Readings + Festivals
(I’m the one in the kerchief…)
Soon:
Poetry on the Salish Sea, March 14, 2026 @ 7pm
Wheeler Theatre, Fort Worden State Park,
Port Townsend
Some notes on oldgrowth specklebelly lichen (Pseudocyphellaria rainierensis)–transcription + portal, treelicker, sparkling archive — selected for the Nature and Culture – Poetry Film Festival 2025
Digital screenings from October 15 to the 15th of November, Copenhagen
Live screening on October 11 at Husets Bio in CPH
Previously:
“Poetry by the River: Environmental Stewardship through the Arts”
A collaboration of Antler River Poetry, Antler River Rally, and London Bicycle Café (all of my favourite things–poetry, rivers, bicycles !!). We began with a river cleanup at the Forks of Deshkan Ziibi/the Thames and then skipped over to the London Bicycle Café for poetry and music from former London poet laureate Tom Cull, musician Shawn Durant, and a film screening of my “Hwlhits’um | signs.”
Reading with Kit Dobson, Kim Trainor, and Clint Burnham
Wednesday Apr 16th, 2025
7:00 PM-9:00 PM @ Iron Dog Books 2671 East Hastings. Tickets available now!
On April 16th, join authors Kit Dobson, Kim Trainor, and Clint Burnham for a reading, discussion, and viewing of an experimental film short.
Doors open at 6:30 pm; light refreshments provided.
Venice, California Poetry Film Festival
“Common raven (Corvus corax)” and “Snail / tiny house / caracol” have been selected to appear in the Poetry Film Festival April 18-19, 2025 at Beyond Baroque, Venice, California. Details TBA.
walk quietly / ts’ekw’unshun kws qututhun
The official launch of our guided walk took place on Saturday 21st October at Brunswick Point. We are still working on installing new signs (the old ones were vandalized). But you can still follow along with the website: walkquietly.ca
Poetry film “Hwlhits’um | signs.” As part of the installation walk quietly: ts’ekw’unshun kws qututhun (walk quietly with respect and care along the shore). Guided artist-scientist walk along Hwlhits’um (Brunswick Point) in collaboration with Hwlitsum First Nation.
LOBE 4D Sound Residency — Performance of “Seeds” with Hazel Fairbairn, 1st November 2024 at 7pm, and Friday 6th December at 7pm. Tix available at EventBrite!
LOBE is a 4D sound spatial sound studio in East Van. Composer Hazel Fairbairn and I will perform a selection from my poetry film sequence “Seeds” as the culmination of our residency there in October 2024.
Tickets available at eventbrite.
Doors open at 7pm for 30 minute sound bath prior to performance from 7:30 to 8:30pm. LOBE:
Reading at Planet Earth Poetry this Friday 15 November 15, in Victoria, at Russell Books, with fellow poet Ashley-Elizabeth Best!
Planet Earth Poetry: COMMUNITY WRITING PRACTICE WITH GUEST POET: KIM TRAINOR. OCTOBER 26TH @11AM PACIFIC TIME
Join us for Writing Practice on Zoom. Writing Practice is free to attend — please feel free to invite a friend and share these Zoom credentials with them. We’ll have exercises, discussion, and silent time to write together.
Please join the Zoom Room directly HERE
Meeting ID: 494 660 4447 Passcode: 2129
*Note this is a Zoom-only event.
Planet Earth Poetry Featured Poet: 15 November 2024.
12th Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition. 2024. Shortlisted for “Hwlhits’um | Signs.”
Cork, Ireland. 24 November 2024.
Festival Fotogenia 2024. Screening of “The Beautiful Cell.” Mexico City, Mexico. 21-30 November 2024.
Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival. Screening of “The Beautiful Cell.” Wellington, New Zealand. 20-21 November 2024
walk quietly / ts’ekw’unshun kws qututhun. (still on-going…)
The official launch of our guided walk took place on Saturday 21st October at Brunswick Point. We are still working on installing new signs (the old ones were vandalized). But you can still follow along with the website: walkquietly.ca
Poetry film “Hwlhits’um | signs.” As part of the installation walk quietly: ts’ekw’unshun kws qututhun (walk quietly with respect and care along the shore). Guided artist-scientist walk along Hwlhits’um (Brunswick Point) in collaboration with Hwlitsum First Nation.
