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, december 4, 2016

patrick warner 

Patrick Warner has published five collections of poetry: All Manner of Misunderstanding; There, There; Mole; Precious; and Octopus, and a novel, One Hit Wonders. He has twice won the E.J. Pratt Poetry Prize. Warner grew up in Claremorris, County Mayo, Ireland. He emigrated to Canada in 1980, and since then has mostly lived in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Like its totem creature, the poems in Octopus are canny, slippery, and metamorphic. As apt to channel the confessionalism of Anne Sexton as the red-in-tooth-and-claw nature poetry of Ted Hughes, Warner’s voice ranges freely from the colloquial to the baroque. Over the past fifteen years, by harbouring and honouring such fraught tensions, Warner has been building one of the most taut and original bodies of work in Canadian literature. In Octopus we have him at his best.

FRIDAY, decemBER 2, 2016

patricia young

Patricia Young has published twelve collections of poetry and one of short fiction. Her poems have been widely anthologized and translated into Spanish, Mandarin and Romanian. She has received numerous awards for her writing including The Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the BC Book Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and a CBC Literary Prize. She has twice been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry. Her collection of short fiction, Airstream, won the Rooke-Metcalf Award, was shortlisted for the Butler Prize and was named one of the Globe and Mail’s Best Books of the Year. Her newest collection with Biblioasis (October 2016) is Short Takes on the Apocalypse.

This twelfth collection from Governor General’s Award nominee Patricia Young features poems built entirely upon the words of others. Originating as a response to Elmore Leonard’s “Ten Rules of Writing,” and expanding to include poetic responses to quotations about writing from other sources—from Leonardo da Vinci to Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood to Jimmy Kimmel—the resulting pieces traverse a myriad of themes. Playfully exploring subjects as wide-ranging as veganism, gun violence, sex, parenting, feminism, death, and Coachella, Young bounces off the selected epigraphs with a vital energy and crackling wit.

FRIDAY, decEMBER 9, 2016

wendy donowa & terry ann carter

The Gorge: A Cartography of Sorrows, by Wendy Donawa and Terry Ann Carter (with Leah Fowler) is a suite of poems about the Gorge, the waterway running inland from Victoria’s Harbour. Constructed from cotton rag archival paper Japanese stab stitched by hand, The Gorge is illustrated with archival and contemporary photographs, maps, and drawings.

Wendy Donawa was born in BC, but settled in Barbados, where she spent three decades as a teacher, artist and museum curator. Since returning to the BC coast, her poetry has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Prairie Fire, Room, and Freefall. She was a finalist in The Malahat Review‘s 2013 Open Seasons Award and the Cedric Literary Award. She is also the co-author of Reading Canada (Oxford University Press, 2013). Her newest title, Thin Air of the Knowable, is forthcoming with Brick Books.

Terry Ann Carter is a poet and paper artist; the author of four collections of lyric poetry and five chapbooks of haiku. A Crazy Man Thinks He’s Ernest in Paris was shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman Award; day moon rising was shortlisted or the Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Award. Light the Global Lantern: A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Haiku and Related Literary Forms is found in many Canadian and American high school college classrooms. Terry Ann is the President of Haiku Canada, a member of the BC Islands chapter for the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Arist’s Guild, and an instructor of Japanese literary forms at Royal Roads University.

FRIDAY, decEMBER 9, 2016

karen enns 

Karen Enns is the author of That Other Beauty, nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award, and Ordinary Hours, nominated for the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. Her third collection of poetry, Cloud Physics, will be published in the spring of 2017 by The University of Regina Press. 

A former classical pianist, she teaches music and works as an editor in Victoria.