Dead Poets Reading Series- May

On Sunday, May 12th at 3pm, join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books and four fantastic readers for a bi-monthly literary seance: Dead Poets Reading Series.

Readers act as a medium, inviting us to time travel by reading a selection of work by their favourite dead poet. Previously held in North Vancouver and the Vancouver Public Library, Massy Arts Society offers a new home for this longstanding series since it first kicked off in 2007.

This month:

• Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) read by Cecily Nichols
• Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) read by Renée Sarojini Saklikar
• Louise Glück (1943-2023) read by Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li
• Louis Dudek (1918-2001)read by Andrew French

Venue & Accessibility

The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.

Registration is free, open to all and required for entrance. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.

For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility

Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.

The Dead Poets:

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) Phillis Wheatley Peters is broadly recognized as the first African American woman and only the third American woman to publish a book of poems. Her works continues to be studied by historians, and her legacy has inspired generations of writers. The Wheatley family educated her and within sixteen months of her arrival in America she could read the Bible, Greek and Latin classics, and British literature. She also studied astronomy and geography. In her early teenage years, Wheatley began to write poetry, publishing her first poem in 1767. Publication of “An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine George Whitefield” in 1770 brought her great notoriety. In 1773, with financial support from the English Countess of Huntingdon, Wheatley traveled to London with the Wheatley's son to publish her first collection of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral—the first book written by an enslaved Black woman in America.

Sarojini Naidu (14 February 1879 – 2 March 1949)[1] was an Indian political activist and poet who served as the first Governor of United Provinces, after India's independence. She played an important role in the Indian independence movement against the British Raj. She was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress and appointed as governor of a state. Born in a Bengali family in Hyderabad, Naidu was educated in Madras, London and Cambridge. Following her time in Britain, where she worked as a suffragist, she was drawn to the Congress party's struggle for India's independence. She became a part of the national movement and became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and his idea of swaraj (self rule). She was appointed Congress president in 1925 and, when India achieved its independence, became Governor of the United Provinces in 1947. Naidu's literary work as a poet earned her the nickname the "Nightingale of India" by Gandhi because of the colour, imagery and lyrical quality of her poetry. Her œuvre includes both children's poems and others written on more serious themes including patriotism and tragedy. Published in 1912, "In the Bazaars of Hyderabad" remains one of her most popular poems.

Louise Glück (1943-2023) was the 12th US Poet Laureate and won many awards and honors for her work, including the Bollingen Prizes and the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was the author of 12 books of poetry, including the collections Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014)—winner of the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Wild Iris (1992). Her poetry often explores intimate details of rejection, isolation, and loss with a beautiful dreamlike quality.

Louis Dudek (1918-2001) was a poet, publisher, essayist, and editor who authored over twenty-five books in addition to editing several anthologies. Dudek joined McGill University as a faculty member in 1951 and worked in combination with other key figures of the first and second waves of Canadian modernist poetry, such as Irving Layton. Dudek was the publisher behind many great books in the McGill Poetry Series, including Leonard Cohen’s first book, Let Us Compare Mythologies. His poetic career spanned six decades, most notably producing four collections with Véhicule Press in the 18980s and early 1990s.

The Readers

Cecily Nichols: Cecily Nicholson is the author of four books including From the Poplars, recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and Wayside Sang, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry. She is an Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and the 2024/2025 Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar: is the author of five books, including the award-winning Children of Air India and Listening to the Bees. Her poetry, essays and short fiction have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies, including Exile Editions, Chatelaine, The Capilano Review, and Pulp Literature. Bramah’s Quest is the latest volume of her epic fantasy in verse, THOT J BAP, The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns. She was poet laureate for the City of Surrey 2015–2018 and volunteers for Event magazine, Meet the Presses collective, Surrey International Writers Conference and Poetry in Canada . Renée Sarojini teaches creative writing and editing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and hosts Lunch Poems at SFU. Find out more https://thecanadaproject.wordpress.com/

Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li: Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li (@vivianlicreates) is a queer and neurodivergent Chinese-Canadian writer, musician, and interdisciplinary artist. Her writing is published in The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, and The Massachusetts Review, among others. She has been shortlisted for The Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award and The Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest Contest. She is also the author of Someday I Promise, I'll Love You (845 Press), as well as the writer/ director of three short films that have premiered internationally in festivals. She is graduating with an MFA at UBC and is looking for a home for her debut experimental novel.

Andrew French is a poet from North Vancouver, BC. They have published two chapbooks: Poems for Different Yous (Rose Garden Press, 2021) and Do Not Discard Ashes (845 Press, 2020). Andrew’s writing has previously appeared in EVENT, PRISM International, and a number of other literary journals across North America and the UK. Outside of their own writing, Andrew hosts Page Fright: A Literary Podcast, in which they interview their favourite poets about their newest books.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Massy Arts Society, 23 East Pender Street, Vancouver, Canada