Well, that was something!  July’s poetry reading was a significant moment in West Coast CanLit history.  Reuniting Brian Brett and Allan Safarik after more than twenty years was special. Poetic Justice was honoured to be the host venue that brought them together.

Our Next Poetry Reading

Writing talent isn’t the private preserve of authors who have been at it for some time. Good writing (and good poetry in particular) can also be the product of the younger crowd.  August’s poetry reading is just such an example when Aislinn Hunter and Geoffrey Nilson step up to the microphone at Poetic Justice.

New Westminster’s own Geoffrey Nilson is a high-risk wordsmith, much like his predecessor, bpNichol. Geoff will be joined by his good friend, multi-award-winning poet and novelist, Aislinn Hunter.

August’s First Feature Poet

Aislinn Hunter

AISLINN HUNTER is an award-winning poet and novelist and the author of seven highly acclaimed books. Her most recent novel, The World Before Us, won the 2015 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book. Her third book of poetry Linger, Still was published this spring with Gaspereau Press. She teaches creative writing part-time at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and has held writer-in-residence positions in the UK, Australia and in Canada. She lives in North Vancouver, BC.

August’s Second Feature Poet

Geoffrey Nilson

GEOFFREY NILSON is the author of four chapbooks, the most recent, In my ear continuously like a stream, forthcoming in Fall 2017 from above/ground press. Nilson’s poems and essays have appeared widely in Canada and internationally including in Poetry is Dead, Event, Lemon Hound, The Rusty Toque and CV2. Nilson is a contributing editor for Arc Poetry and holds a BA in Creative Writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He lives in New Westminster with his daughter on the unceded territories of the Qayqayt and Musqueam First Nations.

If you want a spot on the Open Mic list, get there early. See you all at the Poetic Justice poetry reading on Sunday, August 20.  We’re underway at 11:30 a.m.

June’s reading brought together two poets with very different Mennonite backgrounds. Yet each eloquently demonstrated how place and upbringing can so deeply inform good poetry. Patrick Friesen and Connie Braun both gave a stirring poetry reading, showing us how insightful, thought-provoking and heart-stirring poetry — good poetry — can be.

Patrick Friesen and Connie Braun, flanked by hosts Aidan Chafe and James Felton

Our Next Poetry Reading

Seldom do we get the chance to reunite poets who once shared a working life together. In the 70s, Brian Brett and Allan Safarik started a literary magazine called Blackfish. The periodical soon morphed into Blackfish Press, proclaiming to publish poets without government funding.

Poetic Justice is proud to reunite after many years these two icons of West Coast poetry and publishing. Make sure you don’t miss what will surely be a special occasion. All we can say is you have to be at our poetry reading on Sunday, July 16. Here’s more about both these iconic publishers and writers.

July’s First Featured Poet

Brian Brett

Brian Brett, former chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada and a journalist for four decades, is best known as a poet, memoirist and ficton writer. He is the author of thirteen books including his memoir, Uproar’s Your Only Music, which was a Globe & Mail Book of the Year selection. Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life, won numerous prizes, including the Writers’ Trust annual award for non-fiction. To Your Scattered Bodies Go won the CBC poetry prize in 2011. A collection of poems, The Wind River Variations, was released in 2014. And the final book in his trilogy of memoirs, Tuco, was published in 2015 and was awarded the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. He was also the 2016 recipient of the Writers’ Trust Matt Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement.

July’s Second Featured Poet

Allan Safarik

Allan Safarik is a prolific writer and editor in several genres. Born in Vancouver and raised in North Burnaby, he currently lives in the historic Jacoby House in Dundurn, Saskatchewan on the Louis Riel Trail and teaches Imaginative Writing at St. Peter’s College in Muenster. Safarik’s work is connected to two different regions: the West Coast of Canada and the Canadian Prairies. He is the author of sixteen books of poetry including When Light Falls From The Sun, winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry in 2005. Notes From the Outside ~ Episodes from an Unconventional Life won the John Hicks Literary Non-Fiction Award in 2003. He collaborated with his father Norman to produce Bluebacks and Silver Brights (2012) an acclaimed eco-memoir about the Pacific Coast fisheries. Safarik’s historical novel, Swedes’ Ferry, 2013 has remained on the McNally Robinson fiction best-seller list for the past four years.

