every month is poetry month
Posted by Daniela Elza on Apr 26 2015
April is poetry month. But so far for me this year it has been one poetry month after another. Even before poetry month was here I spent two and a half intense months of reading poetry as one of the judges for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize ( BC Book Prizes). Here are the 2015 nominees and winners. Last night was the gala and the awards ceremony, which I was pleased to attend. Congratulations to all the winners and all who were nominated. You are all winners to get this far.
Prism Magazine just came out with its spring issue and I have three poems featured in it.
A few days ago I heard from Room Magazine that they will be publishing two of my poems in their Trespass Issue due out in August.
Also this month was Wild About Vancouver Outdoor Educational Festival for which poet laureate Rachel Rose was commissioned to write a poem. Click here to read Song Dogs. She reminded me that I gave one of my poems to be used in the promo video for Wild About Vancouver. You can watch the youtube video here (1:32 min. long).
Also in April we saw the debut issue of Absinthe Poetry Review (US) in which I was happy to see the collaborated poem between myself and Matea Kulić published. Here you can read
you could be the one who knocks. Just scroll down to find it, and maybe you will be tempted to read some of the poems on the way.
Also Cede Poetry will be launching their debut issue sometime soon and I have a brand new poem in it called waking up with you. I wish both Absinthe Poetry Review and Cede Poetry a long and poetically vibrant life.
Coming up in May is the Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (Leaf Press, 2015) in which I will have two poems: intimate harbours and the salt of being.
Another anthology that is expected to come out this year is Alone Together. It comes out of the Lunch Poems Reading Series. This is part of SFU public Square and The Writer’s Studio.
And, last but not least, a beautiful project that was launched by the publisher of Brick Books (in celebration of their 40th anniversary) called Celebration of Canadian Poetry is well on its way. There are many entries to browse through. Seventeen weeks so far and a few entries are going up each week. This initiative is all about poets writing about poems, poets,and books which they love, celebrate, cherish. I have a piece coming out in the first half of June.
So Happy Poetry Month indeed. Sometimes it does not seem like all this work of a poet amounts to much but in moments like this when I have the time to highlight a few things I find that so much is going on on the poetry front that there is no time to lament or despair. Poetry is well and alive and thriving, despite the rumours.