Barbara Pelman

Barbara Pelman
Originally uploaded by random acts of poetry

Barbara Pelman teaches her students that "poetry is as essential as bread" then feeds them delicious poems. She has been a teacher of
English in the public school system, and at colleges and
universities, for close to thirty years and is now about to close
that chapter in her life. Next? More poetry of course; flute and art
lessons, dancing, and perhaps a writing retreat in some coastal
village in Thailand. Or Portugal. Or the Seychelles.
A native of British Columbia, Barbara has a BA from UBC, an MA from
the University of Toronto, and is a survivor of many Glenairley
retreats with Patrick Lane. Her poems have appeared in literary
journals such as Event, Dalhousie Review, CV2; and chapbooks from
Leaf Press. Her glosa, "After Winter" won the Federation of BC
Writers Contest in 2004; she is an enthusiastic promoter of form
poems, and teaches her students the art of the sestina, the pantoum,
the demi-glosa, the sonnet. Her first book of poetry, "One Stone"
was published in 2005 by Ekstasis Editions. She has been the BC
representative for the League of Canadian Poets.
This is Barbara's third year in Random Acts of Poetry: she has read
poems on the ferry, at the Saltspring Market, to motorcyclists,
horses, bakers, and steelworkers; last year her students chalked
poems on the sidewalks and parking lots of the school, and created a
"Poetry Wall" in downtown Victoria. Lately she has been reading poems
to passersby in front of Munro's Books as part of the Poet Tree
Project. On Friday nights she is usually reading at the Open Mike at
Planet Earth Poetry, where she has been featured reader a number of
times. These mornings she has been attempting to beat her daughter at
three consecutive games of Scrabble on Facebook; no luck yet.