Moving to Delilah by Catherine Owen with Guests

On Sunday, May 5th at 2pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Freehand Books celebrating the launch of Moving to Delilah by Catherine Owen, with guest Cathy Stonehouse and musical guests Chika Buston & Maja Bohinc.

From award-winning poet Catherine Owen, a collection of poems about one woman's journey from BC to a new life in Alberta, where she buys an old house and creates a new meaning of home.

This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.

Venue & Accessibility

The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver. We are located in the former MING WO building.

Registration is free 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.

About the book:

From award-winning poet Catherine Owen, a collection of poems about one woman's journey from BC to a new life in Alberta, where she buys an old house and creates a new meaning of home.

In search of stability and rootedness, in 2018 Catherine Owen moved from coastal Vancouver to prairie Edmonton. There, she purchased a house built more than one hundred years earlier: a home named Delilah.

Beginning from a space of grief that led to Owen’s relocation, the poems in this collection inhabit the home, its present and its past. These poems share the stories of decades of renovations, the full lives of Delilah's previous inhabitants, and Owen's triumphs and failures in the ever-evolving garden. The poems ultimately whirl out in the concentric distances of the local neighbourhood and beyond -- though one house can make a home, home encompasses so much more than one house.

In this exceptional and lyrical collection, Catherine Owen interrogates her need for economic itinerancy, traces the passage of time and the later phases of grief, and deepens her understanding of rootedness, both in place and in poetic forms.

About the author:

Catherine Owen, from Vancouver, BC, is the author of fifteen collections of poetry and prose. Her work has won and been nominated for awards and has been toured across Canada 12 times. She edits, hosts the series 94th Street Trobairitz, and runs the podcast Ms. Lyric's Poetry Outlaws from her home in Edmonton, AB.

About the guests:

Cathy Stonehouse is a poet, writer and artist living in East Van on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh nations. Their most recent publication is the poetry collection/ long poem Dream House (Nightwood Editions, fall 2023).

Chika Buston is a fingerstyle guitarist, vocalist and keyboardist. She plays a diverse range of styles and can commonly be found playing folkmusic with various groups around BC. She will be joined today by composer and vocalist, Maja Bohinc.

Maja Bohinc (bio coming soon)

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

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