until the end of the world, : Victoria, part two,

Further to my adventures in Victoria, British Columbia [see part one here]:

Friday, April 24: I was to meet up with Steven Ross Smith for coffee around noonish, just prior to my early afternoon reading, so headed that way first thing to settle, read a bit, capture some notes. Coffee, naturally. Blossoms everywhere, again. Isn't it snowing in Calgary right now or something? The cafe was good enough to allow me to leave my large bag of books for the event in their space so I could walk the block or three over to the Emily Carr House, the birthplace and childhood home of the Canadian artist Emily Carr (1871-1945). My niece Emma is an artist, so I texted her a photo or two of the space [much as I had when we were in Owen Sound three years earlier, and saw Tom Thomson's grave]. I've long been intrigued by such spaces, and the stories of how well-known creators (writers, filmmakers, painters, actors) manage to get through those struggles of getting to the point of actually making. How does one make anything? Culture seems to want us to have created, but don't necessarily want to help get us there, so there's always that struggle, well beyond any specifics of family push-back, or any other hurdles that might exist. How do any of us get anywhere?

Interestingly, the house structure reminded me of the historic site Christine and I had caught a year-plus prior in Vancouver, the Roedde House Museum, "the restored 1893 home of Canada's first bookbinder," also I suspect that the Carr house lands more traffic.

There was a tour happening, started a few minutes before I arrived, so I tried to stay out of their way, work my own self-tour. One room held excerpts of a journal that Carr's father kept, some of which was quite a compelling read. When did folk stop keeping journals? I'd give anything to see further volumes of journals by Elizabeth Smart, certainly. Is this a nineteenth century hold-over, by the wealth class? I did peek into one of the rooms held by tour group, and who did I see but Ottawa poet (and relative Ottawa South neighbour) Susanne Fletcher? She won the 2025 John Newlove Poetry Award, if you might recall (so her chapbook as part of such will be out this fall). Apparently she and her husband were in town on holiday, unrelated to anything I was doing there. We talked for a bit around history just by the gift shop (where I'd already collected some postcards, naturally), where the Emily Carr House offers visitors a cup of tea (from their own house blend, a small box of which I did pick up for Christine). Apparently the Emily Carr House also offers painting classes; if you were interested in painting, I think that would be extremely cool, to be able to attend classes in her childhood home, akin to a writing class or residency in the former home of a well-known writer. Such as the Elizabeth Bishop House, for example (which we did wander by back in 2014).

Once done, I returned to the cafe, another coffee, my bag of books, and waited for Steven Ross Smith (I've since accepted work by him for the next issue of Touch the Donkey, by the way), who soon accompanied me across the street to the James Bay New Horizons Centre to where I'd be reading, via Planet Earth Poetry (a series now three decades old, you know). It was an interesting reading, with an open set, including a woman who said she used to live in Ottawa, and attended readings as part of The TREE Reading Series during the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, before relocating west. It suggests we were most likely at at least one or two of the same events, possibly. She hadn't written in moons, so she read one of the pieces she wrote during that particular era. Did a full half an hour reading, which gave my reading a bit of space to breathe. Opened with the book of smaller, moved into the book of sentences. A good event, overall, including meeting Allegra Kaplan (current Yolk editor, and copy editor of Misha Solomon's recent above/ground press title), a poet recently relocated from Montreal. A far way to meet a Montreal poet, but there you go.

After that, Steven Ross Smith was good enough to offer to hold onto my huge bag of books for the evening event, and dropped me off at the Royal BC Museum, a natural history museum comparable to Ottawa's Museum of Nature. It was interesting seeing some of the coastal BC exhibits of ecosystems and animals, plants and other things, so used to my eastern Ontario sense of landscape and geography, so attending the details of these landscapes were entirely new, and extremely engaging. Unfortunately, about a half-hour into my wander, I realized I hadn't actually had lunch or food of any sort yet (it was around 4:30pm by this point), so I realized, however much I wanted to explore the museum further, I really needed to deal with that.

So, I walked. It seemed to make the most sense to head closer to the evening's reading venue and find some food in that area, find a place to sit and just be for an hour or two. Lots of stuff to look at along the edge of the water, as well as a statue of Emily Carr, once more. Is she following me? Possibly.

Some food, a pint, a back issue of The Paris Review and a place to sit for a couple of hours. Mother-in-law did gift a subscription to the journal a couple of years back, but this issue lands prior to that. The interviews, really, are my favourite part of any issue, even if with authors I haven't heard of prior, and this issue is no exception.

