National Poetry Month Day 12

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Nanaimo Poet Laureate Tina Biello takes the 2019 theme of “Nature” to the sacred realm of death, decay and decomposition with this poem about the unseen and underappreciated work of maggots. This poem was published in ‘Playing into Silence’ Caitlin Press, 2018

Tina Biello is a poet and a playwright and teaches mask work for performance to youth. Her poems have appeared in chapbook anthologies edited by Patrick Lane, since 2008. Her first full length book of poems with Leaf Press, ‘In the Bone Cracks of the Walls’, was published in Spring 2014. Her second book came out in 2015 with Guernica Editions, ‘A Housecoat Remains’. Her third collection is ‘Playing into Silence’ with Caitlin Press. She is the current Poet Laureate for Nanaimo 2017-2020.

National Poetry Month Day 10

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Contemplate Impermanence, and celebrate the 2019 theme of “nature,” with this evocative poem by Christine Smart of Salt Spring Island.

Impermanence is reprinted here from Chris’s collection“decked and dancing” Hedgerow Press, 2006. Her second collection, “The White Crow” was also published by Hedgerow Press in 2013.
You can find Christine’s poems in the periodicals Grain, CV2, Other Voices and Northlight Poetry Review, UK, as well as numerous anthologies.


National Poetry Month Day 9

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Ghazal Elegies by Yvonne Blomer was originally published in Elegies for Earth, Leaf Press, 2018, Winner of Overleaf chapbook contest. As a poetic form, Ghazals originated in the Arabic and Persian languages. There are different varieties, but mostly they contain a minimum of five couplets.

Yvonne Blomer lives, works and raises her family on the traditional territories of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich), Lkwungen (Songhees), Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation. She give thanks for the privilege of being here.
Web site: www.yvonneblomer.com
City of Victoria Poet Laureate 2015-2018
Recent Books: 
Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur, Palimpsest Press, 2017
& Refugium: Poems for the Pacific, Caitlin Press, 2017 and As if a Raven, 2014, Palimpsest Press.


National Poetry Month Day 8

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Let yourself settle into the “deepening quiet” of a foggy west coast night with this evocative poem, “Perhaps Healed,” by Christine Lowther.  “Perhaps Healed” was originally published in Quills poetry magazine

Christine Lowther has authored three poetry collections and a memoir, Born Out of This, which was shortlisted for a BC Book Prize. She won the creative non-fiction category of the Federation of British Columbia Writers 2016 contest, Literary Writes, and the inaugural Rainy Coast Arts Award for Significant Accomplishment in 2014. Co-editor of two nonfiction anthologies, she happily contributes to other editors’ projects now!

National Poetry Month Day 5

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Many thanks to acclaimed poet Jane Hirshfield for allowing this poem to be reproduced in honour of National Poetry Month. Some poems strike a resounding note with the reader, as this one did for me.

Jane is the author of eight collections of poetry, including, most recently, The Beauty (longlisted for the National Book Award ); Come, Thief; After (shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Prize and named a “best book of 2006” by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the London Financial Times); Given Sugar, Given Salt (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award); The Lives of the Heart; and The October Palace, as well as two books of essays, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (Knopf, 2015), which was awarded the Northern California Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, and the now-classic Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. She has also edited and co-translated four books containing the work of poets from the past: The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Japanese Court; Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women; Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems; and The Heart of Haiku, on Matsuo Basho, named an Amazon Best Book of 2011. This poem was previously published by terrain.org