january 2023

HAPPY NEW YEAR! All in-person PEP events will be taking place at Russell Books, 747 Fort Street in downtown Victoria. Doors open at 7:00pm, event starts at 7:30 and sign up for the open mic is between 7:00–7:20. Masks are encouraged but no longer required. Unless otherwise noted, in person events will be livestreamed HERE (Meeting ID: 494 660 4447 /Passcode: 2129) **please note, livestream begins at approx. 8:00–8:15pm with featured readings** Planet Earth Poetry acknowledges with respect that we read and write on the traditional territories of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich), Lekwungen (Songhees), Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation.

Link to
february 2023

january 6
sophie crocker

Sophie Crocker is a writer and performer based on stolen Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ land. They hold a BFA from University of Victoria. Their previous publications include The Fiddlehead, Best Canadian Poetry 2022, The Malahat Review, PRISM International, and elsewhere. Purchase their debut collection and read their work at sophiecrocker.com.

brat is an anthology of forest creatures, lost girls, and tiny precious moments. In this collection of poetry, smallness begets uprising; rats signify life rather than death; bunnies are woodland sprites. Throughout this book, to be a brat is to cause trouble, to riot, to right wrongs and to enact change because it is right, regardless of a corrupt legal system. If brathood is the irreverent claiming of ownership over all good things, then this collection is the quintessential brat.

Poetic appetizer:
to tear apart – i am as easy as an apple.
i’m worried my favorite ex will sleep with my other favorite ex & then i’ll be a landfill.

january 6
poetic opener – marlene grand maître

Marlene Grand Maître’s chapbook Cancer’s Rogue Season was published by Frog Hollow Press in April 2020. Her poetry has also appeared in many literary journals. A poem published in Prairie Fire was nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her work has also been published in nine anthologies, most recently in Voicing Suicide (Ekstasis, 2020), and Worth More Standing (Caitlin, 2022). She has won Freefall’s poetry prize, and had a poem longlisted for Best Canadian Poetry In English (Tightrope Books, 2011). Her poem Vanishing Point was chosen by The League of Canadian Poets for National Poetry Month’s Poem In Your Pocket, 2022. She can be heard reading her work online for PEP’s Poets’ Caravan.

january 13
michael crummey

Michael Crummey is the author of twelve books of fiction and poetry. His most recent novel, The Innocents, was a finalist for the Giller Prize, the Governor-General’s Award and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His latest poetry collection, Passengers, appeared in 2022. He lives in St. John’s.

Eclectic, emotionally charged and unpredictable, Passengers is Michael Crummey’s first new collection in nine years. Part travelogue, part archeological dig, these poems circumnavigate Newfoundland, touch down in the pre-pandemic cities of Europe, and chronicle Lucifer’s island escapade’s from the time of his arrival as a stowaway in the Middle Ages.

Poetic appetizer:
Wind is the deeper ocean here. We lie at the bottom
of that wild sea, weighting the bed to the floor.
Trees heave their dark crowns against the windows
of our sunken vessel, wanting in.

january 13
poetic opener – eric hansen

Eric is Danish and Cree, he is the youngest of four children born on the prairies. Since 2015 he has called Victoria his home. In 2022 his poetry was released as lyrics on the album Trip Doctor by Sheepskin Sound Reduction. The music is distributed by CD baby, available from Apple, Spotify and Amazon.

For 2023 he is thrilled to have been accepted into the Arc Magazine Poet in Residence Mentorship Program where he will be mentored by former Victoria Poet Laureate Yvonne Blomer. This year for the first time his his poetry has been accepted to appear in periodicals online in Canada and abroad as he continues towards publishing goals with a body of work curated for his first book.

january 20
Garry Gottfriedson

Garry Gottfriedson is from Kamloops, BC. He is strongly rooted in his Secwépemc (Shuswap) cultural teachings. He studied under Allen Ginsberg and Marianne Faithfull at the Naropa Institute in Colorado and has published ten books.

Gottfriedson’s work unapologetically unveils the truth of Canada’s treatment of First Nations. His work has been anthologized and published nationally and internationally.

Bent Back Tongue is a raw examination of love, identity, politics, masculinity, and vulnerability. Through sharp honesty and revealing satire, Gottfriedson delves into Canadian colonialism and the religious political paradigms shaping experiences of a Secwépemc First Nations man. This is a book that tears through deceptions that both Canada and the church impose on their citizens. Gottfriedson tackles the darkest layers of a shared colonial history; at the same time, the poems in Bent Back Tongue are a celebration of love, land, family, and the self.

january 20
poetic opener – george spong

George Spong, from Duncan, Vancouver Island, recently decided to perform his original poems as a solo musician and has been heavily practicing for a few months to learn guitar and match the chords with his lyrics. He has two custom made guitars from Cape Town, Africa as he plays left-handed. Fanner Guitars did a perfect job to make his lefty “axe.”

This has gone very well, and he is ready to perform as your “one man band.” His songs (out of 124 songs/poems) all are short stories that people can relate to, and they are an ironic theme, just like real life.

pep in the afternoon is back!

Join us at New Horizons in James Bay at 2pm, January 20th with Garry Gottfriedson. Hosted by Barbara Pelman. New Horizons Centre is at 234 Menzies St. in James Bay (street parking only). Please note that unlike our evening readings, the afternoon readings will not be livestreamed or recorded.

january 27
Christopher Levenson

Christopher Levenson, first winner of the Eric Gregory Award, co-founder and first editor of Arc magazine, has published thirteen books of poetry. In 2014 Night Vision was short listed for the Governor General’s award. After teaching English, and poetry workshop courses at Carleton University for 31 years, he moved to Vancouver in 2007.

Small Talk consists entirely of short poems, between two and ten lines, mostly unpublished but some taken from earlier volumes. Varying widely in tone, theme and subject matter, they evoke animals, social situations ecology, and political commentary, hopefully they contain something for almost everybody.

Poetic appetizer:
Call Waiting
From the further shore it emerges through the mist
and I want to say to the loon:
“Your call is important to us.”

january 27
Leanne Boschman

Leanne Boschman is a Vancouver Island–based writer whose poetry and prose explores gendered labour, intergenerational family dynamics, ecological crises, and spiritual resilience. Her work has been published in journals and anthologies. Her second collection of poems entitled Here at the Crux was released in August 2022.

Leanne Boschman’s book delights us with a mature artist’s skill with language and command of subject matter. It embraces intergenerational legacies and carries us into the uncertainties of the recent past and present with “choices shrinking every day.” Here at the Crux is filled with careful observation and a tender regard for our frailties. It is a poetic journey made of vivid stories, rich in truth telling and life brought full circle.

Poetic appetizer:
Handholds aren’t enough, of course.
Footholds are needed to stay close to the idea,
and, suddenly, there you are clinging—
tongue, breath, sinew and bone,
against the poem.

WRITING PRACTICE WITH CATHERINE ST. DENIS

saturday, january 21 @11am pacific time

Join us for Writing Practice on Zoom. Writing Practice is free to attend — please feel free to invite a friend and share these Zoom credentials with them. We’ll have exercises, discussion, and silent time to write together.

Planet Earth Poetry gratefully acknowledges all of its supporters.