The conclusion of the City Poems Project was celebrated with a wrap-up event on November 23 at the VPL’s Montalbano Family Theatre, followed by an informal reception at Poet’s Corner on the 9th floor.
The presentation featured the screening of a trailer assembled by SFU film student Brennan Henderson that integrated clips from the 46 poetry videos produced during the project, with input and suggestions from me. It included the 33 poetry videos made by students from preselected courses at ECUAD, SFU (Surrey) and UBC that were submitted to the poetry video contest in 2023; the 9 poetry videos made after the contest in 2024 by student teams from Professor Kate Hennessy’s SFU IAT 344 class; two high school poetry videos made by youth finalists from the 2022 poetry contest who participated in a special workshop to make their own films; and two special commissions made by local videographer Analee Weinberger (“Found” for Mountain View Cemetery based on James Wang’s poem, and “Ode to Vivian Jung” based on the collaborative cento poem with lines from poems written by a grade 4/5 class from Tecumseh Elementary School).
A short overview of my activities has been published in the online journal, Periodicities. If you are interested in more details about community workshops, the Canine Library, poetry videos and school visits, you can find descriptions in my past blogs.
I am very grateful to all many poets, filmmakers, teachers, and organizational partners involved in the project over the past three years. This project could not have become manifest without your essential contributions!
