoon.

 

 

October 25

Elizabeth Greene and Rona Shaffran

League of Canadian Poets and The Writer’s Union of Canada

Elizabeth Greene has published two collections of poetry, The Iron Shoes (Hidden Brook, 2007) and Moving (Inanna, 2010). She edited and contributed to We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman (Cormorant, 1997) which was awarded the Betty and Morris Aaron Prize for Best Scholarship on a Canadian Subject. She has recently published poems in The Literary Review of Canada, The Antigonish Review, Guernica's Poet to Poet Anthology, ed. Julia Roorda and Elana Wolff, and The Planet Earth Poetry Anthology, ed. Yvonne Blomer and Cynthia Woodman Kerkham (Leaf Press); in Shy: The Anthology, ed. Rona Altrows and Naomi Lewis (U of A Press); in Untying the Apron, ed. Lorri Neilsen Glenn (Guernica) and in I Found It at the Movies, ed. Ruth Roach Pierson (Guernica). She has twice been short-listed for the Descant/Winston Collins Prize (for 2011 and 2013). This year, the short list will be published in Descant in the summer of 2013. Her current collection of poetry, Understories, is being read at Inanna. She lives in Kingston with her son and three cats.

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Rona Shaffran lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Ignite (Signature

Editions, 2013) is her first published collection of poetry. It tells the book-length story of
remarkable things that can happen in a broken relationship between a man and a woman, healed by a physical process of self-discovery. Rona launched Ignite at the 2013 Ottawa Writers Festival.

 

 

 








 

PLANET EARTH for Summer:

August 9

DVORA LEVIN & DANIEL SCOTT with musical accompaniement by PHIL NEWTON

An open mic (one poem/poet; three (3) minutes max.) followed by two featured readers: Daniel Scott and Dvora Levin, along with music by Phil Newton. Open Mic sign up as usual begins at 7 PM; start time, 7:30 PM. $3 will be collected at the break.

Dvora Levin has published two books of her poems: Sharav and To Bite The Blue Apple (Ekstasis Editions) and had poems in FreeFall, ARC, Ascent Aspirations, iLit (McGraw-Hill Ryerson) and the anthology, Poems From Planet Earth, along with a number of chapbooks edited by Patrick Lane. In addition, Dvora has edited two collections of poetry from her weekly writing sessions with the homeless, sex workers and addicts in recovery: Voices From The Edge (300 copies distributed) and Victoria On The Banks Of The Mainstream. She is an active member of Victoria's vibrant and vibrating poetry community.

Daniel G. Scott is an eclectic, with writing as part of his life journey from coast to coast and job to job. He has recently released his first longer book of poems, black onion (Goldfinch Press), and has poems published in the Antigonish Review, The Island Writer, the anthology, Poems from Planet Earth, Radiant Among the Willows, edited by Patrick Lane and Blind Poetics, Collection II (Scotland: Duality 2013). His writing history includes radio and print journalism, theatre pieces, including a prize winning one act play for the Saint John, NB Bicentennial and numerous academic publications.

Phil Newton loves to play the piano. It's been a playful passion of his since childhood. "Dr. Phil", as his friends at the Spiral Cafe reverently call him, is an amazing sit-in piano player with big ears and fast fingers! You can find him performing Thursday nights at the Spiral Cafe's Open Mic (6–9 PM), where good vibes and talent lift the energy to the rafters. Blessed with a multitude of experiences, Dr. Phil enjoys sharing his musical heritage with others. So many stories and so little time! Fifteen years in the NWT as a recording artist and CBC studio band member. (Yellowknife.), folk festivals in Texas, dinner parties in Amsterdam, gallery openings and house concerts in BC. As well as coming with a suitcase of original songs, Phil is a seasoned studio producer and owner-operator of Quick Mix Solutions and Docu-Party Services.

 

July 5

DOUBLE POEM NIGHT

On Friday, July 5, Planet Earth Poetry will be an all-evening open mic. Poets are requested to bring two of their own poems – as different as possible. Each poet will have six (6) minutes orless in total. A little summer fun with a chance to hear the range of work our poets create. Sign up as usual beginning at 7 PM; start time, 7:30 PM. $3 will be collected at the break.

