Royal City Literary Arts Society presents
POETRY IN THE PARK 2026
In partnership with Arts New West and City of New Westminster
Every Wednesday night from July 15 – August 19 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Each weekly session will feature 2 poets and an Open Mic.
Wednesday AUGUST 5
SAPP Zine Night
Feature Poets: Jordan Redekop-Jones & KJ Brydle
Host: Jessica Lee McMillan
Where? Centennial Lodge, Queen’s Park, New Westminster
When? Wed evenings JULY 15-AUGUST 19 | 6:30pm | Open Mic Sign Up 6:15pm
Why? Because poetry is alive and well in New West!
FREE, FAMILY FRIENDLY EVENT
Everyone is welcome!
KJ Brydle (she/they) is a BFA student in UBC’s Creative Writing program. They are drawn to writing about the summoning echo of estrangement and moments that sparkle, shimmer, or make one shake. They are Red River Métis and Ukrainian settler blessed to be living on Coast Salish land.
Jordan Redekop-Jones is a mixed Indigenous/ Anglo Indian writer from Vancouver BC. She is the winner of several awards including the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize, the 2024 Austin Clarke prize in Literary Excellence for poetry and was a recipient of a 2024 Indigenous Voices Award in the unpublished poetry category. Her work has appeared in publications including Prism International, Arc Poetry, the Ex-Puritan, Rungh, SAD Mag and more.
Her debut chapbook Hybridity as a Phantom Body was just recently published by Anstruther Press. She is a graduate of SFU’s the Writer’s Studio and is a current MA English Literature student at Simon Fraser University.
You can follow her writing journey on her Instagram page: @j.r.jones__
Jessica Lee McMillan (she/her) is a poet and steadfast civil servant. She has an English MA (SFU), is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio, and is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets. Read her current/forthcoming poems in CV2, The Malahat Review, New Poetry, QWERTY, Canto, and Canadian Literature. Jessica is the author of the chapbook shine like a dime in the dirt under the moon (Pinhole Poetry, 2026). She lives on the land of the Halkomelem-speaking Peoples (New Westminster, BC) with her little family and large dog.
POETRY IN THE PARK 2026
Royal City Literary Arts Society presents
Poetry in the Park 2026
In partnership with Arts New West and City of New Westminster
Every Wednesday night from July 15 – August 19 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Each weekly session will feature 2 poets and an Open Mic.
WEDNESDAY JULY 29
Feature Poets: Jónína Kirton & Russell Thornton
Host: Jessica Lee McMillan
Where? Centennial Lodge, Queen’s Park, New Westminster
When? Wed evenings JULY 15-AUGUST 19 | 6:30pm | Open Mic Sign Up 6:15pm
Why? Because poetry is alive and well in New West
FREE, FAMILY FRIENDLY EVENT
Everyone is welcome!
Bios:
Jónína Kirton, an Icelandic and Red River Métis poet was born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Treaty 1, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis. She graduated from the SFU Writers
Studio in 2007 and was sixty-one when she received the 2016 Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category. Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.
She currently lives in subsidized seniors housing in New Westminster BC, the unceded territory of the Hul’qumi’num speaking peoples. A chronic pain sufferer, she has walked with her husband as he has faced life threatening health issues. This journey is documented in her fourth book. Save Your Prayers – Send Money, released in April 2026 with Talonbooks.
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Russell Thornton’s Two Songs: Selected Poems 2000-2025 was brought out by Harbour Publishing this spring and is his tenth book of poetry. Among his earlier collections, The Hundred Lives was shortlisted for the 2015 Griffin Prize and Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain was shortlisted for the 2014 Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His book of creative non-fiction, The Tree of My Only Address, is due out in spring 2027 from Caitlin Press. He lives in North Vancouver. Russell’s book The White Light of Tomorrow was longlisted for our 2024 Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry.
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Jessica Lee McMillan (she/her) is a poet and steadfast civil servant. She has an English MA (SFU), is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio, and is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets. Read her current/forthcoming poems in CV2, The Malahat Review, New Poetry, QWERTY, Canto, and Canadian Literature. Jessica is the author of the chapbook shine like a dime in the dirt under the moon (Pinhole Poetry, 2026). She lives on the land of the Halkomelem-speaking Peoples (New Westminster, BC) with
her little family and large dog.
Royal City Literary Arts Society presents
POETRY IN THE PARK 2026
In partnership with Arts New West and City of New Westminster
Every Wednesday night from July 15 – August 19 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Each weekly session will feature 2 poets and an Open Mic.
