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You missed a damn fine poetry reading last month — except of course those who were at our fabulous August reading. Featured poets Aislinn Hunter and Geoffrey Nilson served up humour, stuffed animals (the taxidermist’s), and poetry that moved one to an ever deeper reflection. And the Open Mic readers were exceptional, too.

Our Next Poetry Reading

Geoffrey Chaucer once said, ‘The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne’. He certainly wasn’t talking about next month’s featured poets, John Pass and Theresa Kishkan. It isn’t often you find two talented and prolific writers under the same roof. They will soon be celebrating 38 years of marriage, and have published almost as many volumes of literature between them.  They have certainly mastered their writing craft and published much in their long time together.

September’s First Featured Poet, Novelist and Essayist

Theresa Kishkan

Theresa Kishkan is the author of 12 books of poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction, most recently the essay collection, Euclid’s Orchard (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2017), and the novellas Patrin (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2015) and Winter Wren (Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2016). Her books have been nominated for many prizes, including the Pushcart Prize (twice), the Ethel Wilson Prize, the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (twice), several National Magazine awards, and the ReLit Award. Phantom Limb (Thistledown, 2007) received the Canadian Creative Non-Fiction Collective’s inaugural Readers’ Choice Award and “Arbutus menziesii: Makeup Secrets of the Byzantine Madonnas” won the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest in 2010. The French translation of Patrin, titled Courtepointe, will be released by Marchand des feuilles in 2018. She lives with her husband John Pass on the Sechelt Peninsula.

September’s Second Featured Poet

John Pass

John Pass’s poems have appeared in 19 books and chapbooks in Canada, and in magazines in the US, the UK, Ireland and the Czech Republic. He won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2006 for Stumbling in the Bloom and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Award) in 2012 for crawlspace. His latest book is Forecast: Selected Early Poems 1970 – 1990 (Harbour 2015). Last year ‘Margined Burying Beetle’ from a new sequence, “Creation of the Animals” won the Malaspina Review’s Open Season Award.

If you want a spot on the Open Mic list, get there early. See you all at the Poetic Justice poetry reading on Sunday, September 17.  We’re underway at 11:30 a.m.

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.