Cowichan Valley Writers & Poets:
All active CVAC members are encouraged to get a free
listing in this arts directory. Individuals, businesses and groups may
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Charles Van Gorkom, bootmaker/poet
250-847-0412
vangorkomboots@gmail.com
Some of my poetry can be found at: .
Bootmaking information can be found at: .
I have not kept careful track of my publications and awards. One poem that melds my multi-faceted life and also won something somewhere is:
Simple Faith
There is a faith so simple
a slab of leather
may be lifted down,
as in a dusty library
one lifts down a precious
one hundred year old volume,
unlay the buttery golden folds,
cut and stitch by hand,
by lamplight if one must,
until a radiant pair of boots
fairly leaps from the bench alive,
eager to rush headlong out
to bless a barefoot world.
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I have self published several books which are virtually all sold out. As I recall their titles were:
"Road to Emmaus"
"Ordinary Exile"
"Sapling Of Hope"
"Fractals Of Haida Gwaii"
At present I am organizing and editing my life's work in an anthology called "Collections From A Forest Volume I".
Because I am writing nearly every day, Volume II will be coming along, who knows when, but perhaps post-humously.
A poem that won second internationally in 2011 in the Utmost Christian Writers International poetry contest is posted here: .
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Balance rock, Haida Gwaii
by Charles Van Gorkom |
What sort of work do I do? Well, it is honestly me. I know exile from personal experience. I have cleared northern bush and built more than one house. I have cooked and warmed the house at minus fifty using wood I cut and split and stacked myself. I have dug a well by hand, raised my own food, animal and vegetable, even cut my hay fields with a scythe by hand. I have taught school and taught classical guitar as well as oil landscape painting. My wife and I raised a family of three children who grew and now have children of their own.
Other than 5 years of teaching school, I have always been self-employed in creative careers.
But through it all, I am a poet.
I have just moved to the Cowichan Valley with my wife of 43 years to finish my life off as a poet and to finish the work I have begun in that area.
I began publishing poetry in small magazines at the University of California in 1965 and have continued ever since in sometimes small and obscure ways, but always writing. One time, I took a manuscript (before computers) of more than 700 type-written pages and burned it, convinced as I was that the poems were shot through in ways too subtle for me to detect with Self Pity. The Self Pity got dealt with and I began again. I am sure that now I still have short-comings that manifest in my poetry, but I write each day as honestly as I can. I try to write poems that are way bigger than myself, each one a sailing ship collecting hitch-hikers as she sails port to port.
Read a more complete 'Profile of an Artist' about Charles Van Gorkom .
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Gloria Lorenzen
250-748-3879
glorialorenzen@gmail.com
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Freelance writer
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Editing and proofreading services available
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Into the Woods
~ digital art by
Jane Waterman |
Jane Waterman
Email: jane@janewaterman.com
Website:
Jane is a writer, artist, scientist, and full-time human being (which is not as easy as it sounds).
Her passion for the written word is currently focussed on crafting her first novel, with an anthology of short stories to follow. Jane writes about the human condition, and all that entails.
When not freelancing as a technical writer, Jane partakes in digital art, photomanipulation, photography, and - as an introvert - quietly advocates for people living with mental health, autoimmune, and other invisible challenges.
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Rojan Zét |
Rojan Zét
Rojan Zét (rhymes with cabaret)
- a spirit pre-occupied with the state of being and the potential of the successful Human *Inadequate. Rojan resides in the Cowichan Valley, has produced several chapbooks of poems, short stories, and personal essays, and remains occupied in a hands-on multi-media struggle for the allocation of resources and time in the real world accomplishing his visions for collections of words, images, music, and living spaces.
* unrealized self-actualization for increasing numbers of social stake-holders (consumers)
Publications:
Deas Island Slough Reports
Present Tense Poems
Future Tense Poems
Past Tense Poems
Engravings
Pumpkin Shaped Heart
First Light
Awards:
- Winner of Verse and Vision 2009 Best Poem Award for "Winter" (People's Choice).
- 2010 Resident Poet for
Services:
- Creative-Writer-For-Hire with the last word in "Out of the Warmland"
(published by Ten Old Books & Gallowglass 2009).
- Textual and graphic documentary composition, editing, and formatting.
Website:
Email: rojan@bacardipress.com
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