Writing Workshop with Jennifer Manuel - Nanaimo

Naomi Beth Wakan's Three Years in Office Celebration

Book Launch: October 20, 6 - 7 pm, Gabriola Library

You are invited to a book launch Thursday October 20,  6 - 7 pm

Gabriola Library,

575 North Road Everyone welcome Free, drop in

Join us at the Library for a melodic prelude with Gabriola’s vocalist and pianist: Leah Hokanson. Savouries, beverages, and books for sale.




Appreciation to Paul Grignon for the cover art "Heroic Journey", Naomi Beth Wakan and Heidi Greco for the blurb and support, and Richard Olafson for publishing this.

All Will Be Well -- Meg Barnhouse with Lyrics

Calling all poets in the Nanaimo area

The Nanaimo Poet Laureate’s project, the Nanaimo City poetry map, is flourishing. The link is www.nanaimo.ca/goto/PoetryMap. As parts of the map are filling up, we are sending out this second call for specific places that need a poem attached. We have listed them below. Please send your map poems to the e-mail address below. A team of anonymous poet judges will look through the submissions and choose site-specific poems. The rules are simple:

1.      You should be a resident of the Greater Nanaimo area;

2. The poem should be solely written by you (If your poem is selected you will be asked to sign a declaration that the poem is your work alone and that you have the rights to it. Submissions from people under 18 will require a parent’s signature)

3. The poem must be about site-specific Nanaimo places and should be no more than 30 lines (200 words). The places we still need for the poetry map at the moment include: the hospital, schools, Mudge Island, Snake Island, Linley Valley, Long Lake, Brannen Lake, Morden Colliery Provincial Park, Chase Estuary Park, Petroglyph Park, Morel Nature Sanctuary, Ammonite Falls, Shack Island, sports fields and arenas, Vancouver Island University. We will still consider other spots, but will give preference to places on the map not yet covered with poetry.

4. The poems can be touching, funny, insightful, bitingly witty or angry, but will not be considered if they contain obscenities or promote hatred or prejudice

5. E-mail two copies of your poem as a pdf attachment (in Times New Roman, 12 point). One copy should have your name, address, e-mail, and phone # written above the poem; the other should contain only the poem

6. Send them to callingallpoets@nanaimo.ca with the words “poetry map” in the subject line

7. There is no deadline, so just keep those Nanaimo poems coming in whenever creativity strikes.

8 If your poem is chosen for the map and we need to publish it elsewhere, we will, of course, contact you for permission. The rights stay with you.

We thank all poets in advance for their submissions, but only those poets whose poems have been selected will be contacted. Keep a copy of your submission as it will not be returned to you. So calling all Nanaimo poets – Let’s celebrate poetry. Let’s hear your voices. Get creative about Nanaimo and send us your results.

Planet Earth Poetry’s 2nd annual two-day poetry retreat

A FEW PLACES LEFT! DON’T MISS THIS CHANCE TO WORK WITH

2014 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S POETRY AWARD WINNER

ARLEEN PARÉ

Planet Earth Poetry’s 2^nd annual two-day poetry retreat

THE HABIT OF ART

Arleen writes, “For me, the habit of art indicates a way of being in the world, a way of seeing, of sensing, with curiosity, interest, awareness.  It is a habit, a mantra, an orientation, a possibility, a practice.  It is noticing details, patterns, colours, wonder, what is wow-ful, which is almost anything, everything, outside and inside, pleasant and unpleasant.  It is a way of heightening experience as artists, poets or painters, writers or mosaisists, opening ourselves to what’s there.  It is a point of view, a way of inclining our minds, a stillness.  Just saying ‘the habit of art’ can shift the view. In this workshop we will employ ‘the habit of art’ to expand our practice as writers, as artists, and as individuals interested in the world.” 

This non-residential June retreat will focus on participants’ writing practice. Poets of all levels are welcome, though an understanding of poetry and some experience of writing poems are helpful. Arleen will lead discussions and provide writing exercises, including an assigned poem, to be written before the retreat. Over the two days, participants will compose a sequence of poems, share work in readings, and have an opportunity for one-on-one sessions with Arleen.

DATE/TIME:       Saturday, June 4:  10:00-5:00   Sunday, June 5:  9:00-3:00

LOCATION:         A comfortable and welcoming home in the Gorge area of Victoria. Details and directions upon registration.

TO REGISTER or for more information, please contact Julie at planetearthreg@gmail.com Please use this subject line: PEP poetry retreat. 

Register early!  The poet will send out a prep assignment several weeks early. Maximum 10 participants. Your cheque will hold your place.

Fee: $225.00.*

*Cancellation policy: No refunds after May 23. After that time, a participant who has paid but cannot attend may invite a friend to take her/his place, provided Planet Earth Poetry is notified a week in advance.

Hidden Architecture of the Poem

Book launch for David Fraser - May 14

Launch: Naomi on the Arts April 30, 2 pm

About Naomi Wakan's "On the Arts"

Saving the world - one poem at a time

The Road Will Take You Anywhere

Haiku and Haibun & Small Book Making

WordStorm March 29

Friday's Poems

Art - Clinton Inman

Ascent Aspirations Magazine
www.ascentaspirations.ca

Since 1997: ISSN 1715-085X
A Division of Ascent Aspirations Publishing

Ascent Aspirations Magazine is a not-for-profit publication with the mission to publish new, cutting-edge poetry and prose poetry.

Friday's Poems

Cassandra Dallett

Wendy Holborow

Carter Vance

 

Nanaimo poet pens book about Hepatitis C journey

Award-winning poet Kim Goldberg never thought she would live to see a cure for Hepatitis C. When the cure arrived and Goldberg reaped the victory, it gave her the poem of a lifetime.

That poem has now become her seventh book: Undetectable. In it, she documents her Hepatitis C journey using a Japanese literary style called haibun, a travel diary paired with haiku.

Goldberg will launch her new book with a free public talk and reading at Nanaimo Harbourfront Library on Saturday, February 27 at 1:00 pm.
Goldberg lived with Hepatitis C for more than 40 years, telling no one, until she was cured in 2015 after participating in a clinical trial of the new Hepatitis C drug, Harvoni.

“I was extremely lucky to get a seat in this trial,” Goldberg says. “Because of the high price of the new drugs that are now able to eliminate Hepatitis C, I was not eligible to receive them under the BC Medical Services Plan. I wasn’t deemed to be sick enough yet, and I had never been willing to try the older and highly toxic interferon-based treatments. If it hadn’t been for this clinical trial, I would still have Hepatitis C,” she says.

Harvoni, developed by Gilead Sciences Inc., has a wholesale price of $1,125 (US) per pill. In most cases, including Goldberg’s, 84 pills are required to eradicate the hepatitis C virus from the body.
Even with their negotiated discounts, private insurance companies as well as government-funded health care plans say they would go bankrupt if they approved the new drugs for everyone who has Hepatitis C.
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus that slowly damages the liver over a period of many years. It has the potential to lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and death. It is the leading cause of liver transplants in Canada and the United States, and it has surpassed HIV as a cause of death.

Approximately 250,000 people in Canada have chronic Hepatitis C, and more than three million people in the United States. Worldwide, there are at least 180 million people living with this virus.
Goldberg hopes to use her new book to raise public awareness about Hepatitis C and to encourage everyone to get tested and treated, now that the cure has arrived.

Audthor: Kim Goldberg

“This is a much stigmatized illness,” says Goldberg. “And as a result of that stigma, it is a disease people don’t talk about. Many people don’t even know they have Hepatitis C, or that it can now be cured. The stigma is causing needless suffering, untreated illness, and even death,” she says.
“The way to end the stigma is to normalize discussion about Hepatitis C, to make it part of the public discourse the same way we openly discuss cancer or diabetes,” Goldberg adds. “Nobody asked for Hepatitis C. And everyone who has it deserves to be cured.”

Goldberg is the author of seven books of poetry and nonfiction including Red Zone about urban homelessness, and the popular guidebook Where to See Wildlife on Vancouver Island. She is a recipient of the Goodwin’s Award for Excellence in Alternative Journalism, the Rannu Fund Poetry Prize for Speculative Literature, and other distinctions. She holds a degree in biology from University of Oregon and has lived in Nanaimo for 40 years.

TO ORDER

Undetectable can be purchased directly from the author for $19 (US or Canadian funds).
Free shipping in North America. Add $10 for overseas.
Send payment by PayPal to goldberg@ncf.ca
Or mail a cheque to Kim Goldberg, 35 Prideaux Street, Nanaimo, BC V9R 2M3, Canada.
For more information, visit her website: https://pigsquash.wordpress.com/

World Split Open

Poetry in Transit

Wordstorm January 26 - Simmers, Enns, Friesen

Ascent Aspirations Amazingly Awesome

Friday's Poems

Cover Art: Woman by Patricia Carroll

Ascent Aspirations Magazine is a not-for-profit publication with the mission to publish new, cutting-edge poetry and prose poetry.


Poetry Submissions: We prefer shorter poems over longer poems. Poems in open form or free verse. We are not fond of end rhyming poems, but will consider form poems that show craft and interesting content.


David Fraser, editor
Submit to ascentaspirations@shaw.ca with Friday's Poems in the subject heading.
Please provide a brief bio.

http://www.davidpfraser.ca/ascent-aspirations.html