Poet Kris Percy

friday, march 06
kris percy

Kristina Percy lives in the territory of the Ligwiłda’xw people (central Vancouver Island). Neither of her degrees have anything to do with creative writing. Her debut collection, Both True, was a runner-up in Button Poetry’s 2024 Chapbook Contest.

Both True is an offering to anyone who has ever felt angry & alone in their parenthood, anyone who has felt like they made a mistake becoming a parent but also known that they could not bear to have that part of themselves taken away. It is for everyone who has despaired in the world and wondered what other universes might exist, might be possible, might be better.

Poet Mary Ann Moore

friday march 06
mary ann moore

Mary Ann Moore (she/her) lives on the traditional lands of the Snuneymuxw First Nation in Nanaimo. She is a poet, writer, and writing mentor.  Mary Ann’s full length book of poetry is Fishing for Mermaids (Leaf Press). The latest of her several chapbooks are Mending and Modern Words for Beauty, both from house of appleton. 

Modern Words for Beauty is a magical blend of wonder, poignancy, and whimsy. In her poems, Mary Ann captures the nuances of every day such as the road sign that inspired a poem: “Night Work on 10th Street. “The poems present well-rendered social observances” Steven Ross Smith said in a review. Among the poets who have inspired Mary Ann, and are honoured in her poems, are Michelle Poirier Brown, Robert Hass, Susan Musgrave, and Gwendolyn MacEwen.

Poet Tosh Sherkat

friday march 06
tosh sherkat

Tosh Sherkat lives in Victoria, BC / occupied lək̓ʷəŋən territory. They are a poet, organizer, and a Persian and Doukhobor settler-of-colour born in Nelson, BC/ occupied Sinixt territory. They received their MFA from UBC Okanagan, and their chapbook, Svoboda FSR: a biotext, was published by Pinhole Poetry in Fall 2025. 

Borrowing “biotext” from Fred Wah, the fragmented long poem contained in Svoboda FSR: a biotext make sense of a life simultaneously cleared way for by Canada’s machinery of assimilation and the losses of sameness and difference which remain etched in an identity not quite Canadian. In the poem, the body and landscape share form, carved into with a history brimming with livable, future worlds, maps for which lay in logging roads taking the reader to the site of contestation.

Poet Toussaint St. Negritude

friday march 13
touissaint st. negritude

Toussaint St. Negritude is the winner of the 2025 Firebird Award for the collection of poems Mountain Spells [Rootstock Publishing 2024]. A former Poet Laureate of Belfast, Maine, and 2024 Nominee for Poet Laureate of Vermont, poet, bass clarinetist, and composer Toussaint St. Negritude conjures whole liberations in full tempo. US Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks described his work as "full of sweet sounds and surprises." Writer Xenia Turner, of Burlington's 7 Days weekly, declares him as "A Preacher of Jazz Influenced Gospel."

Originally from San Francisco, he has lived and broadly thrived across the African Diaspora, from the sacred mountains of Haiti to the Coltrane District of North Philadelphia. He, along with bassist Gahlord Dewald, is the leader of the band Jaguar Stereo!, a free-form ensemble of his own poetry and improvisational jazz, and his works have been widely published and recorded for over 40 years. He is also an avid educator, annually teaching poetry for the Governor's Institute of the Arts, among other institutions. On an alpine sanctuary facing east, Toussaint St. Negritude continues to thrive in the farthest elevations of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.

Poet Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi

friday february 20
Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi

Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi is a Black mother who spends time with forests and waters on unceded lands of the T’Sou-ke Nation. Her work strives to instigate action in service to world-building, social change, and collaboration. She wants you to dance often and to join the BDS movement.

friday february 27

Join us at New Horizons in James Bay at 2pm, on Friday 27 February for award-winning poet D.M. Bradford. Darby Minott Bradford is a poet and translator based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). A current Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, they are the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021) and Bottom Rail on Top (2023). Ring of Dust by Louise Marois (2025) is their latest translation. 

Doors at 1:30pm, with sign-up for open mic.

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.

Sponsored by The Victoria Arts Council.

Poet DM Bradford

FRIDAY february 27
d.m. bradford

Darby Minott Bradford is a poet and translator based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). A current Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, they are the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021) and Bottom Rail on Top (2023). Ring of Dust by Louise Marois (2025) is their latest translation.

Sponsored by The Victoria Arts Council.

Poet Daniel Cowper

FRIDAY february 27
daniel cowper

Daniel Cowper’s poetry has appeared in literary reviews in Canada, the US, Ireland, and the UK; he is a contributing editor to New Verse Review. Reviewers have called Kingdom of the Clock "gasp-inducingly beautiful" (MRB), and said its lines "chime with brilliance throughout" (BCR). He lives on Bowen Island.