April 5 2013

SANDY SHREVE and CAROLE LANGILLE

Sandy Shreve has published four poetry collections, most recently Suddenly, So Much (Exile Editions, 2005). Recent work has appeared in her chapbook, Cedar Cottage Suite (Leaf Press, 2010), the Literary Review of Canada,Exile,The Windsor Review, and Villanelles(ed. Finch and Mali, Everyman’s 2012). A new chapbook, Level Crossing, is forthcoming from The Alfred Gustav Press in fall 2012. She co-edited, with Kate Braid, the anthology In Fine Form – The Canadian Book of Form Poetry(Polestar, 2005), edited Working For A Living, a collection of poems and stories by women about their work (Room of One’s Own, 1988) and founded BC’s Poetry in Transit program. Her work is widely anthologized and has won the Earle Birney Prize for Poetry and been short listed for the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award and the National Magazine Awards for poetry. Born in Quebec and raised in Sackville, New Brunswick, she now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. For more information, visit:www.shreve.shawwebspace.ca

Carole Glasser Langille’s most recent book is a collection of short stories, When I Always Wanted Something. Her forth book of poems, Church of the Exquisite Panic: The Ophelia Poems, and will be published in the fall of 2012. She has been nominated for The Governor General’s Award for poetry and the Atlantic Poetry Prize and longlisted for the ReLit Award for short fiction. Six poems from her third book, Late in a Slow Time, were set to music by the composer Chan Ka Nin, and recorded by Duo Concertante on their CD Wildbird, which was nominated for an EMCA. In 2011 she was Writer-In-Residence at the South Shore Regional Library in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.Langille has given readings in Athens, New Delhi, Prague,London and New York, and in many provinces in Canada. Originally from New York City, she now lives in Nova Scotia and teaches Creative Writing at Dalhousie University.

With support from The Canada Council for the Arts.

 

 

April 12

Launch of POEMS FROM PLANET EARTH with readings by:

Grace Cockburn, Julie Paul, Murray Reiss, Maleea Acker, David Fraser, Kim Goldberg,

Paul Nelson, Arleen Pare, Lorna Crozier, Ulrike Narwani, Barbara Colbrook Peace,

Susan Telfer, Judith Heron, Owain Nicholson, Giesela Ruebsaat, Terry Jones, Patrick Lane, Jessica Michaelofsky, Susan Braley, Andrea Raine, Dvora Levin, Wendy Morton, Tris Pargeter, Derk Wynand, Betsy Warland

 

 

 

April 19

ROB TAYLOR, SUSAN GILLIS and MARITA DASCHEL

Rob Taylor lives in Vancouver with his wife, Marta. He is the author of the poetry collection The Other Side of Ourselves(Cormorant Books, 2011), and his poems have been published in over forty journals, magazines and anthologies. He is the co-founder and editor of One Ghana, One Voice, Ghana's first online poetry magazine, and he is one of the coordinators of Vancouver's Dead Poets Reading Series. He blogs at http://rollofnickels.blogspot.com/.

Susan Gillis has lived on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada, and now lives most of the year in Montreal, where she teaches English. She will be reading from The Rapids (Brick 2012). Earlier work includes Volta(Signature Editions, 2002), which won the A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry, and Swimming Among the Ruins(Signature Editions, 2000), and a chapbook, Twenty Views of the Lachine Rapids(Gaspereau Press, 2012). Whisk, with Yoko's Dogs, is forthcoming in 2013 from Pedlar Press. Please visit http://yokosdogs.com/

Marita Dachsel is the author of All Things Said & Done (Caitlin Press, 2007) and the chapbook Eliza Roxcy Snow (rednettle press, 2009). Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, the ReLit Prize, and has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011. After many years in Vancouver and Edmonton, she and her family have recently relocated to Victoria.

With support of The Canada Council for the Arts.