A mostly-empty pub by the water, with a slow trickle of young people to an eventual thumpy-loud music and screen coming down for the hockey game. At least by that point, I was heading out to the reading venue.

The evening reading was at Russell Books, a store I realized I should have spent a couple of hours wandering before the reading began. There was no time, for which I am disappointed. It had a remarkable selection, although the store was technically closed during our event. Most of the lights were out, which made me presume the space most likely had at least one ghost.

Hosted by Kyeren Regehr, Victoria's seventh and current Poet Laureate (through Planet Earth Poetry), the crowd was stellar, and included Maleea Acker, Melanie Siebert, Chris Fink-Jensen [I did publish an essay by him, some six years ago, fyi], Sara Cassidy, Lorne Daniel, David Day, Patrick Friesen, Eve Joseph (I brought along my copy of her latest [see my review here], for her to sign), John Barton, Terese Svoboda, and a whole bunch of other folk. A really good crowd, and Anna Yin and Phoebe Wang gave good readings! Wang's mother was there as well, taking photos, which was quite charming (the one time my mother heard me read, as I launched my second poetry title back in April 1999, she actually heckled, if you can imagine, which delighted the audience; I was less pleased by it). After, I sold a bunch of books (and handed out chapbooks); the post-reading crowd lost a track of each other, with Anna Yin and Kyeren and I in one direction, for a drink, and others in another direction. After Anna and Kyeren retired, I did manage to figure out where Sara, Maleea [I've since published a poem by her, by the by], Chris and Melanie had landed, and hung out there for a bit. Into my (hosted) bed around 2am, so the days this way are long.

next up: Mile Zero, and podcasting with Kyeren,

Land of hope and glory, : Victoria, part one,

Is that too obscure a reference? The Kinks, after all, their song “Victoria.” Okay, so maybe that is too obscure. Or this Billy Bragg classic, as well (but my point was The Kinks, here), although both pulling from a British patriotic song from the turn of the prior century. I recently had some adventures in Victoria, British Columbia, doing two readings and a podcast in three days, which was a bit of a whirlwind. When was the last time I'd travelled for a reading? Dublin, last July with Christine. Or Vancouver, last year with Christine as well. Or Calgary, also with Christine. I am very fond of reading and/or travelling with Christine, as you might imagine. Do you remember when I read in London, Ontario, some two-plus years ago?

The blossoms [reminiscent, slightly, of our trip to Washington] were everywhere! Thanks to Planet Earth Poetry, The League of Canadian Poets and The Writers Union of Canada, all to help promote my University of Calgary Press poetry title from the last fall, the book of sentences. Thanks predominantly to current Victoria Poet Laureate Kyeren Regehr for bringing me out! I mean, it has been twenty years or possibly more since I've read in (or even been to) Victoria, despite the annual or semi-annual I did for a stretch beginning in 1997 or so. Maybe 2003 was the last time I was through? I can't even recall.

Thursday, April 23, 2026: Had a 3:45am alarm for 4am cab and 6am flight, landed in Victoria by 11am or so, local time. The Ottawa-Toronto part of the flight I think I slept, but the second flight I spent most of such reading through Phoebe Wang's Relative to Wind (Assembly Press, 2024), a really interesting memoir by the Ottawa-born Toronto poet [see my review of her second poetry title here] on being part of a sailing crew across Lake Ontario. The memoir begins with language in a really interesting way, and expands across a whole slew of details on the minutae of working such a craft, and how she's learned to navigate other elements through the lessons approached here. 

I landed, and my pal (from high school, even) Jennifer collected me from the airport, and we had breakfast (I had to eat something, even though I was exhausted) at Spoons, the coolest little diner. It had posters all over of classic (up to early 70s) Marvel and DC comic book covers, some of which I even have, kicking around. Then I had to crash, where I quickly discovered I'd managed to leave my computer cord at home, so my machine (and subsequent phone) were soon to die. I slept for an hour, before I caught up with my host, poet Rhona McAdam, who was kind enough to drive me out to Staples, where they sold me the incorrect cord (I was at least smart enough to also pick up a way to recharge my phone). From there, a short walk to downtown, to eventually meet up for a pub night, organized by the delightful (and Ottawa-born) Victoria writer and journalist Sara Cassidy. I figured, maybe hit a bookstore if possible, sit with notebook and read for a bit, hang about until I met up with them, all good.

