Nanaimo Poem Gallery Wants Your Poem!

The search is on for a new set of poems for the Poem Gallery window display at the Nanaimo Harbourfront Library.

If you are a poet living in a community served by the Vancouver Island Regional Library system, you are welcome to submit 1-2 poems.

Please email your poems as a Word document attachment to Anthony Martin at amartin@virl.bc.ca.

Poems must be able to fit on a single sheet of paper (8.5 x 11 inches) when enlarged to a font of 16 point for the display. So short poems work best for this.

Deadline for Submissions: April 1, 2012 

The new Poem Gallery will be unveiled on Sunday, April 15^th at 1:00 pm in a gala event including readings by poets featured in the new Poem Gallery.

The Harbourfront Library Poem Gallery, which faces onto Diana Krall Plaza, has become a popular feature in downtown Nanaimo. The display is changed annually during National Poetry Month each April.

I created Nanaimo’s first Poem Gallery back in 2008 in a vacant downtown storefront. Better to paper the windows of empty buildings with poems than with butcher paper, I thought. “Poetry as skin of the city!” was my long-term vision (which could still come to pass).

The building’s owner got a new tenant from all the publicity. Local poets got some good exposure. The downtown core got brightened up. And Abbas Saffari at the Harbourfront Library liked the idea so much, he decided to create a Poem Gallery at the library and make it a permanent feature. So it was a ‘win’ for everyone.

I am coordinating this year’s Poem Gallery at Harbourfront Library with Anthony Martin. If you live within the VIRL region, we hope you will send in a poem.

Kim Goldberg