FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

beginning-of-the-season all-open-mic fundraiser! 

BOOK SALE:

We’ll be selling gently used books for $5 each. All proceeds from the book sale will go towards our season, so bring some cash and your reading glasses!

ALL OPEN MIC:

As always, for this event we ask that your open mic poem is written by a poet other than you. Please choose a favourite poet, or a poem that has inspired or moved you, or a poem you think we all need to hear. 

Our usual open mic rules apply - max 3 minutes/one poem

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR THE OPEN MIC:
Sign up is between 7:00–7:20pm, in person at Russell Books Victoria.

Please note that because September 8 is an All-Open-Mic night, we will not be livestreaming on Zoom. Livestreaming resumes on Sept 15th.

Poet Ellen Chang-Richardson

Friday, september 13
ellen chang-richardson

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent. The author of Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024) and six poetry chapbooks, their multi-genre writing has appeared in Augur, Room and Vallum Contemporary, among others. They co-founded Riverbed Reading Series and write collaboratively with the poetry collective VII.

Poetic Appetizer
excerpt from Ellen Chang-Richardson’s poem “between branches”, from her collection Blood Belies:

I want to sit where

living incites

no violence



where you, where I

exist as the leaves

of my Zamioculcas do;


Poet Andrea Scott

friday, september 13
andrea scott

Andrea Scott is a mother, writer and high school teacher living in Victoria, B.C., the traditional territory of the Lekwungen peoples. She has been shortlisted and longlisted for a variety of literary contests, and recently won the 2022 Geist Erasure Poetry contest, and the 2024 Raven Chapbooks Poetry Contest, for her collection titled In the Warm Shallows of What Remains.

Andrea is generously sponsored by poet Lorne Daniel (lornedaniel.ca)

Poet Steve Noyes

friday, september 20
steve noyes

Steve Noyes has published many poetry collections: Small Data, Rainbow Stage--Manchuria, Morbidity & Ornament, and Ghost Country, among others. His poems have appeared in many magazines in the UK and Canada. He is also the author of two novels: November’s Radio and It Is Just that Your House Is So Far Away.  He has just returned from England, where he competed his PhD. Originally from Winnipeg, Steve lives on Vancouver Island.

Poet Derek Webster

friday, september 20
derek webster (SPONSORED BY THE LEAGUE OF CANADIAN POETS)

Derek Webster’s National Animal is published by Véhicule Press. His first book Mockingbird (2015) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best poetry debut in Canada. He received an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and was the founder of award-winning arts magazine Maisonneuve. He lives in Montreal and Toronto.

"In National Animal, Derek Webster has spoken, and broken" - Diane Seuss, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2022

"Deeply attuned to the music of language" - Annick MacAskill, Governor General's Award for Poetry 2022

"A powerful statement on dominion from one of Canada's most talented poets”  - Jim Johnstone, Bliss Carman Poetry Award 2022

"Adventurous... serious... wonderfully funny" - John Vardon, The New Quarterly

“National Animal does what all great poetry is supposed to; it converts everyday superabundant materials, whether holy or common, into a tangible picture, one that resonates at the heart of what it means to be a Canadian.” – Samuel Wise, Montreal Guardian

friday, september 27
columpa bobb and tania carter

Join us at New Horizons in James Bay at 2pm, for Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter, two Indigenous poets who co-wrote a book with their mother, award-winning poet Lee Maracle (who passed away in 2021).

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.

Poets Tania Carter and Columpa Bobb

friday, september 27
columpa BobB & tania carter

Tania Carter is from her Tsleil-Wuatuth and Nlaka'pumax families. She holds a Master’s Degree in Theatre, in which she studied with her late great uncle Leonard George and cousin, Charlene Aleck. She completed a book of poetry, in collaboration with her family (Lee Maracle and Columpa Bobb), called Hope Matters, just before COVID. She has published short stories and other poems. She has one beautiful and wise daughter. She deeply values the knowledge of potlatch given to her by her mother's hard work and profound love. Tania also cherishes the Ojibwe education and people of Ontario, where she lived for 25 years. Recently, with the support of her sister Columpa and other special people, she has worked in the arts with her sister and her daughter in partnership with Massey Theatre. The physical activation of oral transmission educates her every time she works with her family, as she remembers her mother and all the generations of knowledge that was poured into her. Lee Maracle brought her knowledge and expertise forward to her children, grandchildren and thousands of others...maybe millions.

Columpa Bobb, like her sister Tania Carter, is from her Tsleil-Wuatuth and Nlaka'pumax families, born and raised in the urbanized portions of our territory known now as Vancouver, BC. She is a life-long learner, practitioner and researcher of Salish oral transmission as well as a professional theatre practitioner for over 36 years now. She is a playwright, performer, director, and photographer. Columpa is the founding Artistic Director of Aboriginal Arts, Canada’s largest and most extensive Empowerment through the Arts Theatre training program for Indigenous youth aged 10-29. From 2002-2013, students exceeded 600, annually. She is also founding Artistic Executive Director of Urban Indigenous Theatre Company, an incorporated theatre company created to hand over to the young adults who graduated from the Aboriginal arts program. Although her late mother Lee Maracle taught Columpa and her sibling to write at a very young age, Hope Matters is Columpa’s first book of poetry. Hope Matters is the culmination of a 25 year long dream shared with her sister and mother.

The wide-ranging poems in Hope Matters focus on the journey of Indigenous peoples from colonial beginnings to reconciliation. But they also document a very personal journey—that of a mother and her two daughters. Written collaboratively, Hope Matters offers a blend of three distinct and exciting voices that come together in a shared song of hope and reconciliation.