COPPER RIVER DELTA SHOREBIRD FESTIVAL
4 May 2024, Cordova Alaska
Amy-Claire Huestis and Kim Trainor present their community project from the Coast Salish territories of the Fraser River, “walk quietly: ts’ekw’unshun kws qututhun (walk quietly with respect and care along the shore),” a curated guided walk situated at Hwlhits’um (Brunswick Point in Delta, British Columbia)—a key shorebird stopover site along the Pacific Flyway and feeding ground of the Western Sandpiper. The project shares diverse perspectives of this magical place, told by scientists, artists, and Hwlistsum and Cowichan knowledge holders. It brings attention to the threat to the Western Sandpiper due to the approved expansion of a shipping terminal at the site. https://walkquietly.ca At the Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival, Cordova, Alaska, Saturday 4 May 2024 at 5pm.
REELPoetry/HoustonTX2024. Wednesday 3 April 2024.
Launch of A blueprint for survival (Guernica Editions, 2024). (Vancouver / New Westminster)
TUESDAY 19th MARCH, 4pm to 6pm. Featuring poetry films with soundtracks by Hazel Fairbairn. Location: the Amelia Douglas Gallery, Douglas College, 4th Floor North, 700 Royal Avenue, New Westminster.
Publication of A blueprint for survival (Guernica Editions, 2024) — 19th March 2024
My fourth book of poetry, A blueprint for survival, appeared on 19th March 2024.
Watery Ecologies / ASLE Spotlight / New work in Ecocriticism and the Environmental Humanities. December 2023
I presented my poetry film “Hwlhits’um | signs” on Friday 1 December at 10am PST (1pm EST) as part of the ASLE Spotlight / New work in Ecocriticism and the Environmental Humanities: “Watery Ecologies.” “Hwlhits’um | signs” was created with the guidance of Hwlitsum First Nation and Hul’q’umi’num language speakers: deep gratitude to Chief Jim Hornbrook, Knowledge Holder Lindsey Wilson, and Hul’q’umi’num speaker Jared Qwustenuxun Williams. Fellow presenters were Jeremy Chow, “The Queerness of Water”; Tania Haberland, “The Torrid Zone”; and Sofia Varino and May Joseph, “Aquatopia: Climate Interventions.”
Midwest Video Poetry Fest 2023
Lentil was chosen as one of 29 films in the two-day festival, which took place on Saturday, October 14th and Sunday October 15th 2023 at Arts +Literature Laboratory in Madison, WI. The festival also screened “Lentil” for the month of November on their YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/ArtLitLab.
Reading with Maureen Hynes at the poetry launch of her new book, Take the Compass
Monday 2nd October at 6pm
Massy Arts Society, 23 East Pender Street
Dead Poets Reading Series
Sunday, 10th September at 3pm
Massy Arts Society
23 East Pender Street
Drumshanbo Written Word Poetry Film Festival, 2023.
Poetry film “Tardigrade” screened Friday 25th August at 8pm in Drumshanbo County Leitrim, Ireland.
Poetry in the Park, Queen’s Park Bandshell, Wednesday 9 August, 630pm to 830pm featuring Kim Trainor and Elliott Slinn (Poet Laureate), with host SheLa Nefertiti Morrison
ASLE + AESS Conference: Reclaiming the Commons, July 9-12, 2023
Screening of “Hwlhits’um | Signs.”
SFU Lunch Poems:
Wednesday 17 May @12pm
Featured poets Kim Trainor and Megan Jones: register at Eventbrite
Spoken INK Reading Series: Featured poet Kim Trainor, Sunday 16 April @12pm
Delta UNBOUND
Literary Festival:
Saturday 15 April all day
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- “What is it like to be a tree? A workshop to explore being evergreen and deciduous.” Poetry Workshop: Register at Eventbrite!
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- Screening of “Hwlhits’um | signs”
28 March 2023
Publication date of A thin fire runs through me
(icehouse poetry / Gooselane Editions)
Poets Corner Reading Series:
15 March 2023 @7:30pm. Featured poets Kim Trainor and Dominique Bernier-Cormier.In person at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Yaletown) or by Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/2hjazhze
28 September 2022: Performance of Ledi for Arts in the Afternoon, Douglas College.
Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2022:
SARS-CoV-2 screening in person and virtually
as part of “As the wind is breathing” showcase :
Explorations and exploitations of sound—the sound of words, the sound of anxiety, the sound of abstraction. This showcase features works that bring ancient poetic traditions of musicality and rhythm to a contemporary foreground across Super 8 footage, paintings, performance, and animation. Some skim the surface of music video buoyancy, some are a discordant choreography of the senses, all use audio as integral to the experience of language.
