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Time to move along.

Nothing to see here; only archived postings from the most fabulous poetry readings this town has ever seen!

Redirect your steps to http://planetearthpoetryvictoriabc.blogspot.com/ for more stellar performances!

Planet Earth Poetry for the Month of September 2011

September 16

Come with cash in hand and a poem by a favourite poet (other than yourself) for our annual Doctors without Borders fundraiser. This is an all open mic night where we begin the season by filling The Moka House with the poems of beloved writers. We will have a book cart where every book is $5 and all money goes to Doctors Without Borders http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
Come to hear a couple of HUGE announcements too as we enter our 6th year at The Moka House (formerly The Black Stilt) 1633 Hillside Ave, 7:30, $3

September 23

Governor General’s Award winning author Pamela Porter launches “I’ll be Watching”

In a small prairie town like Argue, Saskatchewan, everyone knows everybody else's business. Everyone knows that the Loney family has been barely hanging on -- the father, George, reduced to drink and despair since the loss of his farm and the death of his wife, Margaret…

Pamela Porter was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and emigrated to Canada with her husband, the fourth generation of a farm family in southeastern Saskatchewan, the backdrop for much of Pamela's work. She is the author of three collections of poetry. Her first novel in verse, The Crazy Man, received the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and the Governor General's Award, as well as several children's choice awards. It was also named a Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor Book and won the Texas Institute of Letters, Friends of the Austin Public Library Award for Best Young Adult Book. Pamela lives near Sidney, British Columbia, with her husband, children and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs and cats.

September 30 Susan McCaslin and Julia McCarthy

Susan McCaslin reads from “Demeter Goes Skydiving”

What if Demeter, the timeless fertility goddess of ancient Greek myth, slipped through a crack into the twenty-first century, shook off her ankle bracelets, corn tassels, and garlands, and began a tour of our improbable culture? Award-winning poet Susan McCaslin exercises the profound mother-daughter trauma forged in the Demeter-Persephone myth with unapologetic modernity. This sequence takes on a novel life all its own: Hades steals away the maiden into a cult/culture of distorted body image, addiction, high anxiety, and rampant consumerism. Mother Demeter must negotiate this alien world of health clubs, paparazzi, and so-called reality shows locked in spiritual winter. McCaslin's lyrics are by turns profound, hilarious, and devastating as she journeys to the heart of a mother's love for her daughter. Here is poetry that seeks ties to the past inside the present, poetry that speaks to us all.

Planet Earth Poetry thanks The League of Canadian Poets for supporting our series in bringing Susan McCaslin.






Julia McCarthy reads from “Return from Erebus”

Julia McCarthy is originally from Toronto. She spent ten years living in the United States, most notably Alaska and Georgia. She has also lived in Norway and spent significant time in South Africa. Her previous collection of poetry, Stormthrower, was published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2002. She now resides in Nova Scotia where she works as a freelance writer and editor.
won the CCA Poetry Award and a finalist in the ReLit Award for poetry.

Planet Earth Poetry thanks The Canada Council for the Arts for supporting our series in bringing Julia McCarthy.

September 16, 2011: We'eerrree Back!

Planet Earth Poetry begins the 2011/2012 Season on September 16, 2011, with our annual Open Mike and Fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders.

Bring cash, we'll have a book sale again this year!

The Drama Continues! It's Summer School!

Planet Earth Poetry will run on these dates during the summer:

June 3, 2011: Open Mike and Retrospective with video clips of the past ten or more years!

July 6, 2011 (Wednesday): Three Calgary Poets read at Planet Earth Poetry!!

Micheline Maylor <http://frontenachouse.com/alberta_writers/details/micheline_maylor/> teaches at Mount Royal University and edits Freefall Literary Magazine. She is the author of Full Depth: The Raymond Knister Poems (Wolsak & Wynn, 2007) and as of March, a beautiful chapbook called Starfish.

Joan Shillington <http://frontenachouse.com/alberta_writers/details/joan_shillington/> is the author of Revolutions (Leaf Press 2008), and has published widely in literary journals.

Chris Dodd is originally from the UK, and has studied, written and published very fine poetry on many continents. He is in the process of moving to Texas, but plans to travel to Victoria to study with Patrick Lane in early July.

Rosemary Griebel <http://frontenachouse.com/alberta_writers/details/rosemary_griebel/> appears in the Best Canadian Poetry 2010, and has a new book, Yes., published by Frontenac Press in March 2011.


