The Swiss Festival of Health Research is coming to Victoria in THREE WEEKS! And who wouldn’t be excited about that?
Janet Rogers’ sash is the envy of poet laureates everywhere.
Even more exciting? Our first event, which asks the question, “How many poet laureates does it take to change the world?”
Well, we know of at least one who’s already changing the world, and she’ll be performing during the event: Victoria’s Poet Laureate, Janet Rogers. She is the city’s third poet laureate, and to say she’s an excellent representation of why spoken word artists make excellent ambassadors for poetry. If you have seen her perform, or have read her work, you know well that Rogers’ work seeps into your bones and moves you from deep within. If you haven’t had the pleasure, you don’t want to miss this showcase. Here’s what Janet had to say on her experience as Victoria’s poet laureate:
To sum up my term as poet laureate of the city of Victoria I’d have to say “joyful”. Yes it has been a proud, joyful, uplifting and very positive experience. The term is three years long. I have three months left. Looking back, it’s been a lovely ride with just enough duties to keep me in the public’s conscientiousness, but not too much. There has always been enough support when I asked for it. And I have been given plenty of opportunity to promote other writers; fresh voices, onto a civic wide literary scene, which has been saturated in sameness for many years.
With the title, I have had the opportunity to meet and share with pockets of Victoria communities I wouldn’t ordinarily have been invited into. Its no secret, I am a native writer and lead most of everything I do with my native culture. So there has been some definite closing of cultural gaps during my term as well. I also travel extensively as a writer and have been able to represent the city, as its laureate to place like the Lincoln Centre in New York City, Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Fe New Mexico and most recently at various venues in Yellowknife and Inuvik Northwest Territories. I have enjoyed my term as poet laureate and hope the people feel I have served them well.
Janet Rogers hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV 101.9fm and Tribal Clefs every Tuesday on CBC Radio One. Her video poem What Did You Do Boy, created in support of a spoken word track from her CD Firewater, earned nominations at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards 2009 and the Native American Music Awards 2010. Rogers’ radio documentary Bring Your Drum (50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music), aired in July 2011 on CBC’s Inside the Music and won the Best Radio award at theimagineNATIVE Film and Media Festival 2011. Her newest poetry collection is titled Unearthed.
“Funny and powerful, Janet Marie Rogers takes us on an intimate journey into a place between poetry and story. The cumulative effect is haunting and devastating – a lovely, searing collection.”
Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach, on Janet’s collection Unearthed