EVENTS

What a riotous array of readings last Sunday!  And every darned one of them superb. Whew!  Still recovering.  This week, another trio of talents awaits you, as we say goodbye to our host venue, Original’s.  Come and find out where we’ll be in February, but first come and support these fine poets…

Featured Poets:  Navaro Franco, and Keith Garebian (Debut!) and Alan Hill

Host:                     Franci Louann

Navaro Franco

Navaro Franco has devoted her life to studying tribal music, dance and earth-based traditions. Beginning in 1981, she studied and apprenticed with renowned teachers in Africa and North America, and since 1990 has been performing in these disciplines ever since.

Music and dance are, for her, a path of health, healing, and connecting with truth and beauty. A lifetime practice of yoga and dance also deeply inform Navaro’s musical work, giving her a special emphasis on embodied rhythm.

On her literary side, she constantly reaches for essence and the ecstatic state. Navaro believes words are ‘spells’ that create, but the disciplines of music and ecstatic dance continue to inform her writing.

Today her focus is predominantly in the literary world. She is part of a vibrant writing group that includes fine local writers Aline La Flamme, Marilyn Meden, and Jungian therapist, Lynette Johnston.

Navaro believes that writing is a solitary act, but the words truly come alive once shared.

Keith Garebian
(Photo: Elisabeth Feryn)

Keith Garebian’s poetry collections include Frida: Paint Me As a Volcano; Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems; Children of Ararat; Moon on Wild Grasses, and Georgia and Alfred.

Among his numerous poetry awards are a Scarborough Arts Council Poetry Award, W.H. Drummond Poetry Award, the Surrey International Writers Conference Poetry Award, and a CAA (Niagara Branch) Poetry Award.

He has been shortlisted for the FreeFall magazine award and the Gwendolyn MacEwen-Exile Poetry Award for Best Single Poem from a Suite. He has also won a Canada Council Grant for Non-Fiction and two Ontario Arts Council Awards for Work in Progress, one for non-fiction and another for poetry.  Keith lives in Mississauga.

Alan Hill

Alan Hill is the author of two collections of poetry, The Upstairs Country and The Broken Word. 

He has also been published in over forty periodicals in Canada, the UK and the USA.

Alan emigrated to Canada from England in 2005 and is a proud resident of New Westminster. He is currently working on his third collection of poetry, A Fire in a Winter Field.

There is no better butterfly net to capture life experience than poetry. And last Sunday’s featured poets were a testament to this.  This coming Sunday it’s another debut, but it’s also a family affair.  Come out and enjoy three incredibly accomplished writers.

Featured Poets:  Frances Boyle (Debut!), and Bren Simmers and d.n. simmers

Host:                     James Felton

Frances Boyle

Frances Boyle is the author of Light-carved Passages (BushchekBooks, 2014) and a chapbook, Portal Stones (Tree Press, 2014).

Her poetry and short stories appear in The New Quarterly, Vallum, Arc, Prairie Fire, CV2, Fiddlehead, Room, Freefall , CV2, Ottawater, Truck, Moonset and other literary magazines, as well as in anthologies on form poetry, Hitchcock, love poetry, and daughters remembering their mothers.

Prizes she’s received include This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt, the Tree Reading Series chapbook contest and the Diana Brebner Prize. She is a member of Arc Poetry Magazine’s editorial board.

Bren Simmers

Bren Simmers is the author of two books of poetry, Hastings-Sunrise (Nightwood Editions, 2015) and Night Gears (Wolsak and Wynn, 2010). She is the winner of an Arc Poetry Magazine Poem of the Year Award and was a finalist for The Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize.

Hastings-Sunrise was nominated for the 2015 City of Vancouver Book Award.

Bren currently lives in Squamish, BC.

d.n. simmers

d.n. simmers is a special editor with Fine Lines. You can find him in current issues
of Poetry Salzburg Review and The Common Ground Review. He appears in
six current anthologies and was in the international anthology, Van Gogh’s
Ear.

He is online in Your One Phone Call ( Wales) and Wilderness House
Literary Review (long poems). He is in upcoming issues of Nerve Cowboy,
Tears in the Fence (a U.K. lit mag) and Red Savina Review. d.n. is an active member of the Thursday Writers Studio and a graduate of the Writers Studio with a two year creative writing certificate.