Yvonne Blomer Legacy Poet Laureate Project Unveiled

September 26, 2022

A Legacy Poetry Project has been installed near the water at Little Ross Bay Green, to recognize Yvonne Blomer’s term as the City’s fourth Poet Laureate from 2015-2018. Her poem entitled “Our One Blue Bowl”, has been carved into a piece of Vancouver Island granite and will sit overlooking the water for community members to enjoy.  Much of Yvonne’s poetry is related to  environmental causes and many focus on celebrating the ocean.  Little Ross Bay Green is located on the east side of Ross Bay, at Dallas Road and St. Charles Street.

 

Our One Blue Bowl

Praise this broken world, the blue within it.

Praise water, orca, otter, seaweed, and wrack,

the crow and gull, chip bag and butt, the boat debris.

 

Praise the quick dip in and the skipped stone.

Praise beer cans, corks, broken buoys and rope.

Nod to fisherfolk and trade for tugs, tankers and smoke.

 

This tidal, arched, foaming blue bowl.

This salted, sculpted, cracked blue bowl.

 

Savour what’s moored by rope and net and hunger;

what’s tied by hunger, heat and death. We taste this grief

                            our marbled blue world

 

 by Yvonne Blomer – City of Victoria Poet Laureate 2015-2018

published in The Last Show on Earth,

Caitlin Press, 2022.

Learn more about Victoria's Poet Laureate program.