Events › Summer Sounds and Sonics in Poetic Form

City of Vancouver Poet Laureate Elee Kraljii Gardiner hosts a night of poems with poetry ambassadors Johnny Trinh, Kevin Spenst, and Marc Perez. These four poets with distinct craft practices invite you to consider the role of sounds and sonics within the framework of the poem. Vocalizations, modulations, polyphony, multilingualism, repetition, call and response are potential ingredients in this lively and festive introduction to the poet laureate team.

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Kevin Spenst (he/him) is a poet, teacher, and reviewer, has published four full-length poetry collections, most recently A Bouquet Brought Back From Space (Anvil Press, 2024) and 17 chapbooks, most recently Windowful (Anstruther Press, 2025). He is one of the organizers of the Dead Poets Reading Series, has a chapbook review column for subTerrain magazine, and occasionally co-hosts Wax Poetic on Vancouver Co-op Radio. He is a Poetry Mentor at The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory where he cohabitates with the one and only Cheryl Rossi.

Marc Perez is the author of Dayo, published by Brick Books in 2024. Perez observes and draws inspiration from the world around him. He believes that writing is a powerful political act, and he uses poetry to participate in the discourses that affect him, his communities, and the society in general. Through his poems, he offers the reader his inner self, imaginations, and worldview. He aims to create images that move hearts. In his free time, he likes to wander with his camera and capture fleeting moments in the city.

Johnny D Trinh loves making noise, making food, and feasting with people. Trinh has a long practice in spoken word poetry, theatre making, and community-engaged culinary art. Johnny’s work is focused on celebrating and unpacking the way we tell our stories and how we find identity and community through storytelling. Johnny is the artistic director for Vancouver Poetry House, interim executive director for Historic Joy Kogawa House, and founder of Stage to Page Performance Society. Trinh is also a resident artist with the City of Vancouver creating programs that bring multicultural and multigenerational communities together to share stories and celebrate cultural foods. “It takes a community to build an artist, whether we are nurtured by it… or resist against it.” johnnydavidtrinh.com

Elee Kraljii Gardiner is an author, editor, and creative mentor living in Vancouver, Canada. She is the author of two poetry books, Trauma Head, and Serpentine Loop. She is also editor of the anthologies Against Death: 35 Essays on Living and V6A: Writing From Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A frequent collaborator with choreographers, musicians, and visual artists, Elee is currently collaborating with nature via a series of durational art installations that investigate the law of thermodynamics and cultural ideas regarding the passing of time. Elee directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, an online program pairing authors with mentors, and is the seventh poet laureate of Vancouver. eleekg.com

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VPL is committed to making our programs accessible for all. If you have an access need that we have not addressed here, please email us at programs@vpl.ca.

• Elevator access to the Alice MacKay is available in the Concourse near the bank machine.

• The Alice MacKay Room has wheelchair accessible spaces available.