Watch online, 21 April through 1 May; watch in person, 11 April through 29 April (Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm), at Jack Straw Cultural Center, Seattle, WA.
About this event
• choose a tree from a selection of resources brought to the session (reference books, colour photocopies of specific trees, descriptions of their Indigenous uses);
• gather images, words, and ideas we want to use in our tree poem;
• tie our tree poems gently to the branches of a local tree to create an art installation.
Facilitator: Kim Trainor
Wednesday 24th November 2021: Seeds of Change: A Poetry Reading with Renee Sarojini Saklikar and Kim Trainor, DCFA Climate Emergency Speaker Series No.2.
21st + 28th November, 2021: Screening of Tardigrade in Det Poetiske Fonotek’s Nature and Culture — International Poetry Film Festival.
October, 2021: Three response performances of my poetry-film assemblage Ledi (Book*Hug 2018) with fiddler/composer Hazel Fairbairn at the New Media Gallery, New Westminster. Assembly features films by Turner Prize winner Elizabeth Price (“A Restoration”) and visual artist Fiona Tan (“Archive”), as well as a spatial sound installation by the Swiss artist Zimoun.
Wednesday 16 June, 2021. SFU Lunch Poems. Featured Reader with David Ly. Click on image to register!
6 June 2021. Screening of Ghost. Poetry film based on Ledi at the 9th International Video Poetry Festival, which is hosted by +the Institute [for Experimental Art] in Athens, Greece. Musical score by Hazel Fairbairn.
Debuts this Sunday! You can check out the program here and the online screening platform here.
Wednesday 19 May, 2021. Poets Corner Reading Series. Ecopoetry. Featured Reader with Adam Dickinson. Click on the poster to register!
19-22 November 2020. Screening of “Integument.” Poetry Film based on Ledi at ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, Germany. Musical score by Hazel Fairbairn.
Wednesday 28th October 2020 @430pm. Authors’ Reading: Celebrating Women’s History Month: Screening of “Ghost,” a poetry film excerpted from Ledi, with musician Hazel Fairbairn. Register here.
Art Song Lab 2020 Virtual Premier of Art Song Lab compositions are posted on YouTube. “Blackmud.” Yi-Ning Lo, composer; Kim Trainor, words.
Sunday, 12 July 2020, 3pm: Pop-up poetry reading with Kevin Spenst outside the Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood Pub, East Vancouver (3728 Clark Drive, corner of Clark and Kingsway, one block west of Knight). Please join us!!! 😦 I had to cancel due to feeling sick + self-quarantining!
VIRTUAL POETRY READING this Tuesday 7 July at 630pm!! Art Song Lab 2020’s ONLINE Poetry Reading hosted by Aislinn Hunter and Massy Books. Join Art Song Lab 2020 Guest Poet Aislinn Hunter and the 2020 ASL poets for an evening of poetry readings online through Massy Books! With readings by: Bill Evans, Carrie Jenkins, Angela Rebrec, Anne de Nada, Tawahum Bige, Kim Trainor, Dawna Silver.
Thursday 11th June, 2020. 6-7:30pm. EST. (3pm Pacific!) Virtual Zoom reading. Poetry Matters, McGill University. Tact, Distance, Excavation: An Evening with Jason Camlot, Avleen K. Mokha, and Kim Trainor. The recording of this event can be accessed here: McGill’s Poetry Matters Audio and Visual Archive.
Sunday, 19th April, 2020. 2-4 pm.POSTPONED!! Writers’ Showcase, Vancouver Public Library. Reading from Ledi. Montalbano Family Theatre, Level 8.
Wednesday, 17 June, 2020, 12pm -1pm: POSTPONED! SFU Lunch Poems, Teck Gallery, SFU Vancouver Campus — Reading with Billy-Ray Belcourt.
