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Join us for an evening of eco‑poetry exploring our connection to the natural world, featuring the launch of two new books by local authors and storytellers.
The third water-focused anthology edited by Yvonne Blomer, Sublime: Poems for Vanishing Ice, exemplifies “sublime” as both verb and adjective: these are poems that skate, drink, stomp, crush, and dive. Poets from across Turtle Island explore what it means to enter into conversation with ice, grappling with the fissures that form into ever-expanding crevasses across Earth’s most ancient of water systems.
In Calling It Back to Me, Laurie D. Graham offers a deeply personal and clear-eyed witnessing of familial history. This collection’s fractured lines, time weathered yet alive with detail, reflect a family’s knowledge broken by global immigration and memory loss, both individual and collective. The result is a courageous reckoning with the legacy of leaving home.
Each of the five poets will read their contribution to Sublime and from their own new or forthcoming work.
Presented in partnership with Words Worth Books and The Creek Collective.
Laurie D. Graham grew up in Treaty 6 Territory, outside of amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta), and she is a new return resident of Tkaronto/Toronto, where she is a poet, an editor, and the publisher of Brick magazine. Her first book, Rove, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second and third books, Settler Education and Fast Commute, were both nominated for Ontario’s Trillium Award for Poetry. Her newest collection, Calling It Back to Me, came out in March 2026 with McClelland & Stewart.
Geoff Martin is a writer, freelance editor, and arts organizer based in Kitchener, in the Grand River Watershed. His personal and environmental essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, The New Quarterly, Literary Review of Canada, Boulevard, and The Common, among others. He is also a co-founder of The Creek Collective, a group of artists making interdisciplinary work in response to—and alongside—Schneider Creek.
Tanis MacDonald is the author of seven books of poetry and nonfiction including Straggle: Adventure in Walking While Female. She is Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University and a full-time free-range literary animal. Her next book, Tall, Grass, Girl, about growing up adopted on the prairies, will be published by Book*hug in October 2026.
Susan Wismer is a queer poet, a mother, grandmother, gardener, dancer, hiker. Hag Dances, was published by At Bay Press in 2025. Hand Shadows, a chapbook, documents a collaborative pandemic project (Wintergreen Press, 2024). Susan lives on the south shore of Manidoo-gitchigami (South Georgian Bay) in Ontario and is honoured to have a poem included in Sublime.
Penn Kemp is a poet, playwright, and performer in London ON. Her most recent collection is Colour Fielding (2026), a companion volume to Ordinary/Moving (2025). The League of Canadian Poets honored her with their Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award, 2025.
Photography Notice: Please note that photographs and videos may be taken at this event and may be broadcast, reproduced, and/or made available in print or online. For individual or small group photos, staff will make attendees aware of their presence and will ask permission before taking photos.
For larger public events, please note that by attending, you are consenting to the use of your appearance, image, and voice in print or digital productions created by the Waterloo Public Library for promotional use only. Please speak to library staff at the event if you’d like to be excluded from any photo/video.
Staff: Maddy
AGE GROUP: | Adults 19+ |
EVENT TYPE: | Special Events | Environment | Cultures and Communities | Author Events |
TAGS: | Culture Days, poetry and short story readings, art shows |
Located at the RIM Park Manulife Sportsplex, the Eastside Branch boasts specialized creative spaces, quiet study areas, a nature education space and lots of natural light.
