pop-up-poetry

…in the thick of things

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"Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands."

Recent posts…

  • My First Paid Gig March 21, 2023
  • Practicing play April 29, 2022
  • This is why… November 30, 2020
  • Being Offensive October 5, 2020
  • Unexpected feedback April 27, 2020

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my author blog: Lesley-Anne Evans

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public engagement

My First Paid Gig

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This might sound a bit superficial to you, and it is in some ways. And, it’s also exciting. Those of you who are artists and writers know what I mean. To receive an honourarium is an honour that lifts the spirits and says our creative work has found place and purpose. It feels wonderful.

A couple of months ago I see a call for installation poetry, and my heart leaps. It seems a perfect alignment, I think to myself, so I write a letter of proposal and send it off on a wing and a prayer. And wait. I don’t have to wait long. They say YES!

So, here I am preparing for the UNBOUND Poetry Festival in Delta, BC., and all the pieces I’m creating will head off without me to be installed by the welcoming and energetic, Angela Rebrec, President of the Delta Literary Arts Society. The DLAS is putting on this festival to celebrate National Poetry Month. This will be the festival’s second year, and Angela and her team put a tonne of effort and love into this event. If you are local to Vancouver, BC., consider taking in and interacting with some of the wide and wonderful experiences that are poetry. Including PUP!

DID I MENTION I’M GETTING PAID!!!

I’m sharing a picture of my current PUP process below, which involves words and images. It’s been a lot of fun considering the vernacular of Delta, South Surrey, Tsawwassen and how to express that in art. My husband and I brainstormed images on Saturday morning with lots of coffee. I chose 7. It’s amazing what you can do with meat trays and a poking object! Expressions of the simple beauty of rock, tree, flower, sun, ocean, river, field are expressed in the simple “block cuts” which are printed in two colours: copper and turquoise, to honour earth, sea, and sky.

There will be a sign with my work. Here’s what it will say:

POP-UP POETRY INSTALLATION

Scattered across the grounds of the UNBOUND Poetry Festival you will discover POP-UP POETRY: small slips of paper with words and colourful artwork. As their name suggests, these wee poetic bites will pop up where and when you least expect them to. So, be on the lookout!

POP-UP POETRY (PUP) is a public word-art installation of poet Lesley-Anne Evans, from Kelowna, B.C.. Over a decade ago, Lesley-Anne instigated PUP in “the thick of things.” Inspired by National Poetry Month 2012, and a desire to bring poetry to the people, Lesley-Anne became Kelowna’s first downtown poetry busker, and began to install PUP and handmade luminaires in public places.

PUP is intended to be accessible and a discovery for people as they go about their daily lives. Most PUP is a line or two from a longer work of poetry. PUP is embellished with simple, colourful block prints of everyday objects: a tree, a flower, a bird, a rock, a field. Lesley-Anne’s mother Evelyn, who passed away in June, 2022, used to say “Beauty is everywhere, even in a freshly plowed field.” The artwork of PUP reminds us of that.

Lesley-Anne’s PUP installations include Belfast, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye. Finders of PUP write to her at https://popuppoetry.ca/ to express their responses to the poetry they find. You can learn more about Lesley-Anne at https://laevans.ca/

May your discovery of POP-UP Poetry meet you where you are, with what you need.

Lesley-Anne

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  • Date March 21, 2023
  • Tags Art, Arts, canlit, Delta Literary Arts Society, I am writing, installations, Lesley-Anne Evans, poet, Poetry, pop up poetry, public engagement, UNBOUND Poetry Festival, women who write
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This is why…

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This bit of paper that brought me great comfort many months ago when I really needed it, sat in waiting as a bookmark until it found itself to me again today. This pop up poetry just keeps popp’n exactly when my heart needs it to.

Carmen Rempel

Posted to Facebook, Sunday 29 November, @ 8:39 am

I was tagged in a social media post this weekend, and when I read the post (quoted above), I immediately thought This is why I do what I do: the possibility that mere words can inform lives, or say something that we need to hear in the particular moment we read particular words. I have no idea where or if my words will land, but praise be, they did for this dear one! And they are still speaking! Of course, it isn’t me at all, but the spirit of the words and the spirit of the heart that receives them.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience, Carmen.

Speaking of writing that goes BOOM, check out Carmen’s blog HERE.

Now bravely go and do what only you can do.

Blessings,

Lesley-Anne

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  • Date November 30, 2020
  • Tags creative expression, installationart, installations, Lesley-Anne Evans, poet, popuppoetry, public engagement, publicart
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Show and Tell

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“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver

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  • Date September 6, 2015
  • Tags Arts, British Columbia, Canada, canlit, culture, engage, installation art, installations, Kelowna, lit, Okanagan, Okanagan Art Review, poems, Poetry, poetry installation, poetry on the street, popuppoetry, public engagement
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Pop-Up for love

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“I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For Love…. So I was taught that love is our Lord’s meaning.”

~ St. Julian of Norwich

Sun’s out, bulbs are up, ducks have visited our swamp of a pool and left for someplace more appropriate to raise their family. April has committed herself to us, and with April comes Spring and National Poetry Month.

Poetry, hmmmm… sounds vaguely familiar.

I’ve been giving myself to writing, work days attached to my laptop more than anything else, other than necessary breaks for laundry and sleep. Yes, there was an amazing spiritual retreat over Easter where I broke from work and soaked in mystery. But, except for a brief trip and PUP in San Francisco, my poems haven’t been dusted off or hung up anywhere in months.

It’s time. Today.

So why? For love. For love of writing and sharing poetry. For love of those who may find a helpful word. For love of process. For love of myself. For love of God who has given me this day and this gift and this opportunity. For love.

Today. Kelowna. Downtown. Soon.

May love ambush you in the thick of things.

Love,

Lesley-Anne

p.s. as I prepare to go out, I go in the warmth of knowing a friend is organizing a group of love letter writers to play hide and seek with their words/art a week from today. Kelowna, consider yourself hugged!

Rotary Centre, Kelowna

Rotary Centre, Kelowna

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  • Date April 8, 2015
  • Tags Art, British Columbia, community, creative expression, culture, encouragement, express, gifts, installations, Kelowna, Okanagan, poems, poetry installations, public engagement, urban
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I left my heart (and poems) in San Francisco…

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Just a few early morning poetry pins around the beautiful streets before the ride to the airport and the take off and airborne goodbyes to the skyline and bay and landmarks now trodden by my tired feet:  Alcatraz’s unexpected art and music installations, the poet’s chair at City Lights, Aria‘s surprises on upper Grant, Cafe Au Lait at Cafe Greco in North Beach, and climbing Lombardy Street and the 45 degree slopes up to Coit Tower and maybe parrots squawking, and riding the Big Bus tour and the trolleys and the streetcars, and eating in so many great restaurants, and finding poetry painted on hotel walls and stamped in the pavement and attached to the railings and now hanging there, my little Pop-Up-Poems hanging there like flags fluttering in accepting air. YES!

Oh San Francisco, be still my heart. Find the hearts that need you, Pop-Up-Poetry!

Most of all, thank you to the two dear hearts that joined mine on our lovely San Francisco adventure ❤ I love you both so much!

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  • Date March 24, 2015
  • Tags Art, artists, Books, creative expression, creativity, cultural engagement, guerilla poetry, installations, poetry blast, poetry bomb, poetry on the street, popuppoetry, public engagement, San Francisco install, street art, USA
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