“Since 2007, the City of Vancouver has selected a gifted writer to represent the cultural richness of our community and we have been fortunate to draw upon the talents of Professor Emeritus George McWhirter and the award-winning Brad Cran as our Poets Laureate. Each brought their unique voice to the creative expression of Vancouver’s identity and their work is an important part of our literary tradition,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson.

“The successor to these two fine poets will continue the tradition of bringing poetry into the public realm and we look forward to announcing the City’s third Poet Laureate in October,” he added.

Nominations and submissions are invited from published poets who currently reside in the City of Vancouver and who have either an established body of work or have been recognized for notable contributions early in their career.

Submissions will be evaluated by a three-person assessment committee comprised of representatives from the literary/poetry community nominated by the Vancouver International Writers Festival.

“Becoming the Poet Laureate of Vancouver is a significant honour but more importantly it is a unique opportunity to promote poetry to a wide and appreciative audience,” said Poet Laureate Brad Cran. “The Laureateship allows a poet to strengthen the public’s relationship to literature and improve the cultural life of our city. I highly encourage local poets to submit applications to be Vancouver’s next Poet Laureate.”

The Poet Laureate will be selected for a three-year period commencing in October 2011. The announcement will be made on October 19 at a poetry festival created by current Laureate Brad Cran as his legacy project.

The $15,000 program stipend will be paid in annual $5000 amounts. The funding is made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Yosef Wosk and held by the Vancouver Foundation.

“We are most grateful to Dr. Wosk for his support and vision for the literary arts in our city and particularly for his involvement in creation of the Poet Laureateship,” said Chief Librarian Sandra Singh. “Dr. Wosk has long supported Vancouver Public Library and we look forward to our continued work together as the Library evolves.”

Click to download a copy of the Poet Laureate 2011 – Call for Expressions of Interest or visit www.vpl.ca.

For more information, please contact:
Jean Kavanagh
Manager, Marketing and Communications
Vancouver Public Library
604-331-3895
cell 604-612-4059
jean.kavanagh@vpl.ca

With many thanks to all the particpating publishers and our wonderful advisory committee: Dan Francis, Jean Barman, Stephen Osborne, Michael Turner and Anakana Schofield.

Non-fiction

A Hard Man to Beat by Howie White, Harbour Publishing.

Along the No. 20 Line: Reminiscences of the Vancouver Waterfront by Rolf Knight, New Star Books

Opening Doors: Vancouver’s East End edited by Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter, Harbour Publishing

Who Killed Janet Smith? By Edward Starkins, Anvil Press

Fiction

Class Warfare by D. M. Fraser, Arsenal Pulp Press

A Credit to Your Race by Truman Green, Anvil Press

Crossings by Betty Lambert, Arsenal Pulp Press

The Inverted Pyramid by Bertrand W. Sinclair, Ronsdale Press

Poetry

Day and Night by Dorothy Livesay, Oolichan Books

Anhaga by Jon Furberg, Smoking Lung/Arsenal Pulp Press

1

An armoured lung,

a living castle of barnacle

and bone; a peaceful

leviathan moving with

the ease of a dark cloud.

2

The child knows more

about the gray whale

than the adult.

When given crayons

the adult says he does

not know how to draw.

The child is already drawing

the gray whale

with blue and pink.

3

In the world of opposites

the gray whale is an ocean cave

populated by sea otters.

4

No I didn’t see the whale but

the man behind me at Starbucks did.
Everyone was talking about it
and someone said  “did you

see the whale?” his eyes danced
and he shouted across the store
I did, he kept saying. I did.
I saw the whale.

5

And the Whale said

Behold the natural world.

6
The woman died and the man

grew frail and ashen.

His life slowed to the pace

of the gray whale.

7
Forget the secrets of Elephants
The gray whale thinks in music.

8
In the Oregon aquarium, the children sit

below the skeleton of the Gray Whale

drinking cola.

9
The thing is, my dad doesn’t like people much.

We saw the whale on the pier outside the market.

Even after the whale had gone, my dad wanted to stay

and talk to everyone else who had seen it.

