Wax Poetic Radio

05/20/2026

Today on Wax Poetic RC and Kevin chat with rabble rouser, Isabella Wang as Isabella shares a couple poems and the inspiration behind creating a brand new poetry prize for ALL poets in Canada. Join us from 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

"Isabella is an immigrant writer and poet residing on the unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Musqueum, Squamish, and tsleil-Waututh peoples."

05/13/2026

Today on Wax Poetic, the provocative and powerful Poetic Voice of Mercedes Eng chats with Erin Kirsh and Altogether Lisa. Tune in from 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

"Mercedes Eng is the author of Mercenary English, Prison Industrial Complex Explodes, winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, my yt mama, and cop city swagger. Her writing has appeared in Hustling Verse: An Anthology of S*x Workers’ Poetry, Jacket 2, Asian American Literary Review, The Capilano Review* and The Abolitionist. She was the Writer-in-Residence and a Shadbolt Fellow at Simon Fraser University and recently co-curated her first exhibition with Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa, Inside/Out: the art show my dad never had* Mercedes teaches at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she organizes the On Edge reading series."

05/06/2026

Today on Wax Poetic Erin Kirsh and RC chat with Nicole Raziya Fong. They have a new book out on Talonbooks called "Subtext" Join the chat from 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

"Nicole Raziya Fong (they/she) is a poet, editor, and painter living in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, Québec, Canada. They are the author of SUBTEXT (2026, Talonbooks), ORACULE (2021, Talonbooks), PERFACT (2019, Talonbooks), and other works. Writing appears in journals including The Capilano Review, carte blanche, and Social Text. Their work has received support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Their work seeks to delimit and reconstruct immaterial ampoules of psychic experience, coaxing the incorporeal into inhabiting a more muscular physique"

04/29/2026

Today on Wax Poetic our guest is Elizabeth Bachinsky who has a new book "Real Grown Up" out on Nightwood Editions Kevin and RC chat with Elizabeth about clowning, funerals and other fun stuff. Oh yeah, there's some poems too! 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

"Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of six books of poetry, including Home of Sudden Service (2006), which was nominated for a Governor General’s Award, and God of Missed Connections (2009), which was nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the KOBZAR Book Award and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. She lives in New Westminster, BC, on the traditional, unceded territories of the Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen and Musqueam First Nations where she teaches creative writing at Douglas College."

04/15/2026

Today on Wax Poetic, Kevin and RC chat with Zoe Dickenson about her new poetry collection "Staff Picks for Invertebrates" from Guernica Editions We talk about dreams and writing and Zoe's co-workers providing inspiration for her poems.

Join us from 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

Book synopsis:

Staff Picks for Invertebrates is a semi-autobiographical love letter to books, readers, and the lands they inhabit. Russell Books staff and customers, swallows and starfish, the store itself and the books inside: all are part of the same family and dwell in the same fragile, radiant world.

"Zoe Dickinson has published two award-winning chapbooks: Public Transit and intertidal: poems from the littoral zone. Her poetry is rooted in BC’s Pacific coastline, where she is a manager at Russell Books and Artistic Director emerita of the Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series. She is co-editor with Kyeren Regehr of the anthology After: Poems in Dialogue, forthcoming from Caitlin Press, and her first full-length poetry collection, Staff Picks for Invertebrates (Guernica Editions, 2026) is available now."

Zoe Dickinson
Poet & Bookseller
www.zoedickinson.com

I live and write on the unceded lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən known today as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

04/01/2026

We're rebroadcasting our interview with Altogether Lisa and Tessa Danalesko about the Audible Indigenous Writers Circle today from 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM. I hope you can join us.

03/26/2026

If you are an Indigenous Writer looking for mentorship with your writing practice, you might want to check out the Audible Indigenous Writer's Circle. Here's a link...

The Audible Indigenous Writers’ Circle is a six-month mentorship and workshop program for emerging First Nations, Inuit and Métis writers in Canada looking to elevate their stories.

03/26/2026

Yesterday and this coming Wednesday, we feature Poet, Altogether Lisa and Tessa Danalesko, Program Manager for the Audible Indigenous Writer's Circle. We hear some poems from Altogether Lisa and learn about how Indigenous Writer's can take part in the program.

Tune in Wednesday's 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or you can check it out on our archives here

On this episode Kevin and RC chat with Poet, Altogether Lisa, a graduate of the Audible Indigenous Writer's Circle to hear about the program and some poems. ...

03/18/2026

Today on Wax Poetic, Kevin and RC chat with Russell Thornton who has a new collection out with Harbour Publishing called "Two Songs-Selected Poems 2000-2025." Russell shares some poems about stealing and fatherhood and how the subconscious presents can present itself in our poems.

2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

"Russell Thornton is the author of eight poetry collections, including The Hundred Lives (2014), which was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain (2013), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and the Raymond Souster Award. His other titles are The Fifth Window (2000), A Tunisian Notebook (2002), House Built of Rain (2003), which was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the ReLit Award, The Human Shore (2006), The Broken Face (2018), and Answer to Blue (2021). Thornton’s poetry has appeared in several anthologies, among them Best Canadian Poetry (2012 and 2019) and has been selected several times for BC’s Poetry in Transit. He is one of the poets whose conversation and poetry is featured in What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation (2018). His poetry has appeared in translation in anthologies and literary journals in Greece, Romania, and Israel. Thornton lives in North Vancouver, BC. "

03/11/2026

Today on Wax Poetic, Sonya Littlejohn sits down with Cori Howard to chat about Cori's new collection of poems, "The Fifth Season." Tune in today from 2-2:30 pm at 100.5 FM or www dot co op radio dot org

"The Fifth Season

In The Fifth Season, award-winning journalist, essayist and poet Cori Howard explores the seasons of a woman’s life, from marriage and motherhood to divorce, what she aptly names “disaster dating” and reinvention. Through the arc of midlife, these poems offer a map back to the self and a return to longing and new freedoms.

In poetry that is raw, honest and personal, Howard carries the reader through the thresholds of her life, illuminating the experiences of womanhood and the questions we ask ourselves during times of transition and reimagination."