The Poet Laureate, “the people’s poet,” is a position with a two to three-year term.
Serving as a champion for poetry, language and the arts, the Laureate creates a unique literary project and represents the City as Laureate during readings and public poetry events. Funded through a private endowment by philanthropist Dr. Yosef Wosk, OBC, the position was established in 2006 by the City of Vancouver in partnership with the Vancouver Public Library and The Vancouver Writers’ Festival.
The Poet Laureate, ‘the people’s poet,’ has an important role in raising poetry’s visibility through the creation of a unique literary project that engages the City’s diverse communities, and by presenting or performing in City-lead or partnered events and community public poetry functions. The Poet is free to pursue individual projects in addition to City events and public functions.
The Vancouver Poet Laureate serves as a literary and cultural ambassador to the citizens of Vancouver. The Poet Laureate leads a project which engages Vancouver’s diverse communities and produces literary work that is reflective of Vancouver’s diversity, landscape, cityscape, and civic identity and that may raise awareness of local issues.
Legacy Projects by past Poets Laureate range from George McWhirter’s 2009 anthology A Verse Map of Vancouver, featuring over 100 poets, to a series of poet-in-residence consultations conducted by Evelyn Lau to foster aspiring poets. Lau further engaged with the community by expanding BC’s Poetry in Transit Program. In 2017, Poet Laureate Rachel Rose published her own Legacy collection titled Writers from B.C. and Beyond on the Subject of Food. Celebrating Vancouver’s literary and culinary scenes, proceeds from each book sold went towards providing local produce to low-income and refugee families.
Also bringing poets together, Brad Cran’s Legacy Project, the Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference, brought together 100 North American poets whose first books were published after 1990. Christie Lee Charles’s Legacy Project culminated in a collection of works translated from the Musqueam language for future generations. Continuing to foster young poets, Fiona Tinwei Lam’s Project involved Poetry and Poetry Video contests for young adults writing about Vancouver, as well as the development of a geolocated app for site-based poems.
Read an interview about being poet laureate with Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Fiona Tinwei Lam on The Tyee here. Learn more about the role through the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Public Library.