10

Do not live in habit. Do not take the most

basic assumptions for granted. Consider

the city of whales. If you seek it with your eyes

you will never find it. It lives only in the symphonics

of the ocean. It’s music is to the ear

as the pavement is to your foot.

11

Can you believe its August. Can you believe

there is a whale in English Bay. How lucky

we are to walk through Stanley Park.  My heart

beats at the speed of birds.  I’ve stopped believing

in loneliness. Here we are.  It’s summer.

I want to be in love.

12
Some were trying to decipher what the whale

was telling us. Other already knew.

13

And there you were

below the mountains

in the heart of the city

gazing at the gray whale.

You must change your life.

Surely if this brutal tragedy happened in any other community other than the DTES then there would be no question of whether an inquiry was necessary or not. Of course it is.

We need to document what went wrong and what can be done in the future to protect people in our city, no matter their demographics. The terms of reference for the inquiry are simple: we need to find out if women in the DTES are any safer today than they were before the acknowledged missteps by authorities; and if they are not safer what can be done to keep them safe?

I for one do not want to endure any more mention of Pickton in the media but we owe it to the women who are still at risk in the DTES. Locking up Pickton is not an end to the problem. Lives could be saved by an inquiry and if those lives we are talking about were being lived in Kerrisdale by affluent Vancouverites then there would be little discussion on what needed to be done.

Stuart Ross said it best in his SubTERRAIN article “I Hate Poetry;” he spends more hours reading poems that he hates than ones he loves so it is perhaps more fitting to say that he hates poetry as opposed to some people at the League of Canadian Poets who exclaim that they love poetry. So why do we pick up books that we are pretty sure we are going to dislike? For the hope that one day we’ll open one up and there it will be: a diligently crafted and unpretentious book filled with insight and great poem after great poem. I had this experience yesterday when I picked up Di Nardo’s Alien, Correspondent (I’m ordering Soul on Standby right away.)

Di Nardo is a superb poet. Alien, Correspondent is a great book. So great that I’m happy today, not just because I’ve had the pleasure of reading his work but because I’m feeling less cynical about poetry and I’m imagining all these other great poets who must be scattered across the country keeping a low profile in places such as Oshawa, crafting some of our best poems (even if we haven’t read them yet.) It’s all so very encouraging. Sometimes I absolutely love poetry.

In this third collection of poetry, Renee Norman inhabits Martha Quest, Doris Lessing’s autobiographical protagonist from her Martha Quest series of novels, like a spirit, and rewrites her through poems that bring her into being. Theses poems are about love and loss, birth and motherhood, longing and abandonment, and the compassion and understanding women can bring to one another.

If I had a billion dollars I’d buy you a sound canon.

I asked that question a little over a week ago and here is a preliminary list. I know some of these books are still in print or have recently been brought back into print but I included them anyway since they have been suggested by a number of people. Feel free to add to the least or champion one of these books by leaving a comment.

1. The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga
2. Opening Doors by Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter
3. Who Killed Janet Smith by Ed Starkins
4. Class Warfare by D.M. Fraser
5. Crossings  by Betty Lambert
6. False Creek: history, images and research sources by Robert Burkinshaw,
7. Saltwater City, Paul Yee,
8. Mayor Gerry, bio of Gerry McGeer, by David Ricardo Williams
9. Along the No. 20 Line by Rolf Knight
10. Innocent Traveller by Ethel Wilson, 1949. I think Macmillan had a 1960 edition.
11. George, Vancouver by George Bowering
12. Guy’s Guide to the Flipside by Guy Bennett
13. Vancouver Poems by Daphne Marlatt
14. Waste Heritage by Irene Baird
15. The Watery Part of the World by Gladys Hindmarch
16. A Credit to Your Race by Truman Green
17. Grounds by Gerry Gilbert
18. Moby Jane by Gerry Gilbert
19. Mirror on the Floor by George Bowering
20. Practicing up to be Human by Lionel Kearns
21. Exploring Vancouver: The Essential Architectural Guide by Harold Kalman
22. West Coast Lokas by Al Neil
23. Changes by Al Neil