To kick off National Poetry Month, I took a trip over to Gabriola Island to visit Naomi Beth Wakan, Nanaimo’s first poet laureate. Naomi’s husband Eli picked me up at the ferry and as we chatted in the front seat of his van, we looked out the window to see two eagles at the top of a very tall fir tree.  Sheep and lambs were grazing in a field and on one of the oldest farmsteads on the island, the weathered grey exterior of the house was surrounded by the brightness of yellow forsythia.

Eli told me he had been pruning trees on their property at Drumbeg House. Doing it himself means he determines their shape. That’s like writing a poem, I said.

At 82 years of age, Naomi Wakan (a fellow Cancerian), wants to continue to grow. And she wants her audience to grow as well.

She thought she was going to stop writing but a Nanaimo writing group proposed she let her name stand for Nanaimo’s inaugural poet laureate. She was intrigued!

Naomi’s three-year term began in November 2013 and her first event was to speak to a Grade 12 class at NDSS (Nanaimo District Secondary School) on the subject of publication and rejection. She made charts for them so the students could see the pros and cons of conventional publishing and self-publishing. (She has done plenty of both forms of publishing with over fifty books to her credit.)

As Nanaimo’s literary arts ambassador, Naomi intends to encourage people who are already writing, giving them a “kick in the pants.” She also wants to make people aware of the existence of an amazing array of poets in Nanaimo. (Kim Goldberg, Mildred Tremblay, Winona Baker, Leanne McIntosh and […]