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The Salt Spring Island Public Library Poetry Open Mic on Thursday, May 1 features Vancouver poet Cynthia Sharp.
Sharp is the author of Ordinary Light, a first-prize winner in the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society 2023 Book Awards, as well as the 2024 International Impact Book Awards in the Sustainability and Contemporary Poetry categories. Poems in the collection such as ‘my hand on the altar,’ Petals and Roots, and The Alchemy of a Heartbeat have placed in Canadian contests like the 2022 Vera Manuel Award for Poetry and the Delta Literary Arts Society 2023 and 2024 Poetry Competitions and been featured in the League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause.
Known as Canada’s Mary Oliver for her focus on nature, Sharp is also the author of the poetry collection Rainforest in Russet, a meditative journey through West Coast scenery, as well as The Light Bearers in the Sand Dollar Graviton, a children’s fantasy story set between Vancouver and space with a focus on science and green energy for problem solving.
She’s the editor of Poetic Portions, a poetry cookbook featuring Canadian writers and their favourite personal recipes. Her poems and reviews can be found in many literary journals, including CV2, untethered and Prism.
At next Thursday’s open mic event, which begins at 7 p.m., Sharp will read poems like Sky Flowers from Ordinary Light, a book that is both a celebration of the beauty of British Columbia islands, shorelines and rainforest areas, as well as a call to protect our natural habitat. The audience can expect a relaxing, meditative experience with imagery that journeys through woods and neighbourhoods to capture details like “cappuccino-striped snails drinking rainwater from concave orange maple leaves” and “purple starfish returning.”
Ordinary Light is available in the Salt Spring Island Public Library collection and at any bookstore through the Ingram catalogue.
When not walking in nature, Sharp enjoys facilitating creative writing workshops and judging provincial, national and international contests. She was the poetry judge for the 2024 North Shore Writers Association Contest, which saw Diana Hayes, a Salt Spring poet and owner/founder of Raven Chapbooks, receive first prize for the brilliantly crafted Seascape from Sheringham Point, in addition to an honourable mention for Climbing Ancestry Trees.
Sign-up for the open mic starts at 6:45 p.m. for the 7 to 9 p.m. event, with one poem per reader to a maximum of three minutes per person. Sharp will present her meditative nature poems following the open mic readers’ portion.