0 to 4:00 pm. on Saturday, January 25, at the Vernon Library, we will celebrate poetry together, and open the floor to an open Mic. Garry is going to read from his newest book The Flesh of Ice. I will be reading from The Salmon Shanties, my new book of the land we share and the paths to reconciliation it offers us. I am really looking forward to the Open Mic. Garry will be offering one-on-one poetry consultations in the morning and early afternoon. I expect we will hear exciting new work from new voices. Here are our books.

Garry and I first read together 31 years ago in 100 Mile House. The next day, we hosted a workshop on myth, which was my invitation to open up poetry into a form that included the land as part of the self. It was a pretty fantastic workshop, with Garry’s Secwepemc perspective and my own explorations from trickster cultures, drama and a life lived close to our land. Now Garry has closed the circle by inviting me to join him. We’ve been trying to read together for several years now. Well, here we are. How great is this!

My poems include Sugar Cane Fancy Tanse, a poem written after being moved by the dancers at the Sugarcane Father’s Day Pow-wow twenty some years ago. It won a CBC Poetry Prize in 2005. I will also read from Song for the Land and the Water, which was long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize this year, and Saying the Names Shanty, which won a CBC poetry prize in 2017.

See you there!