The Bowen Island Arts Council invites everyone to join them on Saturday, October 10 at the Gallery @ Artisan Square for the launch of When the Colours Run, published this summer by Black Moss.
This is the third book of Lisa Shatzky’s work published by Black Moss. The others include Do Not Call Me By My Name (2011), which was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Poetry Award in 2012, and Blame it on the Moon (2013), shortlisted for the 2014 Acorn Plantos Award for People’s Poetry.
When the Colours Run is a collection of 41 poems that speak to the human condition as well as the fragile state of the planet with a voice that is deeply personal, eclectic, and universally evocative. At times meditative and at times darkly humorous, the poems in this collection wrestle with the timeless questions each of us must walk with in some way throughout our lives: “Who am I?” and “What does it all mean?”
Using the seasons of the earth in sometimes playful and often startling ways, as well as drawing on cycles of light and dark, the poems move from one season to the next, and illustrate how not only do we move through the seasons but the seasons also move through us. The poems in this collection talk about love and relationships, loss and grief, impermanence and transcendence and beg the reader to listen and listen well to the human heart, which is so deeply connected to the blooming and evolving patterns and cycles of the earth.
Lisa, a long-time Bowen resident, has had her prose and poetry widely published in magazines, journals and anthologies. Her work has appeared in the Vancouver Review, Room Magazine, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, The Nashwaak Review, The Antigonish Review, The Vancouver Sun, The Dalhousie Review, Canadian Literature, Canadian Woman’s Studies, The Prairie Journal, Jones Ave., The New Quarterly, Monday’s Poem, and in six chapbooks by Leaf Press (edited by Patrick Lane).
At the launch and celebration, Lisa and friends will read from the new collection and Ruta Yawney will provide beautiful music. Signed copies of Lisa’s books will be available for purchase with 100 per cent proceeds from the sale of books to benefit the Sea Shepherd Conservancy Society.
Admission is by donation. Doors open at 7 pm and the event begins at 7:30 pm.