Wednesday JULY 22
Featuring Aidan Chafe and Christina Shah
Host: Marlo Browne
Where? Centennial Lodge, Queen’s Park, New Westminster
When? Wed evenings JULY 15-AUGUST 19 | 6:30pm | Open Mic Sign Up 6:15pm
Why? Because poetry is alive and well in New West!
FREE, FAMILY FRIENDLY EVENT
Everyone is welcome!
Aidan Chafe is the author of the poetry collections Gospel Drunk (University of Alberta Press) and Short Histories of Light (McGill-Queen’s University Press), that was longlisted for the 2019 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. He has also published two chapbooks Right Hand Hymns (Frog Hollow Press) and Sharpest Tooth (Anstruther Press). He is the recipient of the ONLY POEMS’ 2025 “Poet of the Year” prize. He lives and works on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, BC).
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Christina Shah lives in New Westminster and works in heavy industry, where she drinks from the firehose of knowledge. Her poetry has appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals. Her work has been shortlisted for the Fiddlehead’s 2021 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2023. She is one-fifth of the Harbour Centre 5 poetry collective, whose chapbook, Brine, was released in 2022. Her first video poem, “rig veda” (in collaboration with videographer
Mark Mushet), was translated into Spanish and screened internationally. rig rig veda, her first solo chapbook (Anstruther Press), received an honourable mention for the bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2024. if: prey, then: huntress is her first full-length poetry collection.
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Marlo Browne is an award-winning Barbadian multi-hyphenate artist who has published 5 poetry books and currently lives in Langley. Marlo has performed and featured at many events and has converted some of his poetry into short films. To date, he has
released three short films- ‘I'm Sorry’ in 2023 and ‘Dear Single Mom’ and ‘Invisible’ in 2025. The first film ‘I’m Sorry’ was the runner up in the Short Film category of the Langley City Film festival in 2023. The second short film, ‘Dear Single Mom’ won a Bronze Award at the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts in Barbados in 2025. His fourth and fifth poetry collections, entitled ‘The Life and Times of a Poet’ and ‘Journal of a Black Man’, both earned Gold Book Awards from Literary Titan in May and September 2025 respectively.
POETRY IN THE PARK 2026
Royal City Literary Arts Society presents
Poetry in the Park 2026
In partnership with Arts New West and City of New Westminster
Every Wednesday night from July 15 – August 19 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Each weekly session will feature 2 poets and an Open Mic.
OPENING NIGHT JULY 15
Featuring Jude Neale and Raoul Fernandes
Host: Janet Kvammen, Poet Laureate
Special Guest: Tristan Wright, Qayqayt First Nation
�� Where? Centennial Lodge, Queen’s Park, New Westminster
�� When? Wed evenings JULY 15-AUGUST 19 | 6:30pm | Open Mic Sign Up 6:15pm
�� Why? Because poetry is alive and well in New West!
FREE, FAMILY FRIENDLY EVENT
Everyone is welcome!
More about our guests:
Tristan Wright is an illustrator from Qayqayt First Nation, located in New Westminster.
She creates work that pushes the boundaries of what urban Indigenous art can be. Her
work is an amalgamation of her inspirations, from video games and online fandom.
Currently, she is selling her work online and developing a portfolio that demonstrates
her research and world building skills. Through her work, Tristan hopes she conveys
moments that stand out from stories, communicating through visuals what speaks to
others. Having just graduated, she plans to use her portfolio to enter the world of
Concept art and Design in Vancouver.
Raoul Fernandes lives with his wife, two sons, and orange tabby on the traditional
territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC).
His first collection of poems, Transmitter and Receiver (Nightwood Editions, 2015) won
the Dorothy Livesay Award and Debut-litzer Award for Poetry in 2016. He is the Poetry
Editor for EVENT, one of the organizers of the Dead Poets Reading Series and works in public libraries in Vancouver.
Jude Neale is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Bowen Island, a Canadian poet, vocalist,
spoken word performer, and occasional disturber of the literary peace.
She has published fourteen books, with more waiting in the wings, and her work has
been recognized across Canada and beyond, including nominations for the Pat Lowther
Memorial Award and the National Magazine Awards. Her poems travel through grief,
wonder, memory, family, the body, the natural world, and the strange little miracles that
keep us alive despite ourselves.
A lifelong performer, Jude brings music, humour, and a certain unruly tenderness to the
page and the stage. As Poet Laureate, she believes poetry belongs everywhere: in
libraries and theatres, yes, but also at kitchen tables, on ferries, in grocery lines, at
celebrations, in sorrow, and wherever human beings are trying to say what matters.
Memories from 2025
