Royal City Literary Arts Society presents

Poetry in the Park

Every Wednesday night from July 3 – August 28 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Each weekly session will feature 2 poets and an Open Mic.

Open Mic sign-up at 6:15pm.

Location: Queen's Park Bandshell, New Westminster, BC.

 

In partnership with Arts New West and the City of New Westminster.

 

July 17 Feature Poets Kevin Spenst and Rob Taylor 

with host Jessica Lee McMillan

 

Rob Taylor is the author of five poetry collections, including Strangers and The News, which was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. His new collection is Weather, published this May from Gaspereau Press. Rob is also the editor of What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation and Best Canadian Poetry 2019. He teaches creative writing at the University of the Fraser Valley, and lives with his family in Port Moody, BC, on the unceded territories of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) people.

 

 

The Royal City Literary Arts Society is thrilled to have Rob Taylor as our

 

2024 Cogswell Award judge!

 

 

Kevin Spenst is the author of sixteen chapbooks and three full-length books of poetry plus his newest collection A Bouquet Brought Back from Space (Anvil Press, 2024). He is one of the organizers of the Dead Poets Reading Series, has a chapbook review column for subTerrain magazine, occasionally co-hosts Wax Poetic on Vancouver Co-op Radio, and teaches poetry at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory where he cohabitates with the one and only Cheryl Rossi. 

 

Jessica Lee McMillan (she/her) is a poet and teacher with an English MA and creative writing certificate from SFU’s The Writer’s Studio. Her work has appeared/is forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, The Humber Literary Review, Funicular, Pinhole Poetry, Rose Garden Press, QWERTY, and The New Quarterly. Jessica was a finalist for The Fiddlehead’s 2023 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest. She won the 2022 Royal City Literary Arts Society Write On! Contest for poetry and has received poetry nominations for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. She lives on the land of the Halkomelem-speaking Peoples with her little family and large dog.