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). Sign-up for the open mic begins at 7pm.

Friday, february 6, 2015

judith castle & carl leggo

Judith Castle is a former Montrealer. Her poetry has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Event, Island Writer Magazine and in various anthologies. Flare Path, her first volume of poetry was published in 2012, and What Remains, her second volume, in 2014. Her most recent book, Now I Lay Me Down, to be published in 2015, mourns the death of children.

Judith Castle’s poems are filled with beautiful images that belie the darkness of her poems...we know that they are filled with truth, and clear darkness that brings, in its way, a kind of light.
—Wendy Morton

Echoing Torah, prophets...Judith Castle’s poetry collection, What Remains, scrolls through voices, memory and shadow, offering up that awful pull of love and loss, a stark and poignant reverie.
—Dvora Levin

Carl Leggo, a poet and UBC professor, has written: Growing Up Perpendicular on the Side of a Hill, View from My Mother’s House, Come-By-Chance, and Sailing in a Concrete Boat.

Come-By-Chance is a collection of poems, often narrative, sometimes lyrical, always ruminative, about home, family, and place, about leaving and returning, about growing up and growing old, about leaving Newfoundland to live in British Columbia, and returning to Newfoundland often because it is always the place that breathes poetry in the heart and imagination.

Friday, february 13, 2015

chris levenson & cathy ford

Christopher Levenson, prize-winning author of ten previous books of poetry, launches his latest, Night Vision (Quattro Books, Toronto), which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award in 2014.

Flowers We Will Never Know the Names Of

This new long poem by an important Canadian poet is about love and grief, a palimpsest against violence and loss. Written in the language of flowers, reimagining the alphabet of floral symbols, and their meaning, it marks the 25th anniversary of the murders of fourteen women students at Montreal's L'École Polytechnique, on December 6, 1989, a history-changing event. It is an incantation, a chant, a protest, memento mori, an invocation, a prayer for peace organized in fourteen sections. Common flower names are transformed, and old familiar names evocatively rewritten especially using enjambment, a passionate and strikingly female device.

Cathy Ford is the author of fifteen books of poetry and numerous chapbooks and folios, including poetry, long poems, fiction and memoir, published by blewointment press, Intermedia Press, Caitlin Press, Véhicule Press, Harbour Publishing, gynergy books, Mother Tongue Publishing and others.

Cathy Ford served as President of the League of Canadian Poets and is a founding member of the Feminist Caucus of the LCP. A member of the League of Canadian Poets, The Writer's Union of Canada and a supporter of PEN Canada, she is a community and arts activist committed to world peace, addressing the issues of violence against women and children and seeking to improve the status of women, especially writers and artists in Canada and internationally.

Friday, february 20, 2015

fiction night with  julie paul & george szanto

Julie Paul has published two collections of short fiction, The Jealousy Bone (2008) and The Pull of the Moon (Brindle & Glass, 2014), one of The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 books of 2014. She is currently at work on a poetry manuscript and a novel.

A National Magazine Award recipient and winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for fiction, George Szanto is the author of several books of essays and half a dozen novels, including The Tartarus House on Crab, as well as his recent memoir, Bog Tender: Coming Home to Nature and Memory. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, George is also co-author of the Island Investigations International mystery series, which includes Never Sleep with a Suspect on Gabriola Island, Always Kiss the Corpse on Whidbey Island, and Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island. Please visit georgeszanto.com.

Friday, february 27, 2015

wordsthaw 2015 prequel event with poets from the malahat review, translation issue

Goran Marić (1964) was born and completed his education in former Yugoslavia. He moved to Canada in 1994. He presently lives in Victoria, BC. He has translated poetry and fiction from Serbian to English and vice versa.

Patrick Friesen, living in Victoria, B.C., has published more than a dozen books of poetry and a book of essays.  He has also written plays for radio and stage.  His most recent book was a dark boat (Anvil Press, 2012).  His long poem, a short history of crazy bone (Mother Tongue Publishing), will be out in the spring of 2015.

Derk Wynand  has translated some 200 poems, stories and essays and radio plays from French, Austrian and German from 1968 to the present. He has published 11 collections of poems, including his most recent, Past Imperfect, Present Tense,
Bayeux Arts, 2010, a collection of fiction, One Cook, Once Dreaming, Sono Nis, 1980, and several books translated
from the German, including Under the Cover of a Hat/Green­sealed Message, Quartet Books, London, 1985, Sweat and Industry, @las Press, 1992 (both from the German of H.C. Artmann), Black Sails, from the German of Erich Wolfgang Skwara, Ariadne Press, 1999, and Midsummer Cut and Glass Voices lasinäänet (both from the German of
Dorothea Grünzweig, Buschek Books, 2002 and 2009).

For 35 years, he taught English and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, where he edited The Malahat Review from 1992 to 1998.