Events

​Over 35 years ago, I had an idea for putting on an event, not because it was easy, but because I thought it would be easy. A group of writers from Denman Island visited Galiano and gave a reading in what was then The Burrill Brothers Store. A year before, Deane Lafontaine had organized the notorious Bohemian Embassy night at the Hall, when only martinis were served. Gerry Hopson, Kendal Kyle, Tod Wolfe, Rene Mahlow, Tish Saunders and I read that night, with the expansive talents of Morriss Reese as MC providing, as Basil Benger so memorably put it “spasms of eloquence.” Watching the writers from Denman, and with the rousing success of the Bohemian Embassy in mind, it occurred to me that it would be an interesting project to create a Gulf Islands Poetry Festival, featuring writers from all the Gulf Islands. The Festival would travel from island to island, picking up writers along the way, and involving the different communities in a shared event.

​

In the summer, a small reading took place in the afternoon in Ken Pattison's Galiano Gardens. Jane Rule, although she declined to read, was happy to lend her blessing as she did in the years to follow, although she aways demurred when it came to reading. In the morning of the reading it rained for the first time in 6 weeks. We strung up a tarp and carried on. The rain poured, and I suddenly noticed the tarp beginning to bulge alarmingly above the head of 80-year old Galiano resident Dorothy Livesay, one of Canada’s most influential modernist poets.The headline appeared in my mind: “Governor General's Award Winning Poet Drowned in Freak Accident.” We drained the tarp, the sun came out, and Dorothy Livesay lived.

​

I had some wonderful collaborators along the way, from local businesses who bought advertising in our program to individuals like Miranda Pearson, who shared my first public reading with me in a Laundromat on Main Street. Miranda stepped up as co-Producer in subsequent years, while Joanne Randle was, as always, my rock. George Harris made the Film School available for accommodation, Hugette Benger threw open La Berengerie as a venue, many people provided billets for readers, and the community came together to host pot luck dinners for the artists. It was a real community effort. We travelled to Mayne and Pender, had a huge fund raiser in Vancouver at the late lamented Glass Slipper with the sterling assistance of Tongue of the Slip producer Tom Snyders.

​

Over the next few years, the Festival grew until at one point it was the largest Literary Festival in Canada in terms of the number of readers. Vancouver's Anvil Press are also celebrating 35 years of publishing and what Editor-in-chief Brian Kaufman said about their origins applies equally well to the Gulf Islands Poetry Festival: “it was all DIY, right? We had no idea. A stroll down a blind alley. But we were young(ish), we had time on our side. It was all very organic.” There was no formal policy on Galiano, but we made sure that all the readers would be paid something, regardless of whether they were established or beginning, published or unpublished. With established authors, like Patrick Lane or Susan Musgrave, there was Canada Council money, and poet Kedrick James, now Professor Kedrick James PhD, wrote to me in support of a grant application saying:

​

“Dear Geoff Inverarity, This letter is to let you know that the 1994 Gulf Islands Poetry Festival was an event of major cultural significance to poets and writers from across BC. It is unusual in the field of poetry to have such a profound vision of the collective future of this art form so succinctly presented and professionally produced.​ This is particularly true in the case of those young poets whose work is defining a new movement within the field, and as yet remain unrecognized. For them to be able to share the stage and exchange with so many established members of Canadian Literature is an experience they will not soon forget. It is an experience as poets that will feed them as poets likely for the rest of their lives.”

 

The “established” writers mentioned by Kedrick included bill bissett, who has since received an honorary doctorate from Thompson Rivers University as well as the Order of Canada; then ther were Galiano's Audrey Thomas, Jamie Reid, Brian Brett, Marylin Bowering, Lorna Crozier, MAC Farrant, and many others. Sadly, Jamie Reid and Brian Brett are no longer with us. Over the past 35 years some of the less established writers have since gone on to outstanding careers. Heather Haley has published a novel chronicling the punk scene in Vancouver, as well as three books of poetry, Miranda Pearson, who was nominated for the 2016 Dorothy Livesay Award, has published 6 books of poetry and was a Faculty Member at UBC and Simon Fraser University while Hilary Peach is an award-winning memoirist. Sheri-D has published 16 books and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature as well as the Order of Canada for her contributions as a Spoken Word Poet and her leadership in the community. Kedrick James is now an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. He is the Director of the Digital Literacy Centre, a research centre focused on arts-based research and digital innovation in language based educational technologies and networks. 

 

On July 26th, when the Galiano Literary Festival is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Gulf Islands Poetry Festival, bill, Sheri-D, together with representatives of the independent publishing world will be sharing their stories of how their careers have developed, how to get published, and how to make a career in the literary arts. We will of course be looking for volunteers for the event and also people who would like to host poets in their houses. Feel free to contact us through the Festival website: galianolit.ca

 

In bringing back to Galiano some of those writers to celebrate the anniversary – Sheri-D, Heather Haley, bill bissett, Hilary Peach, and others -- it's hoped to honour the past. But we will be inviting younger, less established writers to give them a similar experience to those young poets in the 1990's. Things won't be as free-wheeling as they were then – Jamie Reid famously remarked to me as he was disappearing into the bush up at the Film School with a case of beer under his arm “I haven't had so much fun since the 60's.”