Books BC announces its 2025-26 Poetry in Transit Program

Now celebrating its 29th year, this community-engagement project, made possible through a partnership with TransLink and BC Transit, is an opportunity to showcase BC’s regional poets. Each year, we invite submissions of BC-authored poems from Canadian publishers and select 10 local poets to be featured in the campaign. The 2025-26 Poetry in Transit selected poets and featured books are: 

1. “Listening to Marigolds” by Susan Alexander, Bowen Island, BC – Berberitzen (Raven Chapbooks & Rainbow Publishers) 
2. “A Shadow’s Cat” by Jen Currin, New Westminster, BC – Trinity Street (House of Anansi Press) 
3. “he has beautiful flowering trees this elder neighbour” by Junie Désil, Lasqueti Island, BC – allostatic load (Talonbooks) 
4. “Fortunes” by Renée Harper, Nelson, BC – Boundary Territory (Now or Never Publishing) 5. “Mori Point” by Joseph Kidney, Vancouver, BC – Devotional Forensics (Goose Lane Editions) 
5. “On Bouldering” by Natalie Lim, Vancouver, BC – Elegy for Opportunity (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers) 
6. “Eagle” by Christine Lowther, Tla-o-qui-aht territory (Tofino), BC – Hazard, Home (Caitlin Press) 
7. “Freight Train” by Lauren Peat, Vancouver, BