planet earth poetry is online on friday nights. Click Here to Register.
We are excited to bring our poetry community together online. Each week, the Planet Earth Poetry newsletter will include a link to the Zoom reading scheduled for Friday nights at 7:15, with open mic and the featured reader starting at 7:30. If you aren’t already signed up to get our weekly news, click here to ask to be added to the email list. Scroll down or check out our Facebook page for what’s coming up.
to sign up for open mic, visit this link between tuesday and Friday noon.
Planet Earth Poetry gratefully acknowledges all of its supporters.
Our judges have picked the three winning poems in our Ekphrastic Poetry Contest.
Click here to read the poems.
online readings in april 2021
open mic as usual — click here between tuesday and Friday noon to sign up
New poetry collections from Frontenac House
friDAY, april 9, 2021
the frontenac four
Joan Shillington
Let This Lake Remember
Joan’s poems have been published in Canadian literary magazines and anthologies across Canada. Folding the Wilderness Within (Frontenac House 2014), was shortlisted for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Prize (2015). Let This Lake Remember… (Frontenac House 2020) was launched in the fall of 2020.
Lisa Richter
Nautilus and Bone
Lisa Richter is the author of two books of poetry, Closer to Where We Began (Tightrope Books, 2017) and Nautilus and Bone (Frontenac House, 2020), winner of this year's National Jewish Book Award for Poetry. Recent poems and non-fiction have appeared in EXILE Quarterly, The White Wall Review, and The Goose. She lives in Toronto.
Alexander Williamson
Very Bright, Almost Pretty
Alexander Williamson is a Canadian living with cystic fibrosis. He writes scary stories and sad poems; he fences and boxes too. He has a degree Mount Royal University. Most of what he learned came from falling off of things, getting lost, or being punched in the face.
Tyler B. Perry
Plausible Wrong Answers
Tyler B. Perry is a Calgary poet and high school English teacher. He is one of the organizers of Can You Hear Me Now?, the Alberta provincial junior high and high school poetry slam. Plausible Wrong Answers is his third collection of poetry. He completed his MFA at UBC.
Larissa Lai’s Iron Goddess of Mercy
Terence Young’s Smithereens
Duct-Taped Roses by Billeh Nckerson
friDAY, april 16, 2021
larissa lai
Larissa Lai has authored eight books including: Sybil Unrest, Automaton Biographies, and Iron Goddess of Mercy. Recipient of the Duggins Novelist’s Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the Astraea Award, and finalist for the Livesay Poetry Prize, she directs The Insurgent Architects’ House for Creative Writing at the University of Calgary.
Iron Goddess of Mercy is a long poem that captures the vengeful yet hopeful movement of the Furies mid-whirl and dances with them through the horror of the long now. Inspired by the tumultuous history of Hong Kong, from the Japanese and British occupations to the ongoing pro-democracy protests, the poem interrogates the complicated notion of identity, offering a prism through which the term “Asian” can be understood to make sense of a complex set of relations. The self crystallizes in moments of solidity, only to dissolve and whirl away again.
Larissa Lai
tuesDAY, april 20, 2021
Electronic Garret
This is on a Tuesday, with a separate Zoom link available on PEP’s FaceBook page.
Digital doors open at 6:45, event starts at 7:00 pm Pacific Time. Click here to sign up to attend.
The Electronic Garret is a group of Canadian women and non-binary poets who have created an online community to support each other in writing thirty poems in thirty days for National Poetry Writing Month. They have done this every April since 2014.
This reading features poets Jennifer Zilm, Maureen Hynes, Joanne Epp and Arleen Paré reading from their NaPoWriMo work and discussing the process.
Hosted by Yvonne Blomer
Yvonne Blomer is the past poet laureate of Victoria, BC and past Artistic Director of Planet Earth Poetry. Her most recent book is Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds, Caitliln Press, 2020. In 2021 her poetry book In Ruins will be released with Caitlin Press. She works and lives on the traditional territories of the W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples.
friDAY, april 23, 2021
terence young
Terence Young lives in Victoria, BC. His poems and stories have appeared in literary journals across Canada, as well as in England and the US. His third collection of poetry, Smithereens (Harbour Publishing), is new in 2021.
friDAY, april 30, 2021
billeh nickerson
Billeh Nickerson is a Vancouver-based author, editor and educator whose sixth book, Duct-Taped Roses, was recently published with Book*hug Press. He is Co-Chair of the Creative Writing department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC. In his spare time he likes to collect airline barf bags. He lives and loves in East Vancouver.
As a pilot, Billeh Nickerson’s father would duct-tape his bush planes to keep them flying. In this gentle, warm meditation, the award-winning poet questions what can be repaired, and what—inevitably—is lost to time.
From the bush pilot duct-taping parts to keep his plane aloft to the pizza delivery driver who runs over his pizzas to the never-ending raffle at a leather bar, Nickerson uses his signature irreverence, honesty and wit to question what can be repaired, and what—inevitably—is lost to time.
Billeh Nickerson
POETS CARAVAN
We are excited to launch our latest project to share poetry!
The Planet Earth Poetry Poets Caravan highlights the rich cultural landscape of the CRD, with readings from poets in all of its nine regions. Each poet is represented by a pin on Google Earth of a spot meaningful to them in the CRD – somewhere they like to do their writing or find particularly inspiring.
CLICK HERE to go to google earth & watch our poets.
(Be patient, the program needs a bit of time to load in your browser.)
Do you want to put your poetry on the map?
We are now accepting applications for the Poets Caravan. Thanks to funding from the BC Arts Council and the City of Victoria, we can now film more poets in Victoria as well as further afield on Vancouver Island. Click here to fill out an application. PEP welcomes applications from poets who may face structural barriers to reaching some of the milestones in our general requirements, and encourages poets of colour, Indigenous poets, LGBTQIA+ poets, and poets living with disabilities to apply regardless of experience-level. If you or someone you know wishes to apply and is unable to fill out the form due to a print disability or lack of computer access, please feel free to get in touch with us directly by email. Click here.
The Poets Caravan is accessible to audiences both in the CRD and worldwide. This interactive experience will be available over time and provides a way for poets and poetry to reach a wide audience in this time when in-person reading events aren’t possible. Digital projects come with accessibility challenges for those who may not have access to a computer or have disabilities which stop them from using the selected platform. We have made the videos and text available for download separately on request. Please email Planet Earth Poetry if you’d like this option.
Thank you to the CRD Arts and Culture Support Fund, the BC Arts Council and the City of Victoria for their support and funding of the Poets Caravan. Thanks to videographer Lorraine Scollan for capturing each poet's unique voice with care and enthusiasm!
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 currently a digital reading series. Planet Earth Poetry acknowledges with respect that we read and write on the traditional territories of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich), Lkwungen (Songhees), Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation.