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, november 3, 2017

susan alexander &
barbara pelman

Susan Alexander is the recipient of the 2017 Whistler Poet’s Pause Competition, 2016 Short Grain poetry prize and the 2015 Vancouver Writers’ Festival Contest. Her poems have appeared in chapbooks and journals including SubTerrain, Arc, CV2, Grain, Room, The Feathertale Review, In/Words, Crux, The Antigonish Review and PRISM International. The Dance Floor Tilts (Thistledown Press), is her debut collection of poems.

The poems in Narrow Bridge, Barbara Pelman’s third collection, explore bridges both real and metaphoric: the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden where her family lives, the bridges she has travelled across Europe, the ways in which we bridge our separateness of each other through words and actions. How can poetry create safe passages for the heart to travel across time and space? And how, as the wise ones say, can one travel the narrow bridge and not be afraid? These are poems that explore the tension between living in one place and wanting to be in another, the losses and freedoms contained in solitude, the process of learning to age gracefully. The act of writing, Pelman says, is itself a bridge over fear, a mantra of boldness, and the courage to live con spirito.  

Barbara Pelman is a poet and a retired English teacher who has taught at high schools and universities. An occasional host and assistant at Planet Earth Poetry, she also teaches poetry workshops. She has two previous books of poetry: One Stone (Ekstasis Editions 2005) and Borrowed Rooms (Ronsdale Press 2008) and a chapbook Aubade Amalfi (Rubicon Press 2016). Barbara makes her home in Victoria, BC.

friDAY, november 10, 2017

tim lilburn &
gary barwin

Tim Lilburn was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. He has published ten books of poetry, including To the River (1999), Kill-site (2003), Orphic Politics (2008) and Assiniboia (2012). Lilburn has produced two books of essays, both concerned with poetics, eros and politics, especially environmentalism, Living in the World as if It Were Home (1999) and Going Home (2008). A third collection, The Larger Conversation, completing the trilogy, will be published by the University of Alberta Press in 2017 His most recent poetry collection, The Names, appeared from McClelland and Stewart in 2016.

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 21 books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His novel Yiddish for Pirates (Penguin Random House Canada) won the 2017 Leacock Medal for Humour, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Fiction and was a Scotiabank Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award finalist. It has recently been released in the US and as an audiobook. His latest poetry collection is No TV for Woodpeckers (Wolsak & Wynn) His interactive writing installation using old typewriters and guitar processors was featured during 2016–2017 at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. A PhD in music composition, Barwin is 2017–2018 writer-in-residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library. He also works with the Art Forms program teaching creative writing to at-risk youth. Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario with vague and unfounded suspicions about both language and Toronto.

FRIDAY, november 17, 2017

dan macisaac &
canisia lubrin

Dan MacIsaac’s Cries from the Ark, his debut collection of poetry, was published by Brick Books in September 2017.  He spent six seasons as a prospector in Canada’s North. A third generation lawyer, he served for 10 years as a director on the board of UVIC’s Environmental Law Centre. His poetry, fiction and verse translations have been published in a wide variety of literary magazines, including The Malahat Review, Arc and Stand. In 2014, one of his poems received the Foley Prize from America Magazine. In 2015, his poem, “Sloth,” was short-listed for The Walrus Poetry Prize.

Canisia Lubrin was born in St. Lucia in 1984. A member of the inaugural Open Book advisory board, she teaches in the English Department at Humber College while continuing work in arts education and community development. Lubrin—who has contributed to journals across Canada, including Room, CV2, Prairie Fire, The Puritan, Minola Review, THIS Magazine and others—holds an MFA in writing from Guelph-Humber and is the author of the début collection of poems Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, fall 2017).

FRIDAY, november 24, 2017

wendy morton & chelsea comeau

Chelsea Comeau is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Claremont Review, CV2 and is forthcoming in Room magazine.  In 2016, she won second prize in the poetry category of the Vancouver International Writers Fest writing contest, and in 2017 she was the first prize winner of the Glass Buffalo Poetry Prize. In April 2017, she was the artist-in-residence at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster.

In What You Leave Behind “Chelsea Comeau speaks the grief of an uncle's death in poems fragile as fire, so true, we will carry them with us for a very long time.” (Leaf Press)

Wendy Morton has received a number of awards, the latest of which is the Meritorious Service Medal from the
Governor General of Canada, for her projects: Random Acts of Poetry and The Elder Project, which have brought honour to Canada. She will be celebrating her birthday, reading a bouquet of poems to celebrate some of the many ghosts in her life.

To read pdfs of the more than 15 Elder Projects so far, go to theelderproject.com