August 5, 2011: Dvora Levin

DVORA LEVIN is a recovering management consultant with 2 books of poetry: To Bite The Blue Apple and Sharav (Ekstasis Editions). A regular reader at Planet Earth Poetry, she served as Poet-In-Residence with the Shawnigan Lake Summer Leadership Institute, leads weekly poetry writing workshops with sex workers and people of the street. Dvora won the recent Spirit of Canada Poetry Contest broadcast by Shaw Cable TV with poems translated and read in Inuktitut by Marlo Attagutsiak .

Gerard Rochford will join us to read form Failing Light, a limited edition handpress book cf www.embershandpress.co.uk for details, and Of Love and Water. An edition of poems illustrated by David Ladmore, a distinguished Victoria based artist.

Lorna Crozier has said of Failing Light - These ghazals leap across the space between poet and reader and root inside you. You won't forget their power and insights.

And Wendy Morton has said re: Of Love and Water - Gerard Rochford and David Ladmore have produced a book of memory and dream. David Ladmore's paintings walk hand in hand with these poems. The paintings open the doors to the mysteries of these lovely, sensual poems.




September 16, 2011: We'eerrree Back!

Planet Earth Poetry begins the 2011/2012 Season on September 16, 2011, with our annual Open Mike and Fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders.

Bring cash, we'll have a book sale again this year!

May 6, 2011: Yvonne Blomer, Pam Porter & Rhona McAdam launch Leaf Press Chapbooks!

http://www.leafpress.ca/
________________________________________
Yvonne Blomer's first collection of poetry, a broken mirror, fallen leaf, was shortlisted for The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award in 2007. Poems in the Leaf chapbook she’s launching, Landscapes and Home, have been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards and The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize. Yvonne is currently working on a verse mystery titled Death of Persephone based on the myth and set in Montreal. Yvonne is the organizer and host of The Planet Earth Poetry reading series.

Pamela Porter is the author of three collections of poetry and three works for children. Her novel in narrative verse, The Crazy Man, won the 2005 Governor General’s Award, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and other accolades. Her poetry has been shortlisted four times for the CBC literary awards, including this collection of ghazals. M. Travis Lane has written, “Porter’s poems are pervaded with a sense of grace, of mercy, beauty and benediction.” Pamela lives in North Saanich with her family and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs, and cats, including a formerly wild mustang.She will be launching This Awakening to Light.

Rhona McAdam is a poet and food writer who has eaten well in many countries. She has a master's degree in Food Culture from the University of Gastronomic Sciences (Slow Food's university in northern Italy), writes a food and poetry blog (the Iambic Cafe), and teaches an online course in urban agriculture and food security. Her fifth and most recent full-length poetry collection, Cartography, was published in 2006; and Sunday Dinners, an art/poetry collaboration with Colleen Philippi was published by JackPine in 2010. She will be launching a delectable Leaf chapbook of food poems: The Earth's Kitchen.

April 29, 2011: Cynthia Woodman Kerkham launches her first collection of poems Good Holding Ground.

Cynthia Woodman Kerkham was born in Toronto, raised in Hong Kong and Vancouver and has lived in France. She has a degree in Asian Studies and English literature from UBC and has worked as a potter, journalist and teacher. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including The Antigonish Review, Room, CV2, The New Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Grain and Prairie Fire. In 2009 she won the Federation of BC Writers Literary Writes Competition and in 2011 placed first in the Malahat Review's Open Season Awards. When not sailing the Westcoast, she lives in Victoria in a constant state of renovation. Good Holding Ground is her debut collection of poems.

April 22, 2011: Elizabeth Green and Betsy Warland

Betsy Warland wrote her first two lyric prose essays in open if broken (1984) and was the Saskatoon Public Library’s Writer-in-Residence from 1993-94. In 2002 she taught a poetry workshop at Sage Hill, and is currently the director of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Frasier University, as well as the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive.


Elizabeth Greene’s first collection of poems, The Iron Shoes, was published in 2007. Her poetry has appeared in the Queen’s Feminist Review, and FreeFall and has been anthologized in Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Viet Nam War Era (2008) and in Arms Like Ladders: The Eloquent She (2007) as well as in two anthologies she has edited: Kingston Poets’ Gallery (2006) and Common Magic: The Book of the New (edited with Danielle Gugler) (2008). She edited (and contributed to) We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman (1997), which won the Betty and Morris Aaron Jewish Book Award Prize for Best Scholarship on a Canadian Subject (1998). She lives in Kingston and is the Ontario Representative for the League of Canadian Poets.