April 26

BETSY STRUTHERS and DERK WYNAND

Winner of the 2004 Pat Lowther Memorial Award for the best book of poetry by a Canadian woman for Still(Black Moss Press), Betsy Struthers has published nine books of poetry and three novels; her first book of short stories, Relay: Short Fictions, was published by Black Moss Press in 2010. Since 1986, she has worked as a freelance editor of academic texts, mainly for UTP Higher Education and Broadview Press, among others.http://betsystruthers.wordpress.com/about/

Born in Germany, Derk Wynand came to Canada as a child in 1952. He has written eleven collections of poetry, including his latest, Past Imperfect, Present Tense, Bayeux Arts, 2010, and a collection of fiction, One Cook, Once Dreaming, Sono Nis Press, 1980, a generous selection of which featured in Ground Works: Avant-Garde for Thee, ed. Christian Bök, 2002. He has published several translations of works by the Austrian writers, H.C. Artmann and Erich Wolfgang Skwara, and the German Poet, Dorothea Grünzweig. From 1969 to 2004, he taught Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, B.C., serving two three-year terms as Chair of the Department of Writing, and six years (1992-1998) as editor of The Malahat Review. He lives in Victoria with his wife, Eva.



 

With support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

April 28 (*Sunday – 6-8.30pm <come at 5.30 for a good seat>)

PLANET EARTH POETRY CELEBRATION!

Victoria Launch of Forcefield: 77 BC Women Poets with readings by Linda Rogers, Gilian Gerome, Sandy Shreve, Yvonne Blomer, Rhonda Ganz, Susan McCaslin, Rhonda Batchelor, Christine Lowther, and more...

 

 

May 3

 

 

ALLAN BRIESMASTER, ROBERT COLMAN and SUSAN L. HELWIG

 

Allan Briesmaster is a freelance editor, publisher, and literary consultant who has been actively involved in the Canadian literary scene for over 20 years. He is the author of 12 previous books and chapbooks, the most recent of which are Confluences(Seraphim Editions, 2009) and After Evening Wine(Alfred Gustav Press, 2011). His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies and he has read them in venues across the country. He will reading from his new book, Against the Flight of Spring.

 

Robert Colman is a writer and editor based in Newmarket, Ontario, whose work has been published in literary magazines across Canada. His first full-length collection of poems, The Delicate Line(Exile Editions, 2008), was nominated for the ReLit Award. He will be reading from Little Empires, which was launched this past November, from Quattro Books.

 

Susan L. Helwig grew up on a dairy farm in southwestern Ontario just outside of Neustadt.

From 1994 to 2002 she interviewed Canadian and international authors for the radio programme, “In Other Words” on CKLN 88.1. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies in Canada and abroad, and she has two previous poetry collections: Catch the Sweet(Seraphim Editions, 2001) and Pink Purse Girl(Wolsak and Wynn, 2006). Susan will be reading from her new book, And the Cat Says…

 

May 10

 

 

JACOB SCHEIER and JEREMY LOVEDAY

 

Jacob Scheier is a poet and journalist from Toronto. His debut collection, More to Keep Us Warmwon the 2008 Governor General's award for English language poetry. Schier's poems have been published in literary journals and magazine across North America, including Descant,Geistand Rattle,and have been heard on CBC Radio. The second collection from a Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry winner, inLetter from Brooklyn, Jacob Scheier examines love, loss, history, identity, protest, and popular culture. At the heart of his new poems is the notion that we understand who we are by where we have been. Here, a confessional voice digs deep into a radical Jewish heritage rooted in New York City. Everything is at once political and poetic, inseparable from intimate experience and personal heartbreak. Scheier moves from the inner worlds of grief and love to form a poetic dialectic between the familial and the historical.

