The Planet Earth Poetry reading series is a launching pad for the energies of writers and poets established and not. It is a place where words are most important. A venue in which all manner of poets and writers are welcome; a place for excellence, innovation, collaboration, diverse projects and experiments. The evening begins at 7:30 with an open mic, followed by a featured reader(s). Planet Earth Poetry is located at Hillside Coffee and Tea, 1633 Hillside Ave (across from Bolen Books). Between 7 and 7:15, put your name in the hat to read at open mic.  Planet Earth Poetry acknowledges that we have the honour to host this reading series on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen peoples.

FRIDAY, april 6, 2018

poet laureate night at city hall

Join us for Poets Laureate Night, an evening of poetry readings by Vancouver Island Poets Laureate. Victoria Poet Laureate Yvonne Blomer will be accompanied by former Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke, the City’s new Youth Poet Laureate Agartu Ali, City of Nanaimo Poet Laureate Tina Biello, and Comox Valley Poet Laureate Natalie Nickerson. Complimentary refreshments will be served. The event is a partnership between the City of Victoria and Planet Earth Poetry, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and The League of Canadian Poets

FRIDAY, april 13, 2018

heidi greco & russell thornton

Heidi Greco lives in Surrey, BC, where she has long advocated for the literary arts. She is proudest of convincing her city to hire an official Poet Laureate. With poems, fiction, essays and reviews to her credit, her books include a novella, Shrinking Violets, and the forthcoming poetry collection, Practical Anxiety. 

Amelia Earhart went missing in 1937, while attempting to fly around the world. But besides being a famous pilot, Earhart was a feminist, a best-selling author, a pacifist, a poet, a punster – and more. 
Even today, her disappearance is enshrouded in mystery. The poems in flightpaths, presented as if written by Earhart herself, consider a range of theories regarding her disappearance. Through logbook entries, recollections and letters, the work explores some of the various flightpaths she may have taken.

Russell Thornton's The Hundred Lives (2014) was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. His Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain (2013) was shortlisted for the General's Award for Poetry, the Raymond Souster Award and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. His newest collection, The Broken Face, is due out in fall 2018.

FRIDAY, april 20, 2018

terry ann carter & cornelia hoogland

Poet and paper artist Terry Ann Carter lives and works in Victoria, BC, where she serves Haiku Canada as president and teaches Japanese literary forms at Royal Roads University. She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, and founder of KaDo Ottawa and Haiku Arbutus. Terry Ann is also a member of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild. Last year Terry Ann  served a “community fellowship” at the Centre for Study in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria where she devoted time to deepening her own practice of haiku and studying the influence of Buddhism on contemporary haiku poetry. She is the author of six books of long form poetry and five chapbooks of haiku. A Crazy Man Thinks He’s Ernest in Paris (Black Moss Press, 2010) was shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman Award; Lighting the Global Lantern: A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Haiku and Related Literary Forms(Wintergreen Studios Press, 2011) is used in Canadian and American classrooms. She will be reading from Tokaido (Red Moon Press, 2017). 

Cornelia Hoogland’s Trailer Park Elegy, (Harbour, 2017), a book-length long poem, is her 7th book. Two previous books were on the Relit 2011 National Poetry Award; Woods Wolf Girl (Wolsak and Wynn), was a finalist. Sea Level, short-listed for the CBC Nonfiction Awards, was published with Baseline Press, 2012.  Cornelia was a finalist in the 2017 CBC Poetry Awards.

Life and death. My brother’s life, and his death. Not only the facts of it, but our relationship – that even in death – is reciprocal. It’s his work to find me as well as mine to get to know the new him. Trailer Park Elegy’s form, a long poem, provides thematic coherence for the multiple contingencies that disturb the narrator’s present. Like keeping balls up in the air, my task is to catch and toss, thus sustaining my imaginative energies throughout the book. 

FRIDAY, april 27, 2018

DANIKA DINSMORE & NAOMI BETH WAKAN 

Danika Dinsmore’s writing career began with experimental poetry & collaborative spokenword performance. After receiving her MFA from Naropa University, she and poet Bernadette Mayer launched the 3:15 Experiment, a poetic exploration of hypnogogic states. With poet Paul Nelson, Danika co-founded the Northwest SPokenword LAB and later produced the Seattle Poetry Festival and Future for Word Multi-Media Poetry Exhibition. She currently serves on the editorial staff of Reckoning, a literary journal of environmental justice, and writes and performs for children. 

In Every Day Angels there exists the spirit of a restless experimentalist, up at any Aug 3, 3:15 AM wrestling with half-awake images that provide clues for those yearning to merge with the infinite. Written with the innovative push of Bernadette Meyer, the Buddhist ethos of Anne Waldman, and the heart of a seeker – this collection makes the reader mourn for long gone injured grasshoppers and for the shelter of poetry we must never take for granted. —Paul Nelson, Author (A Time Before Slaughter, American Sentences)

 In this inspiring memoir, Naomi Beth Wakan takes the reader on a journey through her lifelong experiences writing various forms of Japanese poetry, especially haiku and its related genres. She explains the rules and structure that distinguish the various forms, providing many examples of her own work as well as poems from well-known historical and contemporary poets. Very importantly, however, Wakan shows by example that the "rules" are not to be taken as impediments, but rather as guideposts on the journey to discover and explore oneself. Looking back, Wakan realizes that her practice of poetry writing has enabled her to develop awareness, dispassionate interest, personal healing, and compassion. In her own words: "I have come to see that in creating poetry, I am creating myself."

Poetry That Heals is part of a planned trilogy on poetry. The other volume published to date is The Way of Tanka, an approachable yet comprehensive examination of the Japanese form.