FEATURED READERS DECEMBER 2013
Last event of 2013! Next readings are on January 10, 2014.
Cover painting by Laurie Papou
Friday, December 6, 2013
KIM GOODLIFFE
By morning you uncurl —
lean in and pull back
on a fulcrum of ego
the way a steel-toed boot supports
a shovel.
When I emerge
from behind our flap of vinyl,
who comes out
might be any collection of us here,
hail, sunshine or rain.
—Excerpt from “Day 6"
In tree-planting lingo, a “lowballer” is the least respected person on any crew, one who plants slowly, earning little money. This narrative poem sequence contrasts lyric love and nature poems with found poems from advertising and planting logs.
Spanning the period of one potent season, Goodliffe’s narrator tells a spellbinding story about disillusionment in the clear-cut.
Originally from Scarborough, Kim Goodliffe planted trees in the Lake-of-the-Woods region during a bear infestation. Her poetry, short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Canadian literary magazines and newspapers including Descant, Grain, sub-TERRAIN, Vancouver Review and the Vancouver Sun. She holds an MFA in creative writing from UBC.
Chasing Crows by Frank Wilson
Friday, December 6, 2013
FRANK WILSON
Frank Wilson is a Victoria resident who emigrated from the UK six years ago. He is a retired university professor specializing in the economics of agricultural development in South East Asia, Africa and the South Pacific. Writing was part of his academic life but now writes "other stuff." His first book of short stories was published by Peakpublish in the UK early this year and a further book of stories for the same publisher will be published late in 2014.
His first collection of poems was published in the UK six years ago. Proceeds from that book raised the equivalent of $7000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. His second collection of forty-three poems Chasing Crows was produced in Victoria earlier this year and is well on track to raise in excess of $7500 for therapy work at the MS Centre in Victoria.
A performance poet when the opportunity arises he likes to think he writes accessible poetry with a narrative bias.