The November edition of the Dead Poets Reading Series will feature these amazing poets:
Betsy Warland reading H.D. (1886–1961)
Justyna Krol reading Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021)
Cabil Martinez de la Cruz reading Jim Wong-Chu (1949–2017)
Kyle McKillop reading Bill Knott (1940–2014)
Date/Time: November 16th, 3:00pm – 4:45pm
Location: Outsiders and Others (#100 – 938 Howe Street, Vancouver)
This is a masks-required event to keep things as safe as possible for everyone.
Reader Bios
Betsy Warland is a manuscript consultant and the author of fourteen books, including Bloodroot, Lost Lagoon/lost in thought, and Oscar of Between. A second edition of her best-selling craft book, Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, was released in 2023, featuring 11 new essays. In honour of Betsy’s work, the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award is given annually to a book that combines two or more genres. Writers who have worked with Betsy have gone on to be included in the BC Book Prizes, the Griffin Prize, and the Governor General’s Award.
Justyna Krol is a writer and graphic designer from Lublin, Poland, now living on the traditional and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC. Her writing has appeared in Off the Map, Room, Hayo, and Sad magazines, and she has a chapbook of poetry published with Frog Hollow Press entitled You Are Doing Excellent Work (2021). She hates mornings, loves sugar, and uses the latter to get through the former.
Cabil Martinez de la Cruz (they/ellx/she) is a lover of poetry, community organizing, and the complexities of being human. By day, they work at a non-profit in the Downtown Eastside, and by night they steep in the intricacies of poetry and art. Their work has been published in SOMOS Magazine, The Elephant in the Room, CiTR 101.9 FM, and in spoken-word events around the city. Cabil grew up in the ancestral Mexican territory (Mexico City), and is now a migrant settler on the stolen lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Kyle McKillop is a poet and teacher who lives on the traditional and unceded territory of the Katzie, Kwantlen, and other First Nations. His poems have appeared in his chapbooks Breathtaking and What I Will Do for Attention, as well as in CV2, tuesday poem, English Practice, and the Sustenance anthology of BC food writing. He is a past president of the BC Teachers of English Language Arts, the Surrey English Teachers’ Association, and the Royal City Literary Arts Society, and he earned an MFA in Creative Writing at UBC.
Dead Poets Bios
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886–1961) was an American modernist poet, novelist, and memoirist. She moved to London in 1911 and co-founded the avant-garde Imagist group with Ezra Pound. Her minimalist free verse poems drew international attention. Later, she experimented with fiction, memoir, and verse drama. Her later work included long poems on esoteric and pacifist themes, and she is now recognized as a central figure in modernist literature.
Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021) was a Polish poet, one of the “Generation of ’68” or “New Wave” writers in Poland. His early work was protest poetry, though later he became concerned with themes of night, dreams, silence, and the presence of the past in ordinary life. He won many awards, including the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 2010 European Poetry Prize, and the 2013 Zhongkun International Poetry Prize.
Jim Wong-Chu (1945–2017) was a poet, activist, editor, anthologist, photographer, and mentor. Born in Hong Kong, he migrated to British Columbia in 1953. He founded the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop and Ricepaper Magazine. He was also part of the Vancouver Co-op Radio Program, where he contributed to the Pender Guy Radio Program during his university years. Jim Wong-Chu remains a vital cultural and political figure in Vancouver’s history.
Bill Knott (1940–2014) was an acclaimed American poet and teacher who published twelve collections of poems. Known for his directness, occasional surreality, and humor, Knott continually reinvented his style. Late in his career, disaffected with traditional publishing, he released dozens of works via his blog and website.
