There's an ineffable magic that happens when people get together to express themselves creatively. This is the ethos of Vancouver’s poet laureate program, a public literary initiative that has operated since 2006 through a partnership between the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Public Library and the Vancouver Writers Fest. It’s funded through an endowment from local philanthropist and author Yosef Wosk, and each laureate is installed for a three-year term.
Here at The Tyee, it’s been our honour to be in community with Fiona Tinwei Lam, who has contributed writing to The Tyee for 20 years.

Lam was Vancouver’s poet laureate from 2022 to 2024, during which time she led a citywide poetry contest for youth, emerging and established poets.
Called the City Poems Project, the work evolved into a poetry video contest in collaboration with several post-secondary schools. Fourteen of those videos are now on rotation on the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, a public outdoor screen at the intersection of Broadway and Kingsway. And seven student poetry videos went on to be selected at 12 international festivals.
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg of Lam’s work as poet laureate. It’s a part-time role, but she approached the work with her usual tenacity and heart that had her leading numerous poetry workshops across Vancouver, working with school-aged children, creating teacher resources and working with writers across the Downtown Eastside.
Now, as we say goodbye to 2024, Lam is closing her time as poet laureate while celebrated poet and literary mentor Elee Kraljii Gardiner steps forward for 2025 to 2027.
Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Kraljii Gardiner is a longtime, widely respected member of Vancouver’s literary community.
She is the author of two poetry books and five chapbooks and the editor of two anthologies. For 10 years, she ran the Thursdays Writing Collective, a beloved, inclusive creative writing program at the Carnegie Community Centre in the heart of the Downtown Eastside. She now directs the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, a program pairing authors with mentors, and administers the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award, a literary prize for hybrid books.
The Tyee caught up with Lam and Kraljii Gardiner in the last days before the holiday break to talk poetry, the city and why it’s crucial to make space for communities to connect through art. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Tyee: What, to you, is the most interesting part of the poet laureate’s job?
Elee Kraljii Gardiner: The laureateship is a vehicle, or a platform, for designing events and dreaming up collaborations and partnerships — as an extrovert, I love that.
Plus, I specifically located my laureateship in a field of interest that I have just begun to work in, sound and sonics, so this position is driven by curiosity, which means my artistic practice can grow as I invite people to participate. I am so grateful for this accelerant.
Fiona Tinwei Lam: Having this role has provided me with wonderful opportunities for collaboration and connection with a variety of organizations and individuals from both inside and outside the literary community. For example, I loved combining poetry and music, and I especially enjoyed those unexpected activities that I was invited to participate in.
Gilles Cyrenne asked me to write poems on demand at a Spontaneous Poetry Booth at Main and Hastings for the Heart of the City Festival in 2022 and 2023. I typed in total about two dozen spontaneous poems, on request, on the spot, on my ancient manual typewriter — quite a leap for me since I usually take months to write and polish a single poem.
Another fun activity was helping the VPL host a dog-themed poetry tent during Canine Library events in 2022 and 2023 at Trout Lake Park where I helped people write about their past, present and wished-for canine companions, and shared dog poems for the enjoyment of passersby.
In what ways does the work expand on work in various communities that you've previously been active in?
Lam: To address the rise of anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, the anti-racism committee at Tecumseh Elementary School in East Vancouver invited me to assist a class of Grade 4/5 students to write short poems about Vivian Jung, the first Chinese Canadian teacher hired by the Vancouver School Board in 1950 and who played a role in desegregating a local public pool in 1945 during a time when informal and formal racial segregation was common in B.C.
With the help of videographer Analee Weinberger, we put together a poetry video, “Ode to Vivian Jung,” narrated by the students.
Kraljii Gardiner: I’m interested in increasing access to programming and resources, something I spent time thinking about when I ran Thursdays Writing Collective, a low-barrier creative writing program in the Downtown Eastside.
One aspect of my legacy project is to create mini-residencies for poets across the city. I'll pair writers with host sites, such as cafés, bookstores, care homes, offices and so forth, where they can sit and think and write.
It’s harder and harder to find places that don’t charge a fee for use, and this is one practical way to increase poetic practice in the city.
Laced through all my plans is the belief that listening is transformative. Poems flourish with close listening; so do people.
I co-direct the Whole Cloth reading series at the University of British Columbia's Green College with Bronwen Tate. It's an experience of sustained listening where a poet reads their entire (short) book out loud in one sitting. It’s free and everyone is welcome, and it’s something that, as many of my favourite projects do, started with asking, “What if?” I think that question is powerful!
Come hear Marc Perez read his beautiful book ‘Dayo’ on Jan. 22 from 5 to 6:30 p.m.
What do you wish more people understood about the potential that poetry holds to bring people together?
Lam: William Carlos Williams famously wrote, “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day for lack / of what is found there.”
Poetry can help us express the inexpressible in times of grief and loss and times of uncertainty and fear so we don’t feel so alone.
Jane Hirshfield wrote, “Poetry's job is to discover wholeness and create wholeness, including the wholeness of the fragmentary and the broken.”
Poetry helps us pay attention to what we might take for granted and reconnect with a childlike sense of wonder. It helps us remember and commemorate important events.
As Mary Oliver said, “For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”
Kraljii Gardiner: Any shared experience, whether it is watching a pod of orcas cruise into English Bay or hearing a baby’s giggle spread through a crowded SkyTrain car, emphasizes belonging and also difference.
We don’t all react to a poem in the same way. But a poem, because it is a complex, dreamy space like music, hits one’s emotional centre.
When I talk about a poem with someone else, I am learning a bit more about how the world works and how they see themselves in relation to it.
It is radical to be part of a community based not on ideological or religious belief, but on the conviction that art is worth paying attention to.
Being in a group of people who are curious, who have no agenda about what might happen but are nonetheless committed to being present and perhaps moved, is tremendous.
Fiona, can you share some tips for Elee as she steps into this new role?
Lam: I learned so much from witnessing Elee’s innovative projects while she was co-ordinating and facilitating Thursdays Writing Collective at the Carnegie centre from 2008 to 2017. She’s long been my role model!
Her graciousness, eloquence and genuine warmth have always impressed me. The only advice I would give her is the advice that I was given: to remind the public of the wonderful poetry resources and poetry communities that exist around the city — ongoing poetry reading series, literary festivals, poetry courses and workshops, writers-in-residence and more — so she has both the time and energy to bring her innovative legacy project to fruition.
Elee, can you share some words for Fiona as she closes her time as the Vancouver poet laureate?
Kraljii Gardiner: Fiona, you exhibited such diligence and care in these three years. I am floored by what you accomplished and how many poetic encounters you continue to foster.
As a Vancouver poet I am incredibly grateful for what you make happen. The resources you gathered and shared have given us a sense of activity and community throughout the dystopian time of the pandemic. It feels as if you made a seed bank for all of us and our blooms are weathering the climate.
I’ve long looked up to you as a mentor and know you to be a gracious host, and I know I am not alone in benefiting from your encouragement. So many of us have been supported by your suggestions, invitations and ideas.
Already I am enjoying the refracted glow of your laureate term — people know more about the position and have positive reactions to it thanks to your work. I feel a bit like the little dinghy following the icebreaker that did the tough job of breaking up the frozen sea. Thank you for your craft, your words and your art. I am wishing you long, uninterrupted stretches of writing!
Happy holidays, readers. Our comment threads will be closed until Jan. 2 to give our moderators a much-deserved break. See you in 2025!
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