April 15, 2011: Naomi Beth Waka and Clea Roberts

Naomi Beth Wakan is a poet and personal essayist. She has written over thirty books including the ALA selection, Haiku – one breath poetry. Her recent titles from Wolsak and Wynn include Late Bloomer – on writing later in life, and Book Ends – a year between the covers. Her essays and poetry have appeared in many magazines including Geist, Room, Resurgence and Gusts. She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, Tanka Canada and Haiku Canada. She lives on Gabriola Island with her husband, the sculptor, Elias Wakan. www.naomiwakan.com

Clea Roberts lives in Whitehorse, Yukon on the Takhini River. Her poems have appeared in The Antigonish Review, CV2, The Dalhousie Review, The International Feminist Journal of Politics, Lake: A Journal of Arts and the Environment, The Malahat Review, Prism International, and Room. Roberts has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Centre, the Atlantic Centre for the Arts and is a three-time recipient of the Yukon Government Advanced Artist Award. Her work has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and her poem, “When We Begin to Grow Old,” won the After Al Purdy Poetry Contest. Clea co-organizes the Whitehorse Poetry Festival.

April 8, 2011: PEP is cancelled!!

Please go to Open Space Gallery instead to see Lorna Crozier and Susan Musgrave!!

April 1, 2011: The Father and Daughter team of Clara Blackwood and Allan Breismaster!

Clara Blackwood lives and writes in Toronto. Her first poetry collection, Subway Medusa (2007), was the inaugural book in Guernica Editions’ First Poets Series, which features first books by poets thirty-five and under. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as the Hart House Review, Misunderstandings Magazine, Quills, Rampike, Carousel, and the UK magazine Dream Catcher. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Toronto.



Allan Briesmaster is a freelance editor, publisher, and literary consultant. His most recent full-length poetry collections are Interstellar (Quattro Books, 2007) and Confluences (Seraphim Editions, 2009). He was a main organizer of Toronto’s weekly Art Bar Poetry Reading Series from 1991 until 2002. As an editor, working with several literary presses, Allan has been instrumental in the production of more than 100 books since 1998. He co-edited the ground-breaking anthology Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War Era, which was launched at Planet Earth and in fourteen other locations in 2008. He lives in Thornhill, Ontario, with his wife Holly, a visual artist with whom he has collaborated several times.

March 25, 2011: Barbara Pelman and Barry Dempster

For many years Barbara Pelman has taught English at high school and college, primarily in B.C. Born in Vancouver, she has degrees from the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. She has been an active participant in the Victoria writing community: as a member of the Random Acts of Poetry team, a regular reader at Planet Earth Poetry, and the instigator of Victoria’s “Poetry Walls,” created by her students, in the downtown core.

Pelman’s poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Event, Fiddlehead, Antigonish Review, Dalhousie Review and CV2. Borrowed Rooms is her second book of poetry, following One Stone published in 2005 by Ekstasis Editions.

Barry Dempster is the author of sixteen books, including a novel, The Ascension of Jesse Rapture, a children’s book, two volumes of short stories and twelve collections of poetry. He has been nominated for the Governor General's Award twice and has won a Petra Kenney Award, a Confederation Poets Prize, a Prairie Fire Poetry Contest and the Canadian Authors Association Jack Chalmers Award for Poetry. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He is also acquisitions editor at Brick Books. His most recent books include Love Outlandish (Brick), Ivan’s Birches (Pedlar Press) and Blue Wherever (Signature Editions).

Barry Dempster will offer a workshop on Saturday March 26 from 11-3 contact planetearthpoetry at gmail dot com for details

March Madness!!!

March 4, 2011: Susan Tefler and Aurian Haller

Susan Tefler lives in Gibsons, BC with her husband and three children. She teaches high school English and Social Studies. Her poems have been published in literary journals across Canada and she is the recipient of the Gillian Lowndes Award, by the Sunhsine Coast Arts Council. House Beneath is her first book.

Planet Earth Poetry acknowledges the support of The League of Canadian Poets.

Aurian Haller is an award winning poet and singer‐songwriter. He is the lead singer in the aurian haller band, whose unique blend of folk, rock and jazz is supported by Haller’s haunting lyrics. Haller’s poetry has appeared in Arc, Descant, The Antigonish Review and in his acclaimed collection, A Dream of Sulphur. He has won numerous national awards, including a National Magazine Award for poetry and the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize. Haller grew up in the foothills of the Rockies and now lives in Quebec City.

