University of New Brunswick’s Memorial Hall was a hive of creative minds during the 13th Annual Poetry Weekend in the first week of October.
Every year, poets from across Canada and some from the United States look forward to an event that was first planned by accident.
They sat in rows of chairs beneath the cathedral ceiling, as light poured through stained glass windows, enjoying their shared art.
“It’s an unusual event,” says Toronto-based poet Jim Johnstone. “I can’t think of another event in Canada where this many writers get together for an intensive weekend of readings … It’s like a little conference in a beautiful place in a beautiful venue and for me it’s a unique experience. It’s a place where I go to recharge my creative battery.”
Johnstone has attended Poetry Weekend for the past six consecutive years. As well as having four collections of his own poetry published, he is also an editor and critic.
“Something else I really like about [the event]: it’s not often you get students reading side-by-side with more established poets. There have been times when Ross [the unsuspecting founder of Poetry Weekend] has made a conscious effort to bring in [these well-established poets], and they get the same amount of time [and] attention as the student-readers.”
One such student-reader this year was STU’s own Sarah Cooper.
Before attending St. Thomas, Cooper spent a year pursuing a Bachelor of Science at the University of Prince Edward Island. She took a year off for mental-health related reasons, and it was during this year Cooper started writing poetry.
“I really enjoy singer-songwriters. The first time I [went] to a show where a singer-songwriter performed I was like ‘I need to start writing down what’s in my head.’ The next day, I wrote a journal entry and then it turned into a journey.”
Cooper said she’s been writing poetry ever since.
Her first book, Of Feathers and Fire: Fragments From a Fractured Mind, is a collection of poetry. According to Cooper it was inspired by “my journey through mental illness, how it affects my life and how I work to overcome it … There’s a lot about forgetting your worth, but by the end there’s this remembrance of who you are and what you deserve. I want my readers to feel hopeful and emotionally understood.”
Of Feathers and Fire: Fragments From a Fractured Mind is scheduled to be released in late November by Penumbra Press. A book launch is scheduled in Fredericton after Christmas.
Cooper said creativity is what draws her to Poetry Weekend.
“I really enjoy when creative people look at each other as equals and not by their accomplishments. I think there’s something really beautiful and there’s an exchange in that.”
It’s that same feeling of equality, echoed by Johnstone and Cooper, that makes Poetry Weekend organizer Ross Leckie feel like it’s all worth it.
“I think it’s always been part of the magnificent spirit of Poetry Weekend: there’s no star system. Everybody reads for the same amount of time, everybody hangs out together, students get a chance to meet poets they enjoy,” says Leckie.
Leckie has been a teacher at UNB and an editor for The Fiddlehead, Canada’s longest living literary journal, for 20 years.
Leckie said Poetry Weekend happened by accident.
“A well-known poet was touring the Maritimes and I said ‘well we’re probably the venue that could most likely have a poet on a Saturday night’, then Goose Lane in Fredericton was publishing two UNB grads, and [a publisher in Toronto] was publishing two UNB grads, so we thought we’d do a home-and-away launch. The timing worked out.”
Poets from all-over started contacting Leckie after that, and as word spread, the list of poets reading that year grew.
After the first year, when asked if he was going to organize the event for a second, he would respond that he couldn’t because he didn’t really organize it the first time. It just happened.
After dismissing the idea of a second annual Poetry Weekend, he started looking at the new work poets in the Fredericton area were putting out and set to work on organizing some mini-readings.
“Then the emails started rolling in: ‘I hear you’re doing it again. Can I come? Can I come?’ and it’s been like that ever since,” said Leckie.
“Each year has its own flavour; I guess it’s shaped by the particular group of poets that come in any given year. Sometimes they’re quieter; sometimes they’re louder; sometimes they’re more boisterous; sometimes they’re more laid back. It seems like a pretty laid-back group to me this year. We definitely have lots of fun.”
Next year will be the last Poetry Weekend Leckie plans on organizing.
“A number of people have said they’d like to take it over and make sure it happens into the future. Of course, as long as I’m in town, have the energy, and I’m still alive I’ll be ready to help out.”
Along with equality, there’s also a profound sense of community among attendants of Poetry Weekend.
“I think it has a lot to do with Ross,” said Toronto-based poet Katherine Leyton. “He’s created such a welcoming environment and makes everyone feel really comfortable … I think it’s appealing to poets because you don’t really get the chance to be around other poets in your daily life. Few people read poetry, it’s such a lovely feeling to finally be around other people who understand what you’re doing and understand your insane compulsion to write. You don’t feel, for the first time, that you have to explain or defend yourself, and that’s really nice.”
The 14th annual Poetry Weekend is slated to be around the last weekend of September or the first weekend of October 2017.
