CITY CULTURE
By David Lennam
JEFFREY BOSDET/YAM MAGAZINE
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YVONNE BLOMER
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The City’s Poet Yvonne Blomer believes that poetry matters, and as Victoria’s newest poet laureate, she is bringing her passion for words into the civic space to talk about what matters to her.
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YAM MAGAZINE
n a town crammed with more poets than a hefty English lit textbook, it’s not surprising that we’ve had one on the City payroll since 2006. The poet laureate is Victoria’s de facto ambassador of words, whose poetry celebrates happenings, dissects disharmony and acts as a conduit through which poetry flows from all of our mouths and pens. “The job is to get people connecting to the city through poetry,” explains Victoria’s fourth literary lionizer, Yvonne Blomer, named poet laureate for a four-year term last January.
POETRY FROM THE GRASSROOTS Blomer has published three poetry collections, teaches writing at Camosun College and has hosted Canada’s longest running weekly poetry series for the past six years. Planet Earth Poetry, held Friday nights at Hillside Coffee and Tea, began as Mocambopo in 1995 in the old Mocambo Café. It’s been the hangout for the scene’s literati, both local and visiting. Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Marilyn Bowering, Don McKay and Wendy Morton have read there, hosted there and launched books and anthologies there.