Remember if you want a spot on the Open Mic list, get there early. At the last reading we had to disappoint a few of you. Those who missed out in June are given the chance to go first at July’s reading. But you have to be on time. See you all on Sunday, July 16.  We’re underway at 11:30 a.m.

What a fabulous reading we had on May 21st. Engaging, humorous, profound, uplifting. All of these and more. Griffin Poetry Prize Winner Jane Munro and Griffin Finalist Ian Williams delivered some of their most inspiring and exquisite poems to a receptive and appreciative audience.

Now To Our Next Poetry Reading

On Sunday, June 18 Poetic Justice will be hosting two more poetic talents. Yes, it’s Father’s Day, so why not bring Dad along and feed him some pizza and poetry? Yet another Griffin Poetry Prize Finalist (and a Governor General’s Award Finalist too) will be joining us, along with one of the brightest new poets the West Coast has seen in a while. Patrick Friesen will be here with one of his biggest fans and a talent in her own right, Connie Braun.

Here’s more about both of them.

Patrick Friesen

Patrick Friesen has published more than a dozen books of poetry, a book of essays and, with P. K. Brask, co-translations of several Danish poets, including Ulrikka Gernes’ Frayed Opus for Strings & Wind Instruments which was short-listed for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize. Friesen has also written stage and radio plays, text for dance, and has recorded two CDs of spoken word and improv music with Marilyn Lerner. His upcoming play, a short history of crazy bone, will be produced by Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2018.

Connie Braun

Connie T. Braun (BA, MA, MFA) is an author and instructor of Creative Writing. Her writing often focuses on narrative as witness and the life affirming poetics of memory. She has published a memoir, The Steppes are the Colour of Sepia (Ronsdale Press, 2008), a collection of poetry, Unspoken: An Inheritance of Words (Fern Hill Publications, 2016), along with reviews for various publications. Her academic and personal essays and poetry appear in journals and anthologies with two forthcoming publications, a chapbook Narrow Passageways (Alfred Gustav Press, 2017) and a collection of essays Silentium: & other reflections on Memory, Sorrow, Place and the Sacred (Wipf and Stock). She is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, a member of the Canadian Author’s Association and has served on boards for the arts and writing, including Prism International and Image Journal. She lives in Vancouver.

Remember if you want a spot on the Open Mic list, make sure you arrive on time. At the last reading we had to disappoint a few of you. Those who missed out in May will be given the chance to go first at June’s reading — but you have to be punctual. See you all on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 18.  We’re underway at 11:30 a.m.

Well, the Easter Bunny was there and so were the die-hard fans of our two awesome featured poets. Old friends Penn Kemp and Sharon Thesen showed why they are among Canada’s top poets with exceptional readings from their recent publications. Penn sported a beautiful shade of purple around her left eye after taking a tumble the day before. She’s such a trooper for still coming through to deliver a wonderful reading.

Flanked by hosts Linda Holmes & James Felton, poets Sharon Thesen & Penn Kemp.

Our Next Poetry Reading

On Sunday, May 21 Poetic Justice is honoured to have the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize winner as one of our two featured poets. If you haven’t heard or read Jane Munro’s work, you’re in for a special treat. Jane will be joined by Ian Williams, one of her biggest fans; in fact, they have a mutual admiration for each other’s work. Ian is relatively new to the West Coast but certainly not new to poetry.

Here’s more about both of them.

Jane Munro

Jane Munro’s sixth poetry collection Blue Sonoma (Brick Books, 2014) won the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize. Her previous books include Active Pass (Pedlar Press, 2010) and Point No Point (McClelland & Stewart, 2006). Her work has received the Bliss Carman Poetry Award, the Macmillan Prize for Poetry, was nominated for the Pat Lowther Award and is included in The Best Canadian Poetry 2013. She is a member of the collaborative poetry group Yoko’s Dogs who have published Whisk and Rhinoceros. Jane lives in Vancouver.

Ian Williams (courtesy John Jones)

Ian Williams is the author of Personals, which was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize; also Not Anyone’s Anything, the winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada; and You Know Who You Are. Ian was named as one of ten Canadian writers to watch by CBC.  He teaches poetry at UBC. His first novel, Reproduction, is forthcoming from Random House.

