NPM
A World of Poetry: Life and Truth
By Anna Yin for National Poetry Month, April 2020 When I was a kid, like others in China, I was taught to recite Chinese traditional poetry. I didn’t understand why and thought it was just for the culture and language. When a teenage, I occasionally wrote poems in Chinese but forgot them all, well, they…
Read MoreA World of Poetry
by Bill Arnott for National Poetry Month, April 2020 A world of poetry. This, I understand. Being witness to stomped-verse haka in Waitangi, the lyrical thrum of Outback didgeridoo, breathy sax in a wet London underpass, red slashed characters on a mud wall in Hebei, tanka blurred through joss smoke in Kyoto, rantings of a…
Read MoreA Shared Tapestry: Poetry, Community and Culture
by Jeevan Bhagwat for National Poetry Month, April 2020 The world is filled with poetry. It spills out from neighbourhood cafes and public school classrooms across the nation, saturating its soil with culture. Now more than ever, poetry is experiencing a renaissance that is manifested in the proliferation of alternative venues where poets can share…
Read MoreNational Poetry Month: Prompted
by Jude Neale for National Poetry Month, April 2020 I have written to many different forms of inspiration—music, art, dance and poetic collaboration. During this process I wrote and published seven books of poems. I am moved by everything to create my imagist poems. This time last year I was determined to follow the NPM19…
Read MoreREVIEWING THE SHORTLIST: Listen Before Transmit | By Dani Couture
Wolsak & Wynn | 2018 | 90 Page | $18.00 | Purchase online Reviewed by Klara du Plessis Reviewing the Shortlist is a weekly series in which poets shortlisted for our 2019 Book Awards review books written by their peers. Join us for this series until the award winners are announced on June 8, 2019! In this week’s installment,…
Read MoreNPM19: Announcing a new award from the League of Canadian Poets!
To close out National Poetry Month 2019, the League is very excited to announce something big that we’re looking forward to launching this year… a brand new $10,000 poetry prize! We couldn’t think of a better way to say farewell to #NPM19 than to share something for rising talents in Canadian poetry to look forward…
Read MorePoem In Your Pocket Day 2019
Poem in Your Pocket Day – April 18, 2019 – is an international movement that encourages people to centre poetry within their daily interactions. On PIYP Day, select a poem, carry it with you, and share it with others at schools, bookstores, libraries, parks, workplaces, coffee shops, street corners, and on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem.…
Read MoreNPM19: Weekly Round-Up | WEEK FOUR
Overwhelmed by all the amazing National Poetry Month content coming out every day? Need a refresher? We’ll be rounding up our blog content, along with the awesome stuff our friends at Read Local BC, Open Book, All Lit Up, and CBC Books are releasing – plus other NPM news that catches our eye each week; all month long. – From the League’s own…
Read MoreNPM19: Canadian Independent Bookstore Day
In honour of Canadian Independent Bookstore Day – a day to support the amazing independent bookstores in our communities that help maintain a thriving book industry across the country – we’re sharing a selection of photos sent to us by indie bookstores all around Canada of National Poetry Month displays! We’re touched to see how…
Read MoreNPM19: Guest Post | By Fenn Stewart
As many Indigenous leaders and writers have pointed out, the colonial falsehood that Canada was initially, or is essentially, a place of “wilderness” (in other words, empty of people) “underl[ies] a lot of the issues going on today, specifically aboriginal title and rights, land claims, the land question.”[1] This falsehood has been reproduced in nature…
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