The short walk, with my huge bag of books and envelopes (for that pub night, handouts, etcetera) was ninety minutes, so I completely miscalculated on that. Walked by a gallery show (gallery closed) that looked interesting, You Do Not Have to Be Good (apparently a line from this Mary Oliver poem, which is interesting), "a multi-media debut solo exhibition by Mila Rio," but more on that later. I caught C A V I T Y, a curiosity shop, which was pretty cool. Comics, records, books (I did pick up some stuff, including a back issue of The Paris Review, but was gratified to see some Barry McKinnon poetry titles in there; I nearly picked up an extra copy or two, just to carry around). Blasting punk music. Very nice. You should go to there.

From there, I finally made it downtown, wandering by this sign that led into an alley of Victoria's Chinatown Museum and little slips of history, making me aware just how unaware I am of Victoria history generally. I mean, I have a general sense of Vancouver history, but know absolutely nothing of Victoria. The little corners of history was reminiscent of the Hogan's Alley Society over in Vancouver, attempting to salvage a period and geography of Black history specific to Vancouver, most of which had long been lost (and which every city should attempt to do, acknowledging lost histories and spaces).

The alley threaded between buildings with slips of site-specific history of Chinese immigrants in Victoria, amid a sequence of quaint little shops and curious other spaces. It really is a remarkable (and very cool) array of small spaces, intersliced with histories that deserve not to be forgotten.

Given Ottawa has a Royal Arch (in that we are capital), I've been curious to see Chinatown arches in other Canadian cities, having caught Vancouver (years ago), Montreal (once, while completely lost) and in Winnipeg [during this trip, but I appear not to have taken a picture].

I eventually found my exhausted way to The Drake Eatery and Craft Beer Parlour, where I figured I could decompress with notebook and some reading before heading over to where Sara Cassidy had organized a pub night with a few local writers for me to meet. She'd originally picked one spot, and then relocated to another, neither of which I could remember properly, so when I presumed the Drake was the original spot, so I landed there (thinking this would allow me to see two different Victoria venues), asking Sara where we were ending up, and she said I was already there? So that's on me. A delightful spot, and even, at one point, Sara's teenaged son slipping through to deliver me a computer cord, so my machine wouldn't die. This is from Sara, he said, handing me a cord and disappearing. Relief for the save (but he was like a ghost, albeit far more polite).

I first met Sara [waving, in the pic on the left] back in 1998, after Rhonda Batchelor had told me if I could get myself to Victoria, she'd give me a chapbook and a reading, so, thanks to the ottawa international writers festival's 1998 Via Rail Tour (I participated all the way to Vancouver), it was a quick hop and jump to Victoria, as Sara and I both read from our newly-published Reference West chapbooks (the press ran from 1990 to 2000, co-founded by Batchelor and her husband, the late Charles Lillard). I hadn't seen Sara in more than twenty years, and then the extra delight of being able to meet poets such as Julie Paul [see her '12 or 20 questions' here], Melanie Siebert (both photos, on the left) [see my review of her latest] and Maleea Acker (above, right) [see her 2009 '12 or 20 questions' here], as well as an appearance by Kyeren Regehr and her partner. A lovely evening! Maleea landed early, followed close behind by Melanie, so it was very good to hang out with them, especially given the years we've been interacting over email (and through writing). And honestly, not only are Melanie and Sara extremely cool, but Maleea is an absolute delight (and completing a new manuscript, by the way, shhhhhh). I was worn out by the end of the night, naturally, as I'd probably been up for some uncountable array of hours. Next up? Two readings [part two to follow].

Melanie Siebert, Signal Infinities

My review of Victoria, British Columbia poet and therapist Melanie Siebert’s second poetry collection, Signal Infinities (Toronto ON: McClelland and Stewart, 2024), is now online at Chris Banks' The Woodlot. See here for my review of her full-length debut, Deepwater Vee (McClelland and Stewart, 2010).

