Michael Edwards

Last night, I was in attendance for the Vancouver Writer’s Fest Poetry Bash at Performance Works on Granville Island. It was a great evening filled with the readings from a talented and highly decorated six-poet panel. Starting the evening’s reads was Victoria, BC poet Kayla Czaga (currently my crackerjack mentor at SFU The Writer’s Studio). She read from two of her books of poetry, including her recent 2019 work Dunk Tank, a “coming- of-age” tale, as she mentioned. It was very fortunate she was able to make the wind-lashed trip across the Salish Sea. Next was Billy-Ray Bellcourt he included powerful, sensitive, rhythmic readings from his recently published NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field (2019). To round out the first half, novelist, poet and sound performer Kaie Kellough. He read and performed some remarkable and stimulating sonic works from his 2019 Magnetic Equator.

After a brief intermission, a memorable highlight came from the evening’s fabulously energetic moderator: poet, novelist and author Aislinn Hunter. She came back on stage and incited wonderful mayhem when she hurled copies of the each of the panelists’ books into the audience. It made for a playful and arena-like atmosphere. Poetry as athletic event. I nearly snagged one, instead took a glancing blow to the thumb. No bruises. I’m good. Then, came Souvankham Thammavongsa. Her reading included her wonderfully varied poems from her 2019 book Cluster. Following that came a rich and sonorous reading from New York poet Deborah Landau. She included lyrics from her 2019 work Soft Targets. The final poet on the panel, reading new work was Eve Joseph. She read from her 2018 book Quarrel, and provided well-curated anecdotes between poems that seemed to elicit a warm and engaging reception from the audience.

To cap off the evening, moderator Aislinn Hunter paid a sincere and thoughtful tribute to Canadian poet Patrick Lane who passed this year, earlier in 2019. She read a poem from Washita, one of Lane’s later works. This night of poetry, end-stopped with the Lane tribute, felt inspired, energetic and graceful. I left with so much fuel in my tank as an emerging writer, poet. Overall, a memorable event for the writing community. Also, poetry might be a full-contact sport now.