Word Vancouver Interview with Poetry in Canada
Interview Questions for poetry/in/canada by Kathy Mak
1. Kathy Mak: I first learned about poetry in canada through Isabella Wang, an admirable writer and friend. This is an ongoing project that "celebrates the rich diversity of voices within Canada’s poetry community" and presently has a digital library harbouring works from diverse poets across cultures and lands. The eventual goal is to establish a poetry center in Vancouver. How did the initial seed for this idea came to be?
poetry in canada: The initial seed came from James Felton who visualized a physical National poetry library being housed in Vancouver, honoring and celebrating Canadian poetry from sea to sea. He put together the first board for poetry in canada (initially called Poetry Canada) and that’s what got everything started. It was within the brainstorming from the first working board that the idea of the digital library came to be. This was a fantastic first step to establish a website and a digital home for poetry in canada. The board has grown since then, and with it the growth of some of our wonderful programming: including the Phyllis Webb Memorial Reading Series and the Mid-Summer Write-A-Thon. There are many more great things to come.
2. Kathy Mak: An ambitious but vital initiative, this is a continuous work in progress that requires lots of time, funding, effort, dedication, and care to make it happen. What was the process like in laying out the milestones, creating the website, and inviting poets to have their work featured?
poetry in canada: The process has been slow and careful: we wanted to consult widely, and not make any missteps, so it has been intentional, collaborative, and methodical. We are taking care to build the capacity needed for the long-term to lay out the milestones, beginning with discussing a mission that is inclusive, as well as landing on a name that reflects our diversity and history.
Inviting poets to share their work was a similarly inclusive, collaborative, thoughtful process —we are lucky to have a great working group — we are respectful of one another’s ideas, opinions, and backgrounds. Creating the website was also collaborative and to some extent trial and error to get to a site that represents our mission and goals.
3. Kathy Mak: Currently poetry in canada has hosted a Mid-Summer Write-a-Thon, and the inaugural Phyllis Webb Memorial Reading which honours a Canadian poet in spirit of Phyllis's legacy and works. Why was this award created and what did you hope to achieve?
poetry in canada: Phyllis Webb was a major Canadian poet, whose work set a high-bar for its aesthetic and intellectual qualities, and she herself set an incredible example as a publicly engaged, social conscious artist. We hope this award honours that legacy, and, with our goal of celebrating Canadian poets and their work, we hope that annually honouring a poet who exhibits similar qualities will be a reminder of just how rich our poetry tradition is in this country. The point is to recognize an accomplished Canadian poet and celebrate Webb’s legacy. We also hope this event will be a little different than other awards, in that the whole point is to create public engagement with poets and poetry by hosting both a reading by the award’s recipient, and a discussion of their work with some of their peers.
4. Kathy Mak: Are there any upcoming events on the horizon/anything else you'd like to share?
poetry in canada: We have our second annual Mid-Summer Write-A-Thon happening on Saturday, July 15th. We have a digital reading event planned for the fall, and will host the second annual Phyllis Webb Memorial Reading in April 2024.
Our current board members are:
Rina Chua, Stephen Collis, James Gifford, Kerry Gilbert, Otoniya Okot Bitek, Theresa Rogers, and Renée Sarojini Saklikar
We hope that you check out our growing bookshelf: https://www.poetrycanada.org/digital-library
And donate, if you are interested in helping to build a home for Canadian poetry: https://www.poetrycanada.org/donate-to-poetry-canada
Or, if you’d like to donate in other ways, please contact: