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.

FRIDAY, may 27, 2016

daniel scott &
zoe dickinson

Zoe Dickinson is a lifelong lover of language, and a recent graduate of Dalhousie's Master of Library and Information Studies program. She has a B.A. in Classics and Liberal Arts, with a focus on ancient languages. Zoe’s poetry has been published in journals such as Contemporary Verse 2, Existere Magazine, and 50 Haikus. Her two favourite places are the library and the beach.  

Daniel G Scott currently is the Artistic Director of the Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series In Victoria BC and will retire from the School of Child & Youth Care at the University of Victoria in June 2016. He has published individual poems in journals, and anthologies and this book is his third book of poetry, proceeded by black onion (Goldfinch Press, 2012) and terrains (Ekstasis Editions, 2014). He has two previous chapbooks the latest, interrupted (Goldfinch, 2015) explores two cancer journeys. He has numerous academic publications in journals, book chapters and with co-author Shannon McFerran The Girls Diary Project (University of Victoria, 2013). Writing has saved his life on more than one occasion.

gnarled love is a collection of poems exploring love in its complications and difficulties. Love is unruly. Over time, it shifts and turns, heats, cools; it gets us into trouble and delight and we learn of one another through love. Why gnarled? Imagine knots and twists, something older and surviving, tough but also alive and growing.

FRIDAY, june 10, 2016

david fraser &
jim roberts

David Fraser is a poet, spoken-word performer, publisher and editor. He lives in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is the founder and editor of Ascent Aspirations Magazine. His poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Rocksalt, An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry (Mother Tongue Press), Poems from Planet Earth (Leaf Press), Walk Myself Home (Caitlin Press) and recently Tesseracts 18. He has published six collections of poetry. In addition David has co-authored with Naomi Beth Wakan, On Poetry, an inspirational book on poetics and poetry and has completed a response poem collection, Maybe We Could Dance, with poet Pat Smekal. His most recent collection of poetry is After All the Scissor Work is Done, published by Leaf Press in April 2016.

These poems play with memory, finds out what's left on the cutting-room floor. David Fraser steers away from linear narrative, edits out connections, allows the reader room. But these are not pretty pieces: the poems scrape at the dark of human experience.

Jim Roberts made it through the UVic creative writing program not long after it started. In the mid-1970s he moved to Toronto, and at different times over the next 35 years he set type by hand, bought and sold books, and copyedited annual reports. In 2000 Wolsak and Wynn published his book From an argument I’ve taken with me. In 2012 Jim moved back to Victoria. He is currently a member of Haiku Arbutus and is completing several poetry collections, including Appropriations and Going with gravity. He was a finalist for the Malahat Review's 2016 Open Season Award.

FRIDAY, june 24, 2016

rachel lebowitz  & 
zachariah wells

Zachariah Wells is the author of the poetry collections Unsettled, Track & Trace and Sum and the editor of Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets. A prolific reviewer of contemporary Canadian poetry, a selection of his essays and interviews was published in 2013 under the title Career Limiting Moves. Originally from Prince Edward Island, he has hung his hat on all three of Canada’s coasts lives now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works as a freelance editor and railroad service attendant.

About The Resumption of Play:
The title poem, winner of the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, is “compelling” and “deeply necessary . . . the drive of narrative told with the sonic patterning of poetry.” It’s the urgent story of an Indian residential school survivor, complex, scarred, articulate, flashing with rage and mordant humour and tackles the collision between Aboriginal and Western systems of thought. It’s followed by elegies for the poet’s mother, Pound, Brodsky, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Virginia Woolf, Bronwen Wallace, and much more.

Rachel Lebowitz is the author of Hannus, which was shortlisted for the 2007 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional BC Book Prize and the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. She is also the co-author, with Zachariah Wells, of the children's picture book Anything But Hank! Her most recent work is Cottonopolis, a book of prose poems about the Industrial Revolution, and the Baseline Press chapbook Their Useless Wings. She lives in Halifax, where she coordinates tutoring programs at the public library. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016

judith castle &
dorothy mahoney

Judith Castle lived in Montréal, Québec, for many years, where she taught Humanities at Collège LaSalle, and Social Psychology at Continuing Education, Concordia University. Her poetry has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Event, Island Writer Magazine, and in various anthologies. 

Her art photographs have been exhibited at Galerie Luz and Galerie Nota Bene, Montréal.

Flare Path, her first volume of
poetry, was published in 2012, and
her second volume, What Remains,
in 2014. Her latest book is Now I Lay Me Down.

She lives in Victoria, BC.
judithcastle.com

Antony Di Nardo is a poet and teacher. He is the author of three collections of poetry and his work appears in journals and anthologies, both in Canada and internationally. Formerly at International College in Beirut, Lebanon, he currently divides his time between Sutton, Quebec and Toronto.

The poems in Roaming Charges (Brick Books) occupy the air between Canada and the Middle East, viewer and painting, victim and triggerman, reader and page. Blending a bohemian ebullience with a reporter’s obligation to witness, these poems are a heady and celebratory bouquet of jet fuel, camaraderie, and muezzin music. They look long and hard at their subjects, but also speak of the trail those subjects leave across the sky, with “the sky a constant goofy goodbye.”

FRIDAY, August 19, 2016

timothy shay

Judith Castle lived in Montréal, Québec, for many years, where she taught Humanities at Collège LaSalle, and Social Psychology at Continuing Education, Concordia University. Her poetry has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Event, Island Writer Magazine, and in various anthologies. 

Her art photographs have been exhibited at Galerie Luz and Galerie Nota Bene, Montréal.

Flare Path, her first volume of
poetry, was published in 2012, and
her second volume, What Remains, 
in 2014. Her latest book is Now I Lay Me Down.

She lives in Victoria, BC.
judithcastle.com