 

 

Jeremy Loveday is Victoria’s 2010 Individual Slam Champion and a three time member of the Victoria Poetry Slam team. His performances are playful, fierce and fully present and his poetry weaves universal themes into insightful story lines. He aims to connect with the audience like a deep breath. Having performed at festivals and shows across Canada and beyond Jeremy has built his reputation on his raw, rhythmic performances. Watch him on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bM8j7sEv_w

May 17

 

 

Launch of “Untying the Apron Anthology”

Guernica Editions, 2013

Mothers of the 1950s were wasp-waisted, dutiful, serene, and tied to the kitchen with apron strings. Or so we thought. This collection of searing and startling poetry and prose unties the stereotype and reveals women who were strong, wild, talented, wise, mad, creative, desperate, angry, courageous, bitter, tenacious, reckless and beautiful, sometimes all at once. The contributors include multi-award-winning poets, novelists, and essayists, as well as compelling new literary voices. Edited by Lorri Neilsen Glenn.

Readers includeCynthia Woodman Kerkham, Patricia Young, Eve Joseph, Sheila Norgate and Rhona McAdam.

May 24

 

MURRAY REISS launches “The Survival Rate of Butterflies in the Wild”

Murray Reiss is a B.C. poet whose work is included in anthologies such as Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry (Mother Tongue Publishing) and in periodicals including: Grain, Alaska Quarterly Review, Contemporary Verse 2and Tickle Ace.In 2005 Mother Tongue Press published his chap book, Distance from the Locus. Reiss was born in Sarnia, Ontario and lives on Salt Spring Island. With clarity and compassion, Murray Reiss writes of a childhood haunted by the Holocaust in which his father's entire family perished -- and by his father's subsequent silence. A "second-hand survivor," his father's "distance from the chimneys didn't spare him; / his distance from those smokestacks was his disease."

May 31

JAMES ARTHUR, NATALIA DIAZ and TOMAS Q. MORIN

Tomas Q. Morin'spoems have appeared in New England Review,Narrative,Boulevard,Slate,Threepenny Review, and Best New Poets. He teaches literature and writing at Texas State University. His debut collection of poems, A Larger Country, was chosen from more than one thousand manuscripts for the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. It charts the land we call memory, a place the dead and the outcast call home; the map that emerges shows us that while the terrain of memory may be rugged, filled with both joy and sorrow, it is also “the world we always said we wanted.” A Larger Country will be published by Copper Canyon Press in September 2012. With Mari L'Esperance, he is the co-editor of Coming Close: 40 Essays on Philip Levine.http://www.tomasqmorin.com/

Natalie Diazwas born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. She was part of the Old Dominion Lady Monarch basketball team that made it to the NCAA Championship game in 1997. After playing professional basketball in Europe and Asia for several years, Diaz returned to Old Dominion and completed a double-MFA in poetry and fiction. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press in May of 2012. She is a 2012 Bread Loaf Scholar, a recipient of a Lannan Residency in Marfa, TX, and was awarded a 2012 Lannan Literary Fellowship, as well as a Native Arts Council Foundation Artist Fellowship. Diaz currently lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, and directs the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program, working with the last remaining speakers at Fort Mojave to teach and revitalize the Mojave language.

James Arthur was born in Connecticut and grew up in Canada. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, Ploughshares, and The American Poetry Review. He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, a residency at the Amy Clampitt House, and a Discovery/The NationPrize. Charms Against Lightning, his debut poetry collection, is available from Copper Canyon Press as a Lannan Literary Selection.

June 7

Celebrate CONGRESS 2013 and the MALAHAT's Spring Issue Launch

Planet Earth Poetry reading series' open mic will be dedicated to Congressattendees. Readings by Ariel Gordon, Malahatissue #182 short story writer Cody Klippenstein, and Malahatboard members Iain Higgins and Eric Miller. Writers attendingCongress 2013, showcase your work at Planet Earth Poetry's June 7th open mic. Poets, fictionists, and creative nonfiction practitioners are equally welcome. Sign up for the open mic begins at 7 p.m. Each reader is limited to one piece of three minutes or less. Bring your edgiest bon mots because Congress's theme this year is all things "@ The Edge."

