Vancouver's Poet Laureate

The Poet Laureate, “the people’s poet,” is an honorary position with a two-year term. Serving as a champion for poetry, language, and the arts, the Laureate creates a unique literary project and represents the City as Laureate during readings and public poetry events.

Funded through a generous endowment by Dr. Yosef Wosk, OBC, the position was established in 2006 by the City of Vancouver in partnership with the Vancouver Public Library and The Vancouver Writers’ Festival.

What's happening2022-2024 Poet Laureate

Fiona Tinwei Lam

Photo of Fiona Tinwei Lam

Biography

Fiona Tinwei Lam has authored 3 poetry collections and a children's book, and produced several award-winning poetry videos that have screened at festivals all over the world. Besides editing the anthology, The Bright Well: Contemporary Canadian Poems on Facing Cancer, she has co-edited 2 nonfiction anthologies.

Shortlisted for the City of Vancouver Book Award and thrice selected for BC’s Poetry in Transit, her work appears in over 40 anthologies, including the Best Canadian Poetry series. A former lawyer, she has an MFA in creative writing from UBC. She currently teaches at SFU's Continuing Studies.

Poet Laureate project

Fiona Tinwei Lam’s 4-stage City Poems Project has involved community outreach to encourage the generation of new poems and poetry videos to foster greater understanding about significant historical, cultural and ecological sites on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples now known as the City of Vancouver.

Stage 1: A poetry contest for youth and adults to write poems about historical, cultural or ecological sites within the city (January to June 2022).
Stage 2: A poetry video contest for selected post-secondary classes based on the prior year’s award-winning poems and a few o ther curated site-based poems (January to June 2023).
Stage 3: Development of a geolocated app in collaboration with UBC’s CEDaR team to enable the public to access audio-recordings of the site-based poems from stages 1 and 2 (2023 to 2024).
Stage 4: A writing retreat stage for the poet laureate to generate her own Vancouver-based poems (2023 to 2024).

For more detailed information about each stage and to see the 27 finalists poems as well as all 33 submitted post-secondary poetry videos, refer to the City Poems Project

Contest winners announced

On June 11, the winners of the Vancouver Poet Laureate’s City Poems Contest 2023 were announced and screened at a ceremony at the Museum of Vancouver. All the poetry videos can still be viewed on the VPL’s YouTube playlist for the contest.

Learn more about the 2023 City Poems Contest winners

Schools in the Vancouver school district may book a one-hour workshop with the Vancouver Poet Laureate through the Poet in Class program with Poetry in Voice, or by contacting Fiona directly at vancouverpoetlaureate6@gmail.com.

2023 City Poems Contest winners
First place

Brian Baldueza, Nanop Yansomboon, and Wilson Pham (SFU IAT 344 Term 2)

Contrasts : Based on a poem by Donna Seto about gentrification in Chinatown.

Second place (Tie)

Kris Reyes, Poppy Suro, Hoang Son Vu, and Sodam Hong (SFU IAT 344 Term 2)

What do I remember of the evacuation : Based on a poem by Joy Kogawa about the forced evictions and internment of Japanese Canadians in 1942.

Second place (Tie)

Xinran Han, Delai Gao, and Minyang Zhang (SFU IAT 344 Term 1)

An Existence That We Can Call Home : Based on a poem by James Kim about the displacement of First Nations and racialized communities in what is now known as Stanley Park.

Third place

Yenan Huang, Dongmei Han, Hanako Oba, and Joanne Kim (SFU IAT 344 Term 2)

This Was Meant to be for Nora : Based on a poem by Junie Desil about Hogan’s Alley, the site of a historic Black community in Vancouver.

Best documentary-style poetry video

Kais Neffati, Bhalinder Oberoi, Ishmael Togi, and Minh Truong (SFU IAT 344 Term 2)

Welcome : Based on a poem by Sadhu Binning about the infamous Komagata Maru incident in 1914.

Best animation

Emilio Terrazas Rocha, Deanne Angelina Emery, Carola Campa Garcia, Rachel Christina Kearney, Luna Davies, Lingjun Mi, and Mingyang Pan (ECUAD 2DN 211 Animation)

This Was Meant to be for Nora : Based on a poem by Junie Desil about Hogan’s Alley, the site of a historic Black community in Vancouver.

Best visual storytelling

Robert Burns, Delanie Austin, Bea Lehmann, and Rachel Williams (UBC FNIS 454)

Know Who You Are and Know Where You Come From : Based on writing by Debra Sparrow about her grandfather taking her family to visit historic Musqueam village sites.

Honourable mentions
- Grace Yang, Jalene Pang, Brandyn Chew, and Erin Yeonjae Choi (SFU IAT 344 Term 1)
  - The Stone Artist : Based on a poem by Theresa Rogers about a stone artist in English Bay.
- Christy Fang, Vito Fan, Cici Tan, and Calvin Lin (SFU IAT 344 Term 2)
  - Entertainment : Based on a poem by Jeremy Chu about the former Marco Polo nightclub in Chinatown.
- Madison Harvey, Cass Minkus, Olivia Carriere McKenna, and Sofia Bergman (UBC FNIS 454)
  - Know Who You Are and Know Where You Come From : Based on writing by Debra Sparrow about her grandfather taking her family to visit historic Musqueam village sites.
Audience choice prizes (One per university)
- Kayla Canama, Tingting Liu, Andrea Huang, and Eleonora Shive (SFU IAT 344 Term 2)
  - Diaspora : Based on a poem by Jeremy Chu about the former Marco Polo nightclub in Chinatown.
- Emilio Terrazas Rocha, Deanne Angelina Emery, Carola Campa Garcia, Rachel Christina Kearney, Luna Davies, Lingjun Mi, Mingyang Pan (ECUAD 2DN 211 Animation)
  - This was meant to be for Nora : Based on a poem by Junie Desil about Hogan’s Alley, the site of a historic Black community in Vancouver.
- Madison Harvey, Cass Minkus, Sofia Bergman, and Olivia Carriere McKenna (UBC FNIS 454)
  - Know Who You Are and Know Where You Come From : Based on writing by Debra Sparrow about her grandfather taking her family to visit about historic Musqueam village sites.
A selection of these and some of the other poetry videos submitted to the contest will be screened on September 16, 2023, at the Word Vancouver Festival at UBC Robson Square.

Prizes
- First prize $1000
- Second prize $500
- Third prize $300
The top 3 prizes and the Vancouver Poet Laureate’s Legacy Project and program are funded by a generous endowment by Dr. Yosef Wosk to the Vancouver Foundation, overseen by the City of Vancouver (Cultural Services), Vancouver Writers’ Festival, and the Vancouver Public Library.

Donations and funding for prizes for best documentary-style poetry video, best animation, best visual story-telling, and the audience choice prizes, provided by the Museum of Vancouver, TransLink, the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), and Vancouver’s Poet Laureate.

Contact us

Miko Hoffman
Cultural Planner
miko.hoffman@vancouver.ca
604-673-8411

Get arts and culture news

View Privacy Policy