Friday, 15th March, 2019, 7:30pm–9:30pm : The Poetry EnJAMbment, Growing Room 2019, Vancouver, Red Gate Revue Stage, 1601 Johnston Street (Granville Island)
Saturday, 17th November, 2018, 6:30pm: New Dominion Reading Series #19, Vancouver: “Our features will be Carlie Blume, Aaron Chan and Kim Trainor. Join us in the Sun Wah Building in FLEX SPACE 308 at 268 Keefer Street in the new BC Artscape Project in Chinatown.”
Saturday, 3 November, 2018, 7pm: Reading at Librairie Drawn and Quarterly in Montreal, QC
Thursday, 1 November, 2018: Book*hug Fall 2018 Launch Party, Toronto, ON With readings by Mark Truscott, Kim Trainor, Alex Leslie, Gwen Benaway, Hana Shafi and more. More information coming soon. The Garrison, 7-11 pm.
Sunday, 14 October, 2018: Vancouver Double Book Launch: Kim Trainor, Ledi (Book*hug) and Jennifer Zilm, The Missing Field (Guernica). At Hood29 (formerly the Cottage Bistro,) 530-8pm.
Wednesday, 10 October, 2018: Guest poet on CFRO Co-op Radio‘s Wax Poetic
January 26, 2018: Planet Earth Poetry, Victoria, BC.
19 October 2017: Single Onion Reading Series, Calgary, Alberta. Shelf Life Books, 7pm.
Saturday 29 April 2017: Authors for Indies at the People’s Co-op Bookstore, Vancouver. 2 to 4pm.
March 18th – 19th, 2016: WordsThaw 2016 & Words on Ice, Victoria, BC
–Friday 18th March, 7:30: Words on Ice: An Evening of Readings featuring Jordan Abel, M.A.C. Farrant, Stella Harvey, Jeremy Loveday, Elizabeth May, Molly Peacock,Laura Trunkey, Kim Trainor, and J.D. Zapf; hosted by Yvonne Blomer and John Barton
–Saturday 19th March, 1:30 to 3:30: “The Investigative Poet: Observer, Researcher, Analyst”: panel discussion with Kim Trainor, Arleen Paré, and Kyeren Regehr; moderator Anita Lahey
March 20th, 2016, 2pm: Poetry New West, featured poet
–at Original’s Mexican Restaurant, New West skytrain station
February 19th – 21st, 2016: Galiano Literary Festival 2016
–Saturday, 20th February at 12:45pm: George Stanley with Kim Trainor
Friday, 12th February 2016: Flywheel Reading Series, Pages on Kensington, Calgary.
–Rael Xavier Bischoff, Nikki Sheppy, Kim Trainor
Wednesday, 10th February 2016: Pivot Readings, Toronto
–readings with Madhur Anand, Trevor Cole, Lana Pesch, & Kim Trainor
Tuesday, February 9th 2016: Reading followed by discussion with Maureen Hynes at 19 Biggar Avenue (Oakwood & St. Clair West), Toronto; 7:30 pm
Wednesday, 18th November 2015 at 6:30pm: launch of Karyotype
—at the Cottage Bistro: 4468 Main Street (at 27th ave)
Tuesday, 6th October, 2015 at 5pm: Prince George, Books and Company–Cafe Voltaire
–Poetry Reading with Jane Munro and Kim Trainor
Saturday, 3rd October, 2015: Dawson Creek, Diamond Willow Retreat, 6pm
Saturday, 3rd October: Fort St. John Public Library, 2:30pm
Sunday, 27th September 2015: Word Vancouver festival, 12pm on the Poetry Bus.
–“A Hint of History” with Kim Trainor, Philip Resnick, Sandy Shreve, and Daphne Marlatt
Friday, 14th May 2015: Planet Earth Poetry Series: Best Canadian Poetry in English 2014.
–Victoria, 7:30pm: readings from west coast poets appearing in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2014.
Sunday 29th March 2015: Best Canadian Poetry Seminar 2015: ‘The Investigative Poet’ with Anita Lahey.
–Toronto, via Skype: panel discussion with Rob Winger and Anita Lahe
kim trainor 
Kim, I left Galiano without getting contact information for you and so I hope you read this. The first thing I thought, when I woke this morning, was: I didn’t ask Kim if she’s heard Iris DeMent’s The Trackless Woods? Her settings of some Akhmatova’s poems? I think it’s ravishing and wonder if you’ve heard the suite?
Theresa, I’ll send you an email shortly — no, I haven’t heard the DeMent suite — I will search for it!