Now celebrating its 27th year, this beloved community-engagement project displays the work of ten BC poets on public transit vehicles throughout the province. Join us to hear a selection of the featured 2023–24 poets read from their work, followed by a short discussion and Q&A. Engage with the poets over your love of the written verse!
Location: Poetry Tent, UBC Robson Square
Type: Poetry, Q&A
Sponsored by TransLink · Association of Book Publishers of BC · BC Transit · Read Local BC
About The Host
Evelyn Lau is a lifelong Vancouverite who has published thirteen books, including eight volumes of poetry. From 2011-2014, she served as Vancouver's Poet Laureate. Her most recent collection is Pineapple Express (Anvil Press, 2020).
About The Readers
Susan Braley is the author of Tilling the Darkness, published in 2023 by Caitlin Press. Her collection tells the story of a young woman challenging gender expectations while growing up in a large religious family on a mid-century farm in Ontario. Susan’s poetry is included in Best Canadian Poetry 2023, and was nominated for the 2022 National Magazine Award in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in the literary journals Antigonish Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, The New Quarterly, and Prairie Fire, among others; and in anthologies such as Walk Myself Home and Poems From Planet Earth. Susan lives in Victoria, BC, on the traditional territory of the Coast and Straits Salish Peoples, in particular the Lekwungen People, known today as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. Before living in Victoria, she lived in London, Ontario, where she taught literature and women’s studies at Western University and Fanshawe College.
P.W. Bridgman lives and writes in Vancouver. His third and fourth books—Idiolect (poetry) and The Four-Faced Liar (short fiction)—were published in 2021 by Ekstasis Editions. His chapbook entitled Deliverance 1961: A Novella in Thirty-Two Cantos is forthcoming from Pooka Press in fall 2023. Bridgman’s writing has appeared in, among other outlets, The Moth Magazine, Skylight 47, Poetry Salzburg Review, The High Window, Litro, The Honest Ulsterman, The Galway Review, The Canadian Poetry Review and The Maynard. You can visit his website at www.pwbridgman.ca and follow him on Twitter at @PWB_writer1.
Edward (Ted) Byrne was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and moved to Vancouver in the late 1960s. His books include Aporia (1989), Beautiful Lies (1995), Duets (2018), A Flea the Size of Paris: The Old French fatrasies & fatras, with Donato Mancini (2020), Tracery (2022), and, as co-editor, The Recovery of the Public World: Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser (1999). He is currently working on The Seventh Chamber, a sequel to Beautiful Lies, as well as papers on the early Renaissance Italian poet Guido Cavalcanti, the French philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle, and the poet Norma Cole.
Megan Fennya Jones is the author of The Program, her debut poetry collection published by ice house, an imprint of Goose Lane Editions. The Program is shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize as part of the 2023 BC Book Prizes. She is also the author of Normal Women, a chapbook from Rahila's Ghost Press.
Mark Leiren-Young is a writer, documentary filmmaker, podcaster and orca activist. He wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary The Hundred-Year-Old Whale and his book, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World, won the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada general audience book award. Mark has also written several books for young readers, including Sharks Forever: The Mystery and History of the Planet’s Perfect Predator and Orcas Everywhere: The Mystery and History of Killer Whales, which won the City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize. He lives in Saanich, BC, where he is actively involved in the fight for the survival of the endangered southern resident orcas.
Emily Osborne’s poetry, short fiction and Old Norse-to-English verse translations have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Vallum, CV2, The Polyglot, The Literary Review of Canada, Barren Magazine, and Althingi: The Crescent and the Northern Star. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Biometrical (Anstruther Press). In 2018, Emily won The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry. After spending the first 22 years of her life in London, ON, Emily moved to the UK to complete an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge University, in Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic Literature. Currently, Emily lives on Bowen Island, BC, with her husband and two young sons. Safety Razor is her debut book of poetry.
Kirsten Pendreigh is a poet and children’s author from Vancouver. Her children’s books celebrate our early instincts to connect with the plants and creatures that share our planet. In Maybe a Whale (a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection) a child discovers the healing power of nature when she goes on a kayak trip after losing her beloved Grandpa. In Luna’s Green Pet (a Quill and Quire Book of the Year) a child rescues a discarded houseplant and raises it as her pet. When a Tree Falls, a story of regeneration in our forests, is forthcoming in 2025. Kirsten’s poems are found in many Canadian literary magazines and anthologies including Best Canadian Poetry 2021. Her website is kirstenpendreigh.com
Born in Vancouver, Ian Thomas has a lifelong passion for the ecosystems and wildlife of the coastal rainforest. A biologist by training, Ian received his master’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Windsor in Ontario. He currently works for the Ancient Forest Alliance, a nonprofit that works to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests. GREEN ISLANDS is Ian’s first published book. He has self-published two books of poetry: Twa Corbies: a Celebration of Crows and Ravens through Poetry and Photographs and Wild Cultures: Nature Poetry and Photographs from Coastal British Columbia.
