At its September 26th meeting, the Board of the Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library approved the appointment of Richard-Yves Sitoski as Owen Sound Poet Laureate for a two-year term starting October 1, 2019.
Sitoski is the winner of the Owen Sound Cultural Award for Emerging Artist, 2014; finalist in the International Songwriting Competition, 2018; and author of two poetry collections, including most recently: Downmarket Oldies FM Station Blues (Ginger Press, 2018), and has released a CD of spoken word verse. He is well known in the Owen Sound/Grey Bruce area for his many spoken word performances as well as his collaboration with previous poets laureate, Rob Rolfe and Larry Jensen and the Métissage collective, and as a committee member for Words Aloud Spoken Word and Storytelling Festival
When describing his vision, Sitoski wrote: “No issue is more pertinent to the continued existence of life on this planet than how humans interact with our increasingly threatened environment. And so, the focus of my term as Poet Laureate will be on ecological concerns: where the planet seems headed, and what we can do about it. I will use cutting edge augmented reality (AR) technology developed right here in Owen Sound by KP9 Interactive to create virtual landscape installations and to animate a collection of verse on environmental subjects. I will also partner with local environmental groups, getting the message out in verse.”
Sitoski adds, “Language is a source of power beyond comprehension, and poetry is the ultimate use of language. In fact, it's what leaps over the cliff at the very end of language. What's more, it's all around us, even in the places we least suspect.”
In the final days of her tenure, outgoing poet laureate Lauren Best said “I am grateful to have experienced first-hand some of the many positive impacts that the poet laureate program creates in this area, especially for children, their families and teachers. This special opportunity has helped to spark creativity in young people and breathe new life into poetry through playful exploration.”
Best’s focus, during her 2017 – 2019 term, was to encourage children to express themselves through poetry. As her legacy project, she created Poetry Play Kits which contain activities for children and their care-givers to have fun with language together, available to borrow from the Library’s Youth Services Department.
A selection committee of three former poets laureate and a community member plus Library staff recommended its unanimous choice to the Library Board. Chair of the Poet Laureate Advisory Committee and Owen Sound’s first poet laureate, Liz Zetlin said: “We’re very pleased to announce Sitoski’s appointment because of his talent as a poet and his passion for our community and the literary arts, as well as his environmentally-focused legacy project.”
The Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library hosts the poet laureate program with funding from the community. This year, David Madill, CFP of BMO Nesbitt Burns, and former Library CEO Andrew Armitage are generous supporters of the Poet Laureate Program. Never supported by tax-based funding, the poet laureate program depends entirely on donations from community members who see the benefit of having a local advocate for the literary arts. Anyone who wants more information about, or is interested in becoming a sponsor of, the Owen Sound Poet Laureate program, is invited to contact Tim Nicholls Harrison, CEO, Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library at 519-376-6623 ext. 201, or through owensound.library.on.ca.
source: media release
