The Poet Laureate Podcast

In this deeply inspiring and generous episode of The Poet Laureate Podcast, host Kyeren Regehr sits down with poet, memoirist, teacher, and the inaugural Poet Laureate of Victoria, BC, Carla Funk, The conversation moves through poetry, the daily work of a creative life, and remaining awake to the world. Together they explore Carla’s practice of “hunting beauty in common places,” the role of wonder and listening in her writing life, and the ways memory, inheritance, humour, and hope move throu...

Poet Laureate Podcast: Inaugural Community Episode (2025) Featuring: Lorne Daniel, Jeremy Loveday, Zoe Dickinson & Tracy Wai de Boer Recorded live in the Garden Studio at Haus of Owl Creation Lab, this episode celebrates community, poetic resilience, and the power of shared voice. Four poets with new or forthcoming collections join Kyeren Regehr to read and reflect on the craft of poetry and the lives behind the words. We open with Lorne Daniel’s quietly rousing invocation of the ocean as...

In this seventh episode, Kyeren Regehr welcomes Yvonne Blomer—poet, editor, and the fourth Poet Laureate of Victoria. With nuance and urgency, Yvonne speaks to reimagining myth through a feminist lens, her environmental curation of the anthologies Refugium, Sweet Water, and Sublime, and the ways poetry intersects with mothering, disability, and visual art. Featuring three poems, including the haunting palindrome “Audubon: Still Life.” Recorded at Haus of Owl Creation Labs on Lekwungen Homelan...

Episode 5: Fiona Tinwei Lam on Poetry as Ritual, Film, and Public Art The Poet Laureate Podcast with host Kyeren Regehr In this episode, former Vancouver Poet Laureate Fiona Tinwei Lam joins Kyeren Regehr to explore poetry’s power to honor history, heal collective wounds, and engage the public in fresh and unexpected ways. Fiona begins with her moving poem “Gift”, which commemorates the Uda family’s donation of 1,000 cherry trees to Vancouver—most of which were only planted after the family’...

In this third episode Kyeren Regehr welcomes John Barton—poet, editor, essayist, and the fifth Poet Laureate of Victoria, BC. With unflinching grace and poetic precision, John speaks to the evolution of queer poetics in Canada, the intimate distances of influence and his evolving relationship with formal constraint. Featuring three poems, including the Frank O’Hara–inspired “In Eggs and Love.” Recorded in Victoria, BC, on the Lekwungen homelands at Haus of Owl. Please note: this is our longe...

In this debut episode, Kyeren Regehr welcomes acclaimed Métis poet Lorri Neilsen Glenn who speaks with clarity and grace about writing as a way to think, to listen, and to find connection across time and experience. Featuring three poems, including Writing Has Always Felt Like Praying. Recorded in Victoria, BC, on the Lekwungen homelands at Haus of Owl. This episode is generously sponsored by Munro's Books. A literary landmark in downtown Victoria, Munro’s has been a sanctuary for reade...