Poets Corner Reading Series

Tag Archive: Francine Cunningham

Our Next Poetry Reading August 19 — FINISHED!

Kim Trainor posting on behalf of Evelyn Schofield

We`re having so much fun, we’re not even going to go on vacation!

Next month’s virtual poetry reading will feature Yvonne Blomer and Sarah de Leeuw.  Also reading will be Jenna Butler and Tanis MacDonald whose poetry was included in the just-released anthology Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds, edited by Yvonne.

Please join us on Wednesday August 19 at 7:30pm (West Coast time) to listen to these poets read their own works. Poets Corner will soon be listed on Eventbrite; for now, you will find all the information you need to attend by scrolling down the page.

 

Yvonne Blomer is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed travel memoir Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur. Her most recent book of poetry is As if a Raven. She works as an editor, teacher and mentor in poetry and memoir. Yvonne served as the city of Victoria poet laureate from 2015-2018. In 2017 she edited the anthology Refugium: Poems for the Pacific (Caitlin Press) and this year Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds was released. Yvonne lives, works and raises her family on the traditional territories of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich), Lkwungen (Songhees), Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation.

 

Author of six literary books (creative non-fiction and poetry) and co-editor of five academic texts, Sarah de Leeuw is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work focuses broadly on marginalized peoples and geographies. Nominated in 2017 for a Governor General’s Literary Prize in non-fiction, de Leeuw also holds a Western Magazine Gold Award, two CBC Literary Prizes for creative non-fiction, and a Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize for poetry. Currently the President of the League of Canadian Poets, de Leeuw has a PhD in historical-cultural geography and is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Humanities and Health Inequities) with the Northern Medical Program in Prince George, a distributed site of UBC’s Faculty of Medicine. She grew up on Haida Gwaii and now divides her time between Prince George and Kelowna, British Columbia.

 

Please join us for our 4th Virtual Live Reading at Poets Corner!

If you want to hear these great poets, you need to register ahead of time. YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO JOIN UNLESS YOU REGISTER.

The reading will be delivered via the Zoom video conferencing platform, but in order to minimize interruptions from disruptive individuals, we have opted to make the live reading a registration-only event. To attend this month’s virtual live reading, here’s what you need to know…

Venue:                 Zoom platform online (click the link below to register)
Date:                    Wednesday, 19 August 2020, from 7:30 to 9:30pm, PDT

Register in advance by clicking this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtf-2vpj0rHNPoTn1Tpc5iabLtVQFzghWk

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join the meeting. If you have any questions contact us in advance at:  socialmedia@poetscorner.ca

Sign up for the open mic

To sign up for the open mic for August (limit of 10 readers; 3 minutes per reader!) please REGISTER first and then contact us at socialmedia@poetscorner.ca

 

 

Looking forward to seeing you online at our next reading on Wednesday Aug. 19 at 7:30pm.

 

FINISHED! Poetry Reading on July 15

A screen shot of Francine Cunningham, one of our featured readers!

We are really getting into our stride with these virtual poetry readings and we just held another great one on July 15 with 41 people zooming in for some fine poetry.  Everything ran smoothly – even the audience is starting to get the hang of it! Video clips will be posted here from our YouTube channel Poets Corner Reading Series.

The July reading featured three inspired poets who covered a lot of ground in their diverse and intelligent writing. The first poet up was Francine Cunningham who read selections from her published work as well as some new pandemic poems and ended by taking us with her to relive a transformative experience from her childhood.  Next Joanna Lilley joined us from Whitehorse to read several poems from her newly published collection on the theme of extinction, paying homage to creatures who no longer grace the planet, and offering a sobering reminder of our own precarious existence.  Rounding the evening off was Kevin Spenst whose dramatic readings of his poems made all of us believers in the power of poetry to help us make sense of life and love and the many places that are called Surrey.

The evening began with a shorter-than-usual Open Mic, featuring 5 poets who are no strangers to the Poets Corner audience.

A screen shot of one of our Open Mic’ers, Herb Bryce!

We will post video clips of our FEATURED POETS as well as of our Open Mic’ers in the next few days. When posted, we will include links on this page to our YouTube channel, and circulate the links through our Social Media Platforms. Stay tuned!!!