So mark your calendars for Sunday May 21. We get underway at 11:30am. Come early so you can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order. See you for brunch with items starting at $10!

What a delight it was to have the birthday girl read for us! Bernice Lever turned 81 the day of her poetry reading at Poetic Justice. She shared some of the entries from her most recent poetry collection, Small Acts. And she was joined by the much-revered Russell Thornton who delivered some scintillating poems from his upcoming manuscript,  The Terrible Appearances, as well as a requested favourite, “Lemon Groves”.

We also discovered that at age 19, Russell Thornton sent one of his first-ever poems to the founder and editor of Waves magazine, none other than Bernice Lever! 

Our Next Poetry Reading

April’s poetry reading is on Easter Sunday and it’s going to be a blast. Maybe the Easter Bunny will be there as well. Here’s why. Both our featured poets are from out of town but neither is a stranger to the Vancouver writing scene. Penn Kemp is London, Ontario’s first Poet Laureate and Sharon Thesen lives in the Okanagan. And here’s more about both of them.

Penn Kemp

Penn Kemp, M.Ed., is delighted to return to Poetic Justice!  Activist poet, performer and playwright, Penn is a League of Canadian Poets Life Member and winner of their 2015 Spoken Word Artist of the Year award.  She is the inaugural Poet Laureate for London, Ontario.  As Writer-in-Residence for Western University, her project was the DVD, Luminous Entrance. Her new plays are available on the Playwrights Guild of Canada website.

Other recent works are Barbaric Cultural Practice (Quattro, 2016) and two anthologies, Women and Multimedia and Performing Women as well as Dream Sequins, Lyrical Myrical Press, and Jack Layton: Art in Action, which she edited for Quattro Books, Toronto. Her first poetry collection, Bearing Down (Coach House Press), appeared in 1972. She also edited the first collection of women’s poetry in Canada when she guest-edited Issue No. 14 of Is magazine in 1973.  Since then, Penn has published thirty books and has had six of her plays produced.

Sharon Thesen

Sharon Thesen lives in the Okanagan’s Lake Country, and is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at UBC’s Okanagan campus.  She is a BC-based poet, editor, critic, and teacher who has published nine books of poetry, most recently The Good Bacteria (2009) and Oyama Pink Shale (2011) both with House of Anansi Press.  She has also edited two editions of The New Long Poem Anthology and was an editor at The CapilanoReview and co-editor of Lake: A Journal of Arts and Environment.

A winner of the Pat Lowther Award, she has also been a three-time finalist for the Governor-General’s Award and a frequent finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Award.  In 2002, she was a jury member of the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize.  She currently writes journalistic essays for the online magazine Dispatches, and continues to teach poetry workshops and facilitate readings and events in Kelowna.  Her current poetry manuscript is titled Eternal City of the West.

So join us and hear from two writers who have not been carving but excavating literary history in Canada. Their reputations have already made it to the top-most bookshelf. It’s likely this will be a poetry reading you’ll remember for a while.

So mark your calendars for Sunday April 16. Remember we get underway at 11:30am. Come early so you can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order. See you for brunch with items starting at $10!

The honour roll doesn’t get any bigger than this. When you have two featured poets who have each received the Order of Canada (within four months of each other!), it doesn’t get any more distinguished than that.

On Sun Feb 19, good friends Daphne Marlatt and Roy Miki read together for the first time since the 70s. Poetic Justice was thrilled to reunite two of the west coast’s most influential writers through our reading series.

In March, we continue the tradition of bringing you some of the finest poets writing today. Even though she’s an octogenarian, Bernice Lever is pumping out poems faster than a flash flood. She will be joined by Russell Thornton, another gifted poet who has been short-listed for both the Griffin Poetry Prize as well as the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry.   Here is more on these two fine writers and poets…

Bernice Lever
(photo courtesy of Juergen Bruhns)

Bernice Lever is the founder of Waves, a seminal literary magazine that ran from 1972 to 1987. Her latest book, Small Acts, is her 16^th publication and 11^th poetry collection. She has been actively involved in the  Canadian Authors Association, the League of Canadian Poets, the Federation of BC Writers, and local writers’ groups. Bernice has read her poems on five continents and has amassed four Lifetime Achievement awards, including the CAA’s Sangster Award.  She continues to edit manuscripts for others which she began in the 1980s at Dundurn Press, Toronto.  Retired from Toronto’s Seneca College Department of English, she still presents writing workshops, if she is not writing poetry or watching the deer stroll by her home on Bowen Island.