The evening's featured readers are Manitoba's Ariel Gordon, Malahat #182contributor Cody Klippenstein, and Malahatboard members Iain Higgins andEric Miller.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her first book of poetry, Hump(Palimpsest Press, 2010), won the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and her second, How to Pack Without Overpacking, is slated for publication in 2014. Most recently, she won Kalamalka Press' inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award. The resulting letterpress chapbook, How to Make a Collage, will be launched at this reading. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

Cody Klippenstein's fiction has appeared in the Spring 2013 issue (#182) of The Malahat Review. She's also been published in Joyland, The Fiddlehead, andZoetrope: All-Storyas the winner of its 2012 short fiction contest selected by Karen Russell. She currently lives in Victoria, BC, where she is at work on a novel, and will be an MFA candidate at Cornell University this fall.

Iain Higgins is a writer, translator, critic, and teacher. His books include Then Again (poems), The Invention of Poetry(a translation of Polish poet Adam Czerniawski’s selected poems),The Book of John Mandeville (a translation of a fictional medieval travel book about the East), andWriting East: The“Travels”’ of Sir John Mandeville(an academic study). His poems have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008and Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry, and his creative nonfiction has appeared in Maisonneuve. He is currently finishing a new book of poems and working on a novel. He teaches in the English department and in the Medieval Studies Program at Uvic.

Eric Miller has published three books of poetry, Song of the Vulgar Starling, In the Scaffolding, which was nominated for the 2006 ReLit ward, and A Day in Moss. His book of lyric essays, The Reservoir, was short-listed for the 2007 Hubert Evans Award. He has published two book-length translations: Bettina Klix's Rapture of the Depths and We Are Like Fire, which collects writings by Wilhelm Waiblinger and Hermann Hesse on Friedrich Hoelderlin. Eric’s work has appeared inThe Antigonish Review,Books in Canada,Brick, Canadian Literature,Columbia,Descant,The Fiddlehead,Ploughshares,Queen's Quarterly,and Vallum. He sits on the poetry board of The Malahat Review and teaches English at the University of Victoria.

http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/events/congress_pep.html

 

March 22

ROSEMARY GRIEBEL and RHONA McADAM

With thanks to The Canada Council for the Arts for their support

Rosemary Griebel’s award-winning poetry has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry in English, on CBC Radio, literary magazines, anthologies, chapbooks and on public buses. Her long awaited collection of poetry, Yes., was published by Frontenac House in 2011, and was short-listed for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry as well as the Gerald Lampert award and the Pat Lowther Memorial award. She lives in Calgary with her husband and two cats and is currently working on a project to build a bold, new Central Library in Calgary’s East Village.

 

 

Rhona McAdam has published five poetry collections (most recently Cartography, from Oolichan) and two chapbooks of food poems: Sunday Dinners (JackPine) and The Earth’s Kitchen (Leaf). Her first nonfiction book,  Digging the City: An Urban Agriculture Manifesto, is published by RMB in 2012. She writes a food and poetry blog (The Iambic Café) and lives in Victoria. 
  

 

March 29

 

The Moka House and Planet Earth Poetry are closed for Good Friday. Happy Holiday!

April 12

POEMS FROM PLANET EARTH

edited by Yvonne Blomer and Cynthia Woodman Kerkham
with an introduction by Patrick Lane.

The most fabulous poetry readings this town has ever seen!

Poems from Planet Earthis a round-up of poems from readers at internationally renowned Planet Earth Poetry in Victoria B.C. — named after P.K. Page's poem "Planet Earth — "launching pad for the energies of writers and poets established and not."

There are 116 contributors—among them: Jan Zwicky, Patrick Lane, Jay Ruzesky, Alice Major, Kate Braid, Derk Wynand, Eve Joseph, David Zieroth, Patricia Young, John Barton, Lorna Crozier, Sheri-D Wilson, Patrick Friesen, Brian Bartlett, Paul Nelson, Glen Sorestad, Wendy Morton, Brian Brett, Goran Simic, Cathy Ford, Betsy Warland.

