Entrancing, surprising, and memorable: The Poetry Bash is a gateway to discovering new-to-you poets or hearing your favourites. This year’s poets include: Victoria Adukwei Bulley, a British poet exploring the importance of Quiet in producing forms of community, resistance, and love; Lorna Crozier, who shares the grief from the passing of her partner of 40 years, Patrick Lane, in After That; Patrick Friesen, whose Reckoning is a master poet taking stock in later years; Susan Musgrave, whose heartrending Exculpatory Lilies explores marriage, family, and addiction; Michael V. Smith celebrating growing up queer and working class in Queers Like Me; and Matthew James Weigel, who explores connection to land and the ongoing effects of colonialism in the genre-bending and stunning Whitemud Walking. Hosted by Jen Currin.
Presented in partnership with KPU Creative Writing.
Event Participants:
VICTORIA ADUKWEI BULLEY is a poet, a writer, and an artist. An alumna of the Barbican Young Poets and recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, she has held residencies in the United States and Brazil, and in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is the recipient of a Techne scholarship for doctoral research at Royal Holloway, University of London.
LORNA CROZIER is the author of more than twenty-five books and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada as one of Canada's pre-eminent poets.
JEN CURRIN lives on unceded Qayqayt, Kwantlen, and Musqueam territories (New Westminster, BC) and teaches at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Jen’s story collection, Hider/Seeker, won a Canadian Independent Book Award. Jen’s fifth poetry collection, Trinity Street, was released in April 2023.
PATRICK FRIESEN has published more than a dozen books of poetry, a book of essays, stage and radio plays, and has co-translated, with Per Brask, five books of Danish poetry. Most recently he has released the collaborative CD, Buson’s Bell, with Niko Friesen, and Outlasting the Weather: Selected & New Poems, 1994-2020.
SUSAN MUSGRAVE’s most recent book of poetry, Exculpatory Lilies, was shortlisted for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize. She is the author of nineteen books of poetry, numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, and several books for children. She has been the recipient of multiple awards, including the Matt Cohen Award, the BC Book Awards, and Taste Canada Awards. In 2023, she was recognized with the George Woodcock Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement in British Columbia. She lives in Haida Gwaii where she is the proprietor of Copper Beech House.
MICHAEL V. SMITH has published six previous books, which include three collections of poetry, a memoir, and two novels. Also an award-winning filmmaker, drag queen, and professor, Smith teaches at UBC Okanagan, in Kelowna, BC, where he lives with his brilliant husband.
MATTHEW JAMES WEIGEL is a Dene and Métis writer and artist whose debut poetry collection Whitemud Walking was a finalist for the 2022 Dayne Ogilvie Prize and won the Gerald Lampert Award, and was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award, from the League of Canadian Poets.