Russell Thornton

Russell Thornton’s The Hundred Lives was shortlisted for the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize. His Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain was shortlisted for the 2013 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Raymond Souster Award and the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize. His other titles include The Human Shore, House Built of Rain, A Tunisian Notebook, and The Fifth Window. He is the co-translator of Poems from the Scythian Wild Field: A Selection of the Poetry of Dmytro Kremin (Ekstasis, 2016). He has a new collection, The Terrible Appearances, forthcoming in 2018. He lives in North Vancouver, BC.

So mark your calendars for Sunday March 19. We are underway at 11:30am. Come early so you can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order. Come and enjoy brunch with the poets, with tasty fare starting at $10!

January’s reading was nothing short of superb.  Cerebral poems were topped with emotionally charged ones, like poached eggs smothered with hollandaise sauce (okay, hunger is talking here). A fresh voice joined a seasoned one as Chelsea Comeau teamed up with E.D. Blodgett and gave a full house something special.

Joining us on February 19 is a duo who first hit full poetic stride in the 70s. This is the first time in a very long time that Daphne Marlatt will be reading again with Roy Miki. It is a special honour for Poetic Justice to host two writers who together are cornerstones of the West Coast literary movement. Here is more on these two fine writers and poets…

Daphne Marlatt

Daphne Marlatt is a critically acclaimed poet (Steveston, Liquidities) and novelist (Ana Historic, Taken).  Her most recent title, Reading Sveva features a series of poems in response to the life and work of the Italian-Canadian painter, Sveva Caetani.

[I did say to Daphne that this is the shortest bio of someone so prolific!]

Roy Miki

Roy Miki grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Vancouver in the late 1960s. He is the author of many books, including Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice (Raincoast 2004), as well as five books of poems. His third book of poems, Surrender (Mercury Press 2001), received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. More recent publications are Mannequin Rising (New Star 2011), a series of poems and photo collages that probe the internal effects of commodity culture; In Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing (NeWest 2011), an essay collection; and Dolphin SOS (Tradewind Books 2014), a children’s book co-written with his wife Slavia, and illustrated by Julie Flett. Dolphin SOS received a 2014 BC Book Prize for best illustrated children’s book.

So mark your calendars for Sunday February 19 and please don’t forget we get underway at 11:30am. Come early so you can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order. So see you for brunch with items starting at $10!

Forgive us but we’ve had a glitch with posts to the website.  All’s good again — for now. Last month we were thrilled to have two powerful voices sharing the podium. Kate Braid, a previous visitor to PJ, was joined by new-to-PJ poet, Richard Therrien. For some reason, the readings seemed rushed this time, but not before we were dazzled by these two stellar poets.

It’s worth repeating, even if you know, we’re taking a break over the Christmas holidays. There is no reading in December, but we’ll be firing up the engines again in January.

Joining us on January 15 are E.D. Blodgett and Chelsea Comeau. We decided to combine ‘tried and true’ Ted with ‘up and coming’ Chelsea. E.D.’s been around the block and knows the whole neighbourhood while Chelsea’s rounding the first corner on her way to great things. Here’s more about these fine poets…

E.D. Blodgett

E.D.(Ted) Blodgett, FRSC, is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta where he taught about 40 years, and held the Louis Desrochers Chair in Études Canadiennes, Campus Saint-Jean (2008-10). His publications in mediaeval studies include two translations, notably, The Love Songs of the Carmina Burana with Roy Arthur Swanson (Garland Publishing, 1987), and The Romance of Flamenca (Garland Publishing, 1995). He has written books on D.G. Jones and Alice Munro, and more recently, Five-Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2003) and Les Enfants des Jésuites ou le sacrifice des vierges (Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2013). He has published 27 books of poetry, of which two have received the Governor General’s Award. His most recent book is Horizons, the third of his books in both English and French. He is a past poet laureate of Edmonton (2007-09), and a former Writer-in-Residence at Grant MacEwan University (2004). He is currently involved in writing another bilingual renga.