Melanie Siebert, Deepwater Vee

What is it about 18^th-century explorer Alexander Mackenzie that still holds the imagination of writers? In Melanie Siebert’s first trade poetry collection, Deepwater Vee (Toronto ON: McClelland & Stewart, 2010), she writes the “vee” of two rivers, where they flow and even intersect, writing traces of where Mackenzie still lingers. Her collection reads like a love song to the two rivers; cities might forget, but the land remembers. The collection even opens with an explanation of the title, writing:

deepwater vee

A tongue of dark, glassy water that points downstream, indicating a deep channel, a way through whitewater thrown up by riverbed rocks. When running a rapid, these fast, sometimes narrow chutes can be hard to see and tricky to navigate. Threading from V to V is often part instinct, part gamble, part yielding to the water.

Explorers explored through poems certainly aren’t new in Canadian writing, from George Bowering’s George, Vancouver (1970) to Gregory Betts’ The Cult of David Thompsonmy own sequence “my life as a dead north-west explorer” in wild horses (2005), or even (2010). What is it about reworking, even revisiting the past that compels?

MACKENZIE, HAVING NOT SEEN

A STAR SINCE LEAVING ATHABASCA

Scanning all night, nor could he bend it,

calculations, fully unpardonable, land looms by trick light,

fractal islands or shore, boiling, skittish

magnetic variation, boots worn through in a day.

Brewed 24-hour sun, cold-cocked,

cursed thistle,

augurs the 360-

degree swing, indiscriminate, owing rotgut,

pitch pressed into the split,

stone in a sling, never solvent.

Wind bronchials the same

quarter. Past a hundred cold cook fires.

Lat/long skewed, volatile, nerve-knots hissing in the armpits.

Needle grinds into the ground’s swell.

The poem begins, working in with what is new, and the explorer, arguably, is always new, even through repetition; not re-covering the same ground, but always reapproached, much like Robert Kroetsch’s perpetually begin, begun, begin again. Through such, and letters back to his wife back home, Siebert’s Mackenzie becomes trapped in his newness, as in amber; a victim (is, as Cohen once suggested, a kite the only victim we’re sure of?). Not just where it begins, but where will this perpetually-begun ever end? As in the poem “The Limit of Travels in this Direction” that begins:

The dream that’s not a dream stings in the teeth

of Mackenzie’s momentum, fish-oiled hair, double-or-nothing

quad burn going shaky. Doused fires limp the shores.

Thick fog descends, flesh of boiled trout, a bone ladle.

All bullets sunk in the river,

every direction, no direction.

Or further on in the collection, the six poems to Mackenzie’s wife all titled, “Letter to Kitty, Never Written,” and the final that reads (in full):

I drowned long ago. I drowned in that country.

And so her collection begins, a narrative lyric wrapped around the depths of the waters, and a remoteness where the most distant can’t help but be felt, from echoes of Mackenzie’s Journals to echoes of what Don McKay’s own exploration of a corner of rural British Columbia, the short-term of immediate that became The Muskwa Assemblage (Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2008) could have been, had McKay spent more time out there, in the British Columbia wilds. Siebert moves through the Athabasca and North Saskatchewan rivers, through Mackenzie, and through living the loss of the narrator’s grandmother; is it only through these deep waters that Siebert’s narrator comes face to face with herself, forced to confront what she can no longer distract? Siebert’s poems write a staggering silence, and of those things left behind, from the four poems titled “Grandmother” to all that the seven poems titled “Busker” suggest, of a lost musician brother (but why be so literal, reviewer?). Is discovering a country simply a way to highlight all else left behind?

GRANDMOTHER

We said the dead were flown, lifted to a sure life,

the body sloughed off, and we went on

measuring parts per million, underwater

grease rags still throatsinging river’s crankshafts,

ruffed grouse drumming in our lower backs,

bent to water, waving a hydrophone wired to pick up

the mythic toothed gears, the signal now frying

static, funnel clouds mounting stolen goods and letting loose.

We went on far-flung, we went on washed-out bridges.

Silence silted on—sand-seep from the walls of a cold house,

our religion, the forgetting we have had to profess,

ghost forest in the reservoir, poor insulation,

red inner lining of my wet eiderdown.

A bee will chew a hole in the side of a closed flower.

Cribbed well, a hotbed made with storm windows,

the human heart can be cradled in a metal device

that keeps it warm and beating. And we went on

100,000 pounds of river bottom dredged, intercoastal

muscles heaving damped sound, slurried underwater

sound, pillowed mounds, dredged

and still slumping in.

These are poems that wrap themselves up over each other in layers, adding to and creating a depth to the collection, giving the book a resonance that so few have. This is a collection that understands the importance of how poems interact with each other, and add to the experience of each, side by side by slow sidled-up side.