Winterlights Poetry Event
Share food, wine and inspiration at this annual community event. Bring your favourite piece of writing and put your name in the hat for the open mic slate.
National Poetry Month Day 12
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
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
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 5
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
National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month and this year the theme is Nature. So who better to inaugurate this daily poem NPM initiative than the late, brilliant Pat Lowther, who so often spoke of nature as a source of inspiration?
“For 35 years, the late Pat Lowther has played an emblematic role for women poets in our country. In spite of a demanding domestic life, she committed herself to words, dared to be a better writer than her husband and, on the page, wouldn’t shut up. She made her poetry matter. Her passion for life shines from the first poem to the last.”
—poet Lorna Crozier, the Globe and Mail
Walk For The Wild Things
Walk from South Chesterman Beach to Frank Island to raise awareness of threatened and extinct animals as part of the International Remembrance Day for Lost Species.
Join a beach fire afterwards to hear and share local stories, updates and sentiments.
Children may want to dress as a favourite creature, or bring their favourite stuffed animal.
This walk is a way for adults and children to show we care about the animals, plants, places that are vanishing. Such sadness is something we haven’t coped with on today’s scale before.
This summer Tahlequah the orca carried her dead calf at the surface for 17 days straight, prompting a deluge of grief from around the world. A strong part of grief lies in feeling helpless to prevent extinctions from happening. Studies show that even something as simple as a group walk can help build resilience when dealing with feelings of loss.
Friday November 30th. (It may rain, but we can handle that—right?)
3:30—4:30 pm
South Chesterman Beach entrance (see map, below)
http://tofinoaccommodation.com/location.html
