Yvonne unable to read and MOVED to February 10

december 2
Yvonne Blomer

In Book of Places, Yvonne Blomer invites us along for a journey spanning across decades and countries. From a solitary traffic controller on a lonely Nevada highway, to the quizzical regulars of a dodgy pub in the UK, we follow Blomer’s meandering path through poetic snapshots of the figures and sights that populate it. This updated 10th anniversary edition also features an expanded collection of poems, integrating suites of meditations on childhood, and more recent poems reflecting on the ever-developing journey of life. The Book of Places invites us along for a grand adventure, but always leads us home. (from Palimpsest website)

Yvonne Blomer is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed travel memoir Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur. Her most recent books of poetry are The Last Show on Earth, As if a Raven and the anthologies Refugium: Poems for the Pacific and Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds, published by Caitlin Press. Yvonne served as the city of Victoria’s poet laureate from 2015 to 2018. She lives, works, and raises her family on the traditional territories of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich), Lkwungen (Songhees), Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation.

Poetic appetizer:
From “Love Poem”

I love you the way
love loves an Elephant
in her leathered, greyed,
her painted toes, her enormity.

The way China does Asia,
sometimes murderously.

december 2
poetic opener – Laurence hutchman

Laurence Hutchman was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in Toronto. He received a PhD from the Université de Montreal and has taught at several universities. For twenty-three years he was a professor of English literature at the Université de Moncton at the Edmundston Campus. Hutchman has published 12 books of poetry, co-edited the anthology Coastlines: the Poetry of Atlantic Canada and edited two volumes of In the Writers’ Words. 

His poetry has received many grants and awards, including the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence and has been translated into numerous languages. In 2017 he was named poet laureate of Emery, north Toronto. He lives with his wife, the artist and poet Eva Kolacz in Victoria, British Columbia. 

DECEMBER 3
WRITING PRACTICE WITH LEANNE BOSCHMAN

Join us for Writing Practice on Zoom at 11am Pacific time on Saturday, December 3. 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. This month Writing Practice will be led by Leanne Boschman.
*Note this is a Zoom-only event.

Please fill out this form to get Zoom credentials, and as always remember that you can tune in audio-only via landline by dialing +1 778 907 2071. (If you have any trouble using the form, please feel free to email us!)