Chelsea Comeau

Chelsea Comeau is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Claremont Review, Quills, and CV2. In 2015, she was the Canadian winner of the Leaf Press chapbook contest, and attends poetry retreats with Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier. She is currently the poetry editor of WordWorks magazine.

So mark your calendars for Sunday January 15 and please don’t forget the earlier start time of 11:30am. Come early so you can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order before we get underway. So see you for brunch with items starting at $10!

Our last reading was special. The rain stopped and the poets came out to play. And so did the poetry fans. Susan McCaslin dazzled us with her ekphrastic poetry inspired by the works of Cézanne while Richard Osler rattled our emotional cupboards with his poems of unfiltered vulnerability.

Joining us on November 20 are Kate Braid and Richard Therrien. Both these exceptional writers already know we’re starting at an earlier time that day, so please make a note of our ‘brunch’ reading session that kicks off at 11:30am. In the meantime, here’s more about them…

Kate Braid

Kate Braid has written, co-written and edited eleven books of non-fiction and prize-winning poetry.  Her latest books are a memoir, Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man’s World about her 15 years in construction, and a book of poems, Rough Ground Revisited.  In 1995, with Sandy Shreve she edited the ground-breaking book, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poems; its expanded second edition is now out.  In 2015 she was awarded the Mayor of Vancouver’s Award for the Literary Arts for showing leadership and support for Vancouver’s cultural community.  Check out her website.

Richard Therrien

Richard Therrien is an editor and writer living in North Vancouver. He has published poetry and prose in various periodicals, including Grain, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Filling Station, Absinthe, and CV2. His chapbook Water Language Faith was published by Alfred Gustav Press (2012). He is co-author, with Dean Neu, of Accounting for Genocide, Canada’s Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People (Fernwood Publishing/Zed Books, 2003). His poetry collection Sleeping in Tall Grass from the University of Alberta Press (Robert Kroetsch Series) launched in the Spring of 2016.

So mark your calendars for Sunday November 20 and please don’t forget the earlier start time of 11:30am. Come early so can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order before we get underway. So see you for brunch!

Simply put, this month’s reading was over-the-top. Having Eileen Kernaghan back with us after a long absence was so gratifying. And Henry Beissel’s reading had everyone captivated. It’s so rewarding having talented poets descend on Poetic Justice. It makes it so worthwhile bringing the likes of writers of such a high calibre to our series.

(l – r) Co-host James Felton, Eileen Kernaghan, Henry Beissel, and Co-host Franci Louann

In October, the tradition continues. At PJ we bring you an incredibly diverse line-up of poets where there is always one certainty: deep, uncompromising talent.

Joining us on October 16 are Susan McCaslin and Richard Osler. Both these exceptional writers already know we’re starting at an earlier time that day, so please make a note of our ‘brunch’ reading session that kicks off at 11:30am. Both Susan and Richard are on the verge of launching new publications. More about that in our newsletter. In the meantime, here’s more about them…

Susan McCaslin

Susan McCaslin has published thirteen volumes of poetry. Her upcoming one is Painter, Poet, Mountain: After Cézanne (Quattro Books, Sept. 2016).  Previous volumes include The Disarmed Heart (The St. Thomas Poetry Series, 2014) and Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press, 2011).  The latter was short-listed for the BC Book Prize (Dorothy Livesay Award) and the first-place winner of the Alberta Book Publishing Award (Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award) in 2012.  Susan has also published a memoir, Into the Mystic: My Years with Olga (Inanna Publications, 2014). She currently lives in Fort Langley, British Columbia where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect an endangered rainforest along the Fraser River.

Richard Osler

Richard Osler was born in Toronto and now lives in Duncan on Vancouver Island, where he facilitates poetry writing retreats and, also, weekly poetry workshops at The Cedars, an addiction recovery centre. His chapbook of short poems Where the Water Lives was published by Leaf Press in 2012. His poems have appeared in many journals. In 2011 he was a finalist for the Malahat Open Season Awards in poetry and in 2015 he was long-listed for the PRISM International Poetry Prize. His other writing includes chapters in The Rock Rabbit and the Rainbow: Laurens van der Post Among Friends and The Latest Morningside Papers by Peter Gzowski.

So mark your calendars for Sunday October 16 and please don’t forget the earlier start time of 11:30am. Come early so can register for open mic and place your food & beverage order before we get underway. So see you for brunch!