Paul Nelson, Seattle, Washington: "I LOVE the Canadian side of Cascadia as it deals with poetry. In Victoria, Vancouver, Nelson and elsewhere there are retired poets constructing Mesostics, discussing Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser and generally being open to more innovative work. This includes the Planet Earth Poetry series. Its wide aesthetic, its open and welcoming environment and its audience. They pay attention and actually buy books. & there's matcha! What else does a poet need? Viva Planet Earth Poetry!"

Yvonne Blomer is the Artistic Director of PEP and author of The Book of Places (Black Moss) and Bicycle Brand Journey(JackPine Press). She is forthcoming in 75 BC Women Poets(Mother Tongue Press) and A Crystal Though Which Love Passes: Glosas for P.K. Page(Buschek Books). Her collection Caged(Palimpsest Press) is forthcoming in 2014.

Cynthia Woodman Kerkham has won the Federation of B.C. Writers Literary Writes Competition and the Malahat Review's Open Season Award for poetry. In 2012, her poem "In Praise of Mushrooms" was selected for B.C.'s Poetry in Transit. Good Holding Ground,her debut collection of poems, was published in 2011 by Palimpsest Press.

Cover design by Rhonda Ganz
photo by Chris Hancock Donaldson (chrishancockdonaldson.com )
Rocks and leaf from a photo by Savannah Featherstone

January 18

ALL OPEN MIC!

Planet Earth Poetry welcomes 2013 with an All Open Mic night, so write new poems to bring in a New Year. We hope to relieve some of the building pressure on the open mic list by letting you all have at it on Friday, January 18, 2013. And... we are celebrating this, our 18^thyear of poetry at Planet Earth, so let's make it extra magical!

January 25

LEAF PRESS LAUNCHES TWO CHAPBOOKS

“berries, (small) and rain”      -and-     “In That Wild Place”

(both edited by Patrick Lane)

Readers may include Ann Graham Walker, Arleen Pare, Barbara Pelman, David Pimm, Gisela Ruebsaat, Linda Thompson, Susan Braley, Sidney Bending, Pam Porter, Ulrike Narwani, Wendy Donawa, Wendy Morton, Simone Littledale, Owain Nicholson, Judith Castle, Sue Gee, Rhonda Ganz, Christine Anderson and more.

February 1

LAUNCH OF BEST CANADIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH and

MALAHAT REVIEW'S WINTER EDITION

Readings by Patricia Young, Carla Funk, Kayla Czaga, Steve Noyes, Catherine Greenwood, and Raoul Fernandes

*Carla Funk, Steve Noyes, and Catherine Greenwood will appear on U in the Ring on CFUV 101.9 FM Tuesday, January 29th, 4-5 p.m. Yvonne Blomer and Colin Dower will co-host.

February 8

GUERNICA EDITIONS “Poet to Poet” ANTHOLOGY LAUNCH

With readings by Fiona Lam, Lenore Rowntree, Rhonda Ganz, Susan McCaslin and Yvonne Blomer.

Poets find inspiration in all manner of human experience, from the comical to the sombre. The creative processes by which they grow their poems to fruition are as diverse, and often as quirky, as their subjects. But what all poets have in common is their captivation by the work and lives of other poets, living and dead. Poet to Poet is a unique anthology that honours, and probes, this peculiar enchantment. Featuring work by Canadian poets written to, about, or in the manner of other poets, each poem is accompanied by a back story that provides a glimpse into the creative cauldron and the poetic communion of kindred spirits.

http://news.guernicaeditions.com/category/launches/

February 15

 

PATRICIA ROBERTSON AND ERLING FRIIS-BAASTAD

 

Born in the UK, Patricia Robertson grew up in British Columbia and received her MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. Her most recent book is The Goldfish Dancer: Stories and Novellas. She was 2010-11 writer-in-residence at Haig-Brown House in Campbell River. Currently she is a creative writing instructor at Yukon College in Whitehorse, a freelance writer/editor, and a contributing editor for CNQ.

