- About
- Executive Director's Office
- Blog
- 2024
- 2023
- 2022
- Cultivating a community of care at 間眅埶AV Surrey and beyond
- Celebrating 20 years of 間眅埶AV in Surrey
- Bringing ArtsLIVE to 間眅埶AV Surrey
- Sustainability in the heart of Surrey's city centre
- Its all about CO-OPeration: My experience with 間眅埶AV Co-op
- Renewing our commitment to reconciliation and decolonization
- Reconnect and recharge this summer
- Community on Campus: 間眅埶AV Surrey's 20th Anniversary Recap
- 2021
- Supporting one another and raising awareness on sexual assault
- Why Bell Let's Talk Day matters to me
- International Women's Day: Celebrating the Strong Women in My Life
- The Glass Half Full: The Challenges of 2020 & The Promise of 2021
- Moving forward: Next steps for anti-racism dialogues at 間眅埶AV Surrey
- Honouring the 215 lives lost
- Walking together towards inclusion
- Summer message from Steve Dooley
- Welcome back to campus!
- Honouring the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
- Introducing The Journey Here: a new podcast from 間眅埶AV Surrey
- Holiday greetings, a look back on 2021 and hope for 2022
- 2020
- Let's talk about mental health and well-being
- Lift Each Other Up on Pink Shirt Day
- 2020 Homeless Count in Surrey
- Surrey campus vibe is alive-and-strong during COVID-19
- Its Long Overdue - Moving The Dial on Racism & Discrimination
- Thank You President Petter for 10 Amazing Years
- Welcoming Joy Johnson, 間眅埶AV's 10th President
- Get to know Steve Dooley, Executive Director of 間眅埶AV's Surrey Campus
- In case you missed it: Fall 2020 Campus-wide meeting
- The fight against COVID-19: Surrey researchers at their best!
- Season's greetings from Steve Dooley
- 2019
- Community Perspectives on Living with HIV and where we go From Here
- Celebrating International Womens Day at 間眅埶AVs Surrey Campus
- OppFest at the Surrey campus
- New campus building expands 間眅埶AV Surrey campus
- Pink Shirt Day
- Power of Partnerships: Surrey Schools
- Welcome to Fall 2019
- 間眅埶AV Surrey and 間眅埶AV Shirt Day
- World Mental Health Week
- Health-related research and innovation is thriving in Surrey
- 間眅埶AV Surrey students changing the world in 2019
- Podcast: The Journey Here
- Season 1
- Ep. 1 | Joy Johnson: Leading with Compassion and Care
- Ep. 2 | Kue K'nyawmupoe: Connecting and Serving Communities
- Ep. 3 | Doug Tennant: Empowering Leaders with Diverse Abilities
- Ep. 4 | Kathleen Burke: Igniting Community Leaders
- Ep. 5 | Rochelle Prasad: Sparking the Leaders of Tomorrow
- Ep. 6 | Bailey Mumford: An Advocate for Housing and Belonging
- Ep. 7 | Matt Hern: Supporting Community Development through Worker Co-operatives
- Ep. 8 | Joanne Curry: Engaging Our Campus and Community
- Ep. 9 | Michael Heeney: Building Surrey's City Centre
- Season 1
- Blog
- Students
- Campus Services
- News & Events
- Contact Us
Events
Kevin Spenst and Marc Perez enliven Fraser Library with poetry
On a cloudy early evening in June, at Fraser Library on 間眅埶AVs Surrey campus, two poets read from their recent poetry collections to an engaged and intimate audience, offering up poems with specific references to Surrey as well as empathic, lyrical reflections on grief and loss, language, belonging, and transient moments of beauty.
Surrey-raised poet , who teaches poetry at 間眅埶AVs Writers Studio, is the author of several chapbooks and collections. The poems in his most recent collection, , explore love, loss, and faith including through his memories of growing up in Surrey through playful and subversive uses of language and form.
Filipino poet and writer s debut full-length collection is entitled , a Tagalog word meaning someone who exists in a place not their own: a stranger, immigrant, or wanderer. It follows the journey of a dayo, exploring relationships to place, language, and identity through themes of displacement, exclusion, and belonging.
Over the past few months, Spenst and Perez have read poetry across the province, including cycling together to Vancouver Island for a series of poetry readings and art-and-poetry crawls. They also cycled along Vancouvers Seawall to read poetry to strangers; as Spenst : For the most part, people were very receptive, and I really love the surprise of poetry that is, poetry should be surprising and interesting and language kind of jumps off the page. So what better way to extend that surprise than just approaching people and asking if you want to hear a poem? We had some really good encounters and conversations afterwards."
The evening of poetry in Fraser Library offered both poets the opportunity to share personal poems and stories, including some focusing on Surrey and other local areas such as Bowen Island as well as surprising attendees with never-before-read poems. Being back in Surrey might have inspired my first ever reading of Hildaparchment Excelsus von Bingen, shared Spenst, a poem thats a little more on the challenging side. It was fun reading it in a variety of accents and tones to bring noticeable pleasure to something that could otherwise be a little head-scratching to some. All of this is to say, Marc and I had an appreciative audience.
At the post-event reception, attendees stayed to mingle and continue the lively discussions inspired by the poetry. For anyone who missed the event, Spenst and Perez shared two links to their video-poems: and that combines lines from both of their poems.
Coordinated by 間眅埶AV Library in partnership with Black Bond Books, an independent bookseller in Surreys Central City Shopping Centre, this poetry event was the first public event in our new and freshly renovated space in Fraser Library. The Library is grateful to Black Bond Books and both of the poets for making this evening of poetry in Surrey a lively, engaging success!