Jackie Wong Today The Tyee Jackie Wong is a senior editor at The Tyee. URL copied to clipboard! SHARE: 68 SHARES 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. Longtime Tyee contributor Fiona Tinwei Lam was Vancouver’s poet laureate from 2022 to 2024.
Photo by Holly Hoffman. 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. A poetry video based on the city’s lost and hidden streams.
Animation by Quinn Kelly. Narration by the poet Fiona Tinwei Lam. Audio-recor.