 

Born in Norway, Erling Friis-Baastad grew up in the United States, emigrated to Toronto in 1969, and moved to the Yukon in 1974. His earlier collection, The Exile House, was published by Ireland’s Salmon Publishing in 2001. His poems have appeared in a number of chapbooks as well as in many literary journals and anthologies, including The Malahat Review, Grain, Poetry Canada and Canadian Forum. A longtime book reviewer and journalist, he currently works as an editor with the Yukon News in Whitehorse.

February 22

STEVEN PRICE

Steven Price was born and raised in Colwood, BC. His first collection of poetry, Anatomy of Keys (Brick Books, 2006), won the Gerald Lampert Award and was named a Globe & Mail Book of the Year. His work has appeared in Canadian and American literary journals. He is one of the poets in Breathing Fire 2: Canada's New Poets, edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane. Price graduated from the University of Virginia Writing Program, and currently teaches poetry and writing at the University of Victoria.

March 1

LORNA CROZIER

Lorna Crozier is an Officer of the Order of Canada and the recipient of three honourary doctorates that acknowledge her contribution to Canadian literature. An award-winning author, including the Governor-General’s Award, her work includes a memoir and fifteen books of poetry, most recently, The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things, listed as one of The Globe and Mail’s top 100 books of 2012. She has edited several anthologies, including Best Canadian Poetry 2010 and has read her work on every continent except Antarctica. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives on Vancouver Island, where she is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Victoria.Please visit www.lornacrozier.ca.

March 8

KIM CLARK and TERENCE YOUNG

Disease and desire, mothering and the mundane propel Kim Clark’s ongoing journey between poetry and prose. Her debut fiction collection, Attemptations(Caitlin Press), was launched in 2011 and one of its novellas has been optioned for a 90 minute feature film. Her chapbook, Dis ease ad De sire, the M anu S cript (Lipstick Press), came out in April, 2012. Kim’s work can also be found in Body Breakdowns (Anvil Press), theMalahat Review, and e-zines and other publications in Canada and the U.S.. She lives in Cedar on Vancouver Island.

Terence Younglives in Victoria, B.C., where he teaches English and creative writing at St. Michaels University School. He is co-founder ofThe Claremont Review, an international literary journal for young writers. His first book of poetry, The Island in Winter(Signal Editions, 1999), was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award. Since then, he has published a collection of stories, Rhymes With Useless(Raincoast, 2000), which was one of two runners-up for the annual Danuta Gleed award, a novel, After Goodlake’s, which received the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize in 2005, and a second collection of poetry, Moving Day(Signature Editions, 2006), which was nominated for both the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and The City of Victoria Butler Book Prize for 2006. In 2008, he was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence, an honour shared with fifteen other teachers from across Canada that year. A second collection of fiction, The End of the Ice Age, was released from Biblioasis Press in the spring of 2010. A story from that collection, "That Time of Year," was included in Oberon Press's recent edition of Best CanadianStories 11 (2012).

March 15

AL REMPEL and DAVID FRASER

Thanks to the League of Canadian Poets and The Canada Council for the Arts

Al Rempel is launching his latest book of poetry called This Isn’t the Apocalypse We Hoped For. His previous books include understories(Caitlin Press, 2010) and a chapbook called The Picket Fence Diaries(Lipstick Press, 2010). His poems have also appeared in The Malahat Review,CV2,Event,The Best Canadian Poetry in English (2011),and Rocksalt.More information can be found at http://alrempel.com/. He currently lives in Prince George.

DavidFraserlives on Vancouver Island. He is editor of Ascent Aspirations Magazine. His poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, includingRocksalt, An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry, Mother Tongue Press, (2008) and Walk Myself Home, Caitlin Press, (2010). He has published five collections of poetry,Going to the Well(2004), Running Down the Wind (2007),No Way Easy, (2010), Caught in My Throat, (2011), and Paper Boats, (2012), and a book of poetry and poetics, On Poetry, (2012) with Naomi Beth Wakan. He is the artistic director for Nanaimo’s spoken-word series, WordStorm. www.wordstorm.caand a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Home Site:www.davidpfraser.ca