March 11, 2011: Derk Wynand and Karen Enns

Born in Germany, Derk Wynand came to Canada as a child in 1952. He has published several translations of works by the Austrian writers, H.C. Artmann and Erich Wolfgang Skwara, and the German Poet, Dorothea Grünzweig. From 1969 to 2004, he taught Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, B.C., serving two three-year terms as Chair of the Department, and six years (1992-1998) as editor of 'The Malahat Review'. He lives in Victoria with his wife, Eva.

Karen Enns is from southern Ontario, where she was born and raised in a Mennonite farm community. Her poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, PRISM international and The Malahat Review. She lives in Victoria, B.C.

March 18, 2011: Alice Major and Sheila Martindale

Alice Major’s eighth poetry collection, The Office Tower Tales, won the prestigious Pat Lowther award (for a book of poetry by a Canadian woman) and the Book Publishers Association of Alberta’s Trade Book of the Year Award. Her ninth collection, Memory’s Daughter, has just been published by the University of Alberta Press. She is past president of the League of Canadian Poets and past chair of the Edmonton Arts Council. She served as the City of Edmonton’s first Poet Laureate from 2005 to 2007.

Planet Earth Poetry acknowledges the support of The League of Canadian Poets.

Sheila Martindale was born and educated in England, and came to Canada in 1966, settling in Montreal, but moving westward to London (Ontario), Calgary and finally Victoria, BC in 2009. She was poetry editor of Canadian Author from 1982 to 1997, and Canadian editor of Bogg magazine (USA) from 1988 to 2008. She was theatre columnist for Scene Magazine (London, Ontario) from 1989 to 2007. She has taught at the University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe College, and has been on many arts panels and juries.

February’s Exciting Lineup!

Planet Earth Poetry at The Moka House (formerly The Black Stilt)

1633 Hillside Ave, Victoria BC

February 4, 2011: Two up and coming Canadian poets: Kyeren Regehr and Ali Blythe

Kyeren Regehr’s work has appeared in the Malahat Review and in Mother Tongue’s anthology Rocksalt. The current issue of Grain holds a genre-bending sequence she (loosely) based on years spent in the dance world. She has been shortlisted for several literary competitions, including the Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize and presently interns on the poetry board of The Malahat Review.

Allison Blythe lives in Saanich and works for BC Transit. Her poetry has appeared in the anthology of contemporary BC poetry, RockSalt, and in magazines likePrism International, SubTerrain and the Malahat Review.

February 11, 2011: Cathy Ford and Jane Munro

the art of breathing underwater, is Cathy Ford's first full-length book of poetry in twenty-one years. She is the author of fourteen books of poetry and numerous chapbooks and folios published by blewointment press, Intermedia Press, Caitlin Press, Vehicule Press, Harbour Publishing and gynergy books.

Jane Munro's newest collection of poetry, Active Pass, explores connections among the visual arts, yogic discipline, and self-regeneration. The book opens with a suite of ghazals arising from the conflicts in mid-life, moves into poems about Mary Pratt's paintings, and closes with a reflective sequence called "Nearer Prayer than Story." A long poem in the third section won the 2007 Bliss Carman Award. Her fourth collection of poems, Point No Point, was published in 2006 by McClelland & Stewart.

February 18, 2011: Susan Stenson reads from Nobody Move.

Drawing from the details of her own life, Susan Stenson tosses everything into the Poetry Blender: words, images, memories, characters, dialogue, hot spices, then presses spin. Voila! Out come poems that are startling and challenging, passionate and outrageous, and at times, serious and rich with compassion. Covering a great swath of territory, these poems are glimpses into lives intensely lived, a celebration of life and its eccentricities.

February 25, 2011: Katia Grubisic and Kenneth Radu

Katia Grubisic is a writer, editor and translator whose work has appeared in various Canadian and international publications. She guest-edited the acclaimed Montréal issue of The New Quarterly, as well as the journal’'s recent non-fiction supplement. Since 2008, she has been the coordinator of the Atwater Poetry Project reading series. Her collection What if red ran out was a finalist for the AM Klein prize for poetry and won the Gerald Lampert award for best first book.

Kenneth Radu is the author of thirteen books – three volumes of poetry, five novels, one memoir and four collections of short stories. Sex In Russia, a 2010 publication is another collection of short stories. He has twice won the Quebec Writers Federation prize for fiction – for A Private Performance (1990) and for Distant Relations (1989). Distant Relations was also shortlisted for the Books in Canada First Novel Award. His first collection of stories, The Cost of Living(1987), was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award.

We acknowledge and thank The Canada Council for the Arts in supporting Planet Earth Poetry.