FINISHED!!! Our Next Poetry Reading (15 July 2020)

Kim Trainor posting on behalf of Evelyn Schofield

Our Next Poetry Reading

Well, we’re on a roll now! Next month’s virtual poetry reading will feature a fabulous triple-bill: Francine Cunningham, Joanna Lilley and Kevin Spenst. Please join us on Wednesday July 15 at 7:30pm (West Coast time) to listen as they share a selection of their fine poetry with us. Here is some more information to whet your poetic appetite:

Francine Cunningham is a Canadian Indigenous writer, artist and educator. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review, the anthologies Boobs: Women Explore What It Means to Have Breasts (Caitlin Press) and Best Canadian Essays 2017 (Tightrope Books), and was longlisted for the 2018 Edna Staebler Personal Essay. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Grain as the winner of the Short Grain Writing Contest in 2018, The Puritan, Joyland, Echolocation, The Maynard and more. She is a graduate of the UBC Creative Writing MFA program, winner of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award for unpublished prose, winner of The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art Award, and a recipient of Telus’ 2017 STORYHIVE web series grant. On/Me is her first book and has been shortlisted for the inaugural Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes (BC & Yukon Book Prizes) and the 2020 Indigenous Voices Award for published poetry. www.francinecunningham.ca

Joanna Lilley is the author of three poetry collections:  Endlings (Turnstone Press), If There Were Roads (Turnstone Press) and The Fleece Era (Brick Books), which was nominated for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her novel, Worry Stones (Ronsdale Press), was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award and she’s also the author of a short story collection, The Birthday Books (Hagios Press). Joanna has given readings and workshops as far afield as Alaska and Iceland. Originally from Britain, Joanna now lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, on the Traditional Territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. www.joannalilley.com

 

 

Kevin Spenst is the author of the poetry collections Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, and Hearts Amok: a Memoir in Verse(all with Anvil Press), and over a dozen chapbooks including Pray Goodbye (the Alfred Gustav Press), Ward Notes (serif of nottingham editions), Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press), and most recently Upend (Frog Hollow Press: Dis/Ability Series). He sometimes co-hosts interviews on Wax Poetic on Co-op Radio with RC Weslowski, Lucia Misch and Zofia Rose. He lives in Vancouver on unceded Coast Salish territory with the love of his life Shauna Kaendo.  www.kevinspenst.com

 

Please join us for these 3 poets at our 3rd Virtual Live Reading at Poets Corner!

If you want to hear these three great poets, you need to register ahead of time. YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO JOIN UNLESS YOU REGISTER.

The reading will be delivered via the Zoom video conferencing platform, but you must register to attend!

To attend this month’s virtual live reading, here’s what you need to know…

Venue:                 Zoom platform online (click the link below to register)
Date:                    Wednesday, 15 July 2020, from 7:30 to 9:30pm, PDT

Register in advance by clicking this link…

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUodO6hpjgpHdDi1gt1jp46gHS4yjVVcdl-

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join the meeting. If you have any questions contact us in advance at:  socialmedia@poetscorner.ca.

There will be a somewhat shorter open mic this time due to our 3 readers this month. To sign up for the open mic for July (limit of 5 readers; 3 minutes per reader!) please REGISTER first and then contact us at socialmedia@poetscorner.caPlease note: we will not be video-recording the open mic readers this month due to technical challenges!!

Looking forward to seeing you online at our next reading on Wednesday July 15 at 7:30pm.

FINISHED! Poetry Reading on June 17

Wow! We had another great virtual live reading and proved that our success the first time around was not just beginner’s luck. For those of you who couldn’t make it, we have some video clips posted here from our YouTube channel Poets Corner Reading Series.

Our two featured poets have both written brilliantly about their personal experiences of racism. Joseph Dandurand is a prolific writer of poetry and plays rooted in his experience as an indigenous person. The poems he read were strong stuff indeed, and yet his reading was graced with humble humour.  Sonnet L’Abbé joined us from Nanaimo to read several poems in which she has interspersed her own words within the original text of Shakespeare’s sonnets, to arrive at new poems which turn the bard’s poetry on its side and challenge us to think in new ways.

JOSEPH DANDURAND

SONNET L’ABBE

 

The evening began with our usual Open Mic, which featured 9 poets from near and far!

 

Open Mic 1, Poets Corner Reading Series, 17 June 2020. Featuring: Sharon Berg, Herb Bryce, Kieran Egan, Bryan Franco.

Open Mic 2, 17 June 2020, Poets Corner Reading Series. Open Mic: Nefertiti Morrison, Angus Pratt, Murray Reiss, Evelyn Schofield, Angelica Beissel.
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