Monday 5 March 2012

March at Planet Earth Poetry

March 2 Rhonda Ganz and Mary Ann Moore

Rhonda Ganz started writing poetry in 2004. That year, most of the poems stayed in her head, but thanks to some great teachers, she’s gradually figured out how to get them on paper. She is delighted to have a poem in the Malahat Review. Rhonda is included in Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry. A stanza from her poem there showed up on Vancouver buses as part of the 2010 Poetry in Transit project. She has been a finalist and shortlisted in some of the Malahat Review’s poetry contests, has read her poetry on the CBC and was commissioned by the Times Colonist newspaper to write a poem to celebrate winter solstice. As part of the annual Summer So[u]lstice at Royal Oak Burial Park she listens to people tell stories about the dead they have come to visit and writes poems on the spot to honour both the living and the departed. Friday nights find her reading and listening at Planet Earth Poetry in Victoria. Rhonda is inspired by the back story, by the disastrous and the absurd. She reads entirely too much crime fiction – not that such a thing is even possible.

Mary Ann Moore  lives in Nanaimo, B.C. where she leads a weekly circle called Writing Life, and teaches life writing courses at Vancouver Island University. Mary Ann created her own business, Flying Mermaids Writing Circles & Retreats, in Toronto in 1997 and since that time has encouraged many to begin and sustain a writing practice. The Flying Mermaids Studio has produced Your Own Tea House Practice as well as self-guiding materials called Mapping Your Spiritual Journey. Mary Ann’s poetry has been published in chapbooks called Those Early Days, Hopeful (Leaf Press); and The Names of Things (The Flying Mermaids Studio); as well as produced on CD, When My Heart is Open. Mary Ann’s personal essays, fiction, columns and book reviews have been published in Prairie Fire, Vitality Magazine, ascent magazine, Monday Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, Synergy, More Living and others.

March 9 : Pamela Porter and Judith Castle 

Judith Castle is a former Montrealer, now living in Victoria, BC.  There, she is a member of the Victoria Writer's Society, and a regular reader at Planet Earth Poetry.  Her poetry has been published in Island Writer, Event and The Fiddlehead.  Her photographs have been exhibited at Galerie Luz, Montreal.



Pamela Porter’s work has won more than a dozen provincial, national and international awards. Her third poetry collection, Cathedral, was shortlisted for the 2011 Pat Lowther Award, and her poems have won the Vallum Magazine Poem of the Year Award, the Prism International Grand Prize in Poetry, and have been shortlisted four times for the CBC literary awards. She is also the Governor General’s Award-winning author of The Crazy Man. M. Travis Lane has written, “Porter’s poems are pervaded with a sense of grace, of mercy, beauty and benediction.” Pamela lives near Sidney with her family and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs, and cats, including a formerly wild mustang.



March 16: Ruth Roach Pierson and Alexis Keinlen

Ruth Roach Pierson took up the pen in pursuit of poetry after a distinguished career in academia. Her poems have appeared in ARC, Event, The Fiddlehead, Literary Review of Canada, The Malahat Review, Pagitica, Pottersfield Portfolio, Prism International, Queen’s Feminist Review, Quills, Room of One’s Own, and Vallum as well as a number of anthologies. She lives in Toronto with her partner and their two cats, Haiku and Orange Roughy.

Thanks to The Writers Union of Canada and The Canada Council of the Arts for support.

She Dreams in Red is the story of journeys – from China to Canada, to Indonesia, to Mongolia into the mysteries of the human heart and romantic relationships.
Exploring Alexis Kienlen's  unique cultural background and history, travels and encounters with love and loss, these poems attempt to make sense of the world with simple images painted in clean brushstrokes.



March 23: Diana Hayes and Lorraine Gane

Diana Hayes studied at the University British Columbia and Victoria, receiving a B.A. and M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Her published books include Moving Inland, The Classical Torso In 1980, The Choreography of Desire, and Coming Home (anthology). Her play, Islomania: Saga of the Settlers, was produced by Salt of the Earth Productions. She is currently Production Manager for Salt Spring’s Theatre Alive, a member of Photosynthesis and started the Salt Spring Seal Swim Team in 2002. Over the past decade, Diana Hayes has expanded her poetic vision into the realm of photographic dreamscapes and narratives. She divides her time between writing, photography, producing literary events and working as a professional fundraiser.

Selections from Lorraine Gane's  Even the Slightest Touch Thunders on My Skin (Black Moss Press, 2002), about the illness and death of her fiancé from cancer, were short listed for the CBC literary awards and The League of Canadian poets chapbook contest. Earth Light and The Phantom Orchid, two chapbooks about her experiences on the West Coast, followed. A third, chapbook, Beyond Beauty: Songs of Small Mercies, will be published in 2012. In addition to teaching writing courses for The University of Victoria, Vancouver Island University, and her own private workshops, Lorraine began mentoring writers around the world through online courses and one-on-one consultations. She also edits book manuscripts for publishers and individual writers, and is now working on her third poetry collection, The Blue Halo, as well as essays, articles, and a book on writing.

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

March 30: Susan Musgrave




With her first major collection in ten years, Susan Musgrave displays a range of form and expression that may surprise even her most faithful readers. The quiet, lapidary elegies of “Obituary of Light” are set against the furious mischief of “Random Acts of Poetry,” where the lines move with the inventive energy of a natural storyteller, while “Heroines” wrests a harsh and haunting poetry from the language of the street.

Her alertness to the absurdity in even the most heartbreaking personal crises leavens the sorrow that speaks through so many of the poems. Sadness and levity interweave. The wilderness and the penitentiary reflect one another. There’s an underlying tenderness, though, whether she is writing about family, the dispossessed, her life on Haida Gwaii, or the vagaries of love. This is Susan Musgrave in full control of her powers, writing poetry that cuts right to the bone.

Thanks to The Writer's Union of Canada and The Canada Council for the Arts for their support

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