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). Sign-up for the open mic begins at 7pm.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

ALISA GORDANEER AND PAULO DA COSTA

Alisa Gordaneer is a poet, writer and editor who has taught at the University of British Columbia, the University of Victoria, Camosun College and Royal Roads University. She has worked as a newspaper editor, communications consultant and freelance journalist, and writes regularly for Victoria’s CVV Magazine. A member of the League of Canadian Poets and a board member of the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society, she has won many awards for her poetry and nonfiction.

When she’s not writing, she enjoys playing fiddle, inventing new things to eat, and hanging out with chickens. This has given her some extraordinary insights into the language of backyard fowl.

paulo da costa’s work has received the Commonwealth First Book Prize and the City of Calgary Book Prize. His poetry and fiction have been published widely and translated into five languages.

“In any skin purple is a heavy tone that penetrates to the core.”
paulo da costa’s stories get under your skin, bruise your consciousness with their exploration of the forces that hold us together, not always benignly, and those that pull us apart. A hunter and a cougar ponder the positions of predator and prey under the dense canopy of a West Coast forest. Like the bubbles that the character in the title story blows while witnessing the dissolution of a love affair, these stories dazzle and beguile with their craft, their often dark humour, their grasp of people living the extremity that is daily life.

friday, october 16, 2015

ELENA JOHNSON AND MAUREEN HYNES

Vancouver poet Elena Johnson has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards and the Alfred G. Bailey Prize. Gaspereau published her first book, Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra, in 2015.

In the summer of 2008, Elena Johnson was writer-in-residence at an alpine ecology research station in the Yukon’s Ruby Range. Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra (Gaspereau Press, 2015) is the result: a debut collection of poems immersed in the remoteness of this environment, where “nights are mostly sunset,” the creek “carries the sound of rain even in sunshine” and caribou silently appear “antlers-first / from behind a ridge.”

Maureen Hynes has won the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Award and England’s Petra Kenney Award. She has published four books of poetry, the most recent being The Poison Colour from Pedlar Press. Her work has appeared in over 20 anthologies and has been widely published in journals. Her poems have been included in Best Canadian Poems 2010 and longlisted for the CBC Canada Reads 2013 poetry award. Maureen is poetry editor for Our Times magazine. 

Friday, october 23, 2015

TERRY ANN CARTER AND MONTY REID (and a workshop with terry Ann on November 28)

Poet and paper artist Terry Ann Carter is the author of four collections of lyric poetry and five chapbooks of haiku. A Crazy Man Thinks He’s Ernest in Paris (Black Moss Press) was shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman Award; day moon rising was shortlisted for the Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Award. Lighting the Global Lantern: A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Haiku and Related Literary Forms (Wintergreen Studios Press) is found in many Canadian and American high school and college classrooms. She participated in the Basho Festival, Ueno, Japan, and has given haiku and small book making workshops in France, Singapore, China, Malaysia, the Bahamas, Panama, the U.S. and Canada. Terry Ann is an instructor of Japanese literary forms at Royal Roads University, Victoria, andpresident of Haiku Canada. Her most recent book is On the Road to Naropa: My Love Affair with Jack Kerouac. “Her road is both daring and humble. I think Master Basho would be delighted.”— Sam Hamill

Terry Ann will give a short talk on three of her artist’s books with her poetry reading.

You can attend a workshop with Terry Ann on November 28 to learn Japanese poetry forms and make your own artist books. Details here.

Monty Reid was born in Saskatchewan, worked for many years in Alberta, BC and Quebec, and now lives in Ottawa. His books include Garden (Chaudiere), The Luskville Reductions (Brick), and CrawlSpace (Anansi) as well as chapbooks such as Kissing Bug (Phafours), Moan Coach (above/ground) and Site Conditions (Apt 9). Two collectionsare forthcoming: Meditatio Placentae from Brick, and A Gran Zoo with BuschekBooks. He has won Alberta’s Stephansson Award for Poetry on three occasions, the Lampman Award, national magazine awards, and is a 3-time nominee for the Governor-General’s Award. He is currently the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and Festival Director at VerseFest, Ottawa’s international poetry festival.

Friday, october 30, 2015

palimpsest press night: Anita Lahey, Patricia Youn and Ruth Roach Pierson

Anita Lahey is a poet, journalist, reviewer and essayist and serves as assistant series editor for Best Canadian Poetry in English. A past editor of Arc Poetry Magazine, she writes the blog “Henrietta & Me.”

Anita Lahey's book The Mystery Shopping Cart: Essays on Poetry and Culture, (Palimpsest, 2013) revisits and reconsiders the work of some of our finest Canadian women poets, including Gwendolyn MacEwen, Dorothy Roberts and P.K. Page. It delves into poetry and art, poetry and putting up your dukes, poetry and the small. Her second poetry collection, Spinning Side Kick (Véhicule, 2011), takes us into the ring, into the places where genders collide, into familial and community lore, and into war.

Ruth Roach Pierson has published four poetry collections—Where No Window Was (2002) and Aide-Mémoire (2007), both by BuschekBooks, the latter a finalist for the 2008 Poetry GG; CONTRARY (Tightrope Books, 2011); and Realignment (Palimpsest Press 2015).  She has also edited the anthology I Found It at the Movies (Guernica 2014).

Patricia Young is a writer living in Victoria BC. Twice short-listed for the Governor General’s Award, she has won numerous awards for her fiction and poetry.

She has taught at the University of Victoria, served as Editorial Assistant of the Malahat Review, on the board of the Victoria School of Writing, and also as writer in residence at various universities, most recently in 2008 where she was the WIR at the University of New Brunswick. She received the Arc Poem of the Year Award in 2009 and 2010. Selections of her poetry were also short-listed for the CBC Literary Competition in 2009 and 2010.

She is the author of nine collections of poetry and one of short fiction. She has two grown children and is married to the writer, Terence Young.