Illuminations: An Evening with Sheryda Warrener and Jane Munro

On Thursday, March 2nd at 6pm, join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books, Harbour Publishing and Coach House Books for  Illuminations: An Evening with Sheryda Warrener and Jane Munro, a double launch of False Creek by Jane Munro and Test Piece by Sheryda Warrener, hosted by Raoul Fernandes. 

These two collections of poetry offer meditations on phenomenological experiences. While weaving in explorations of dreams, visual arts and the natural world, Munro and Warrener also engage with various histories, inviting us to reflect on the complexities of these encounters. This evening, hosted by Raoul Fernandes, author of Transmitter and Receiver, celebrates the ability of poetry to transcend form and bring together new perspectives.

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

Registration is free/by donation, open to all, and required for entrance. 
Purchase at the event:
False Creek by Jane Munro
Test Piece by Sheryda Warrener

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

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 Books

False Creek (Harbour Publishing, 2022)

In this new and masterful collection, Griffin Poetry Prize winner Jane Munro balances her signature themes—dream life, the visual arts, the mysteries of the natural world—with an urgent, more directly political voice. As Munro walks around False Creek images arise. In content and form, the book ranges far and wide. While not shirking painful realities, the poems support the human capacity to climb ladders, arrive at fresh points of view, listen to one another, and greet despair with wit, attention, intention—and hope.

Test Piece (Coach House Books, 2022)

Though they started from Sheryda Warrener’s impulse to see herself more clearly, the poems in Test Piece ended up becoming more expansive meditations on seeing and vision. They engage with the process and practice of art-making, and specifically with abstract minimalist works like those by Eva Hesse, Anne Truitt, Ruth Asawa, and Agnes Martin.

Not-seeing/not-knowing is a motif, as is weave, grid, pattern, rhythm of interiors, domestic life. These poems are informed by collage, by the act of bringing images and lines together. With their echoes and reverberations (hand, mirror, body, clear, form, face), a greater complexity is revealed. 

About The Authors

Jane Munro is a Canadian poet, writer, and educator. Blue Sonoma (Brick Books, 2014) won the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize. Munro’s newest poetry collection is False Creek (Harbour Publishing, 2022). Her recent books include Open Every Window: A Memoir (Douglas & McIntyre, 2021) and Glass Float (Brick Books, 2020). She has taught creative writing at universities across BC, led writing workshops, and given readings around the world. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

Sheryda Warrener is the author of the poetry collections Hard Feelings (Snare, 2010) and Floating is Everything (Nightwood, 2015). Her work can be found in Event, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Hazlitt, and The Believer, among other literary journals. She is a recipient of The Puritan’s Thomas Morton Memorial Prize for poetry, and recent poems have been selected for Best Canadian Poetry, The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry, and the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize longlist. Sheryda lives in Vancouver, BC, with her son and partner, and teaches poetry and interdisciplinary forms in the School of Creative Writing at UBC.

The Host

Raoul Fernandes lives with his wife and two sons on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). His first collection of poems, Transmitter and Receiver (Nightwood Editions, 2015) won the Dorothy Livesay Award and the Debut-litzer Award for Poetry in 2016. He has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including the Best of the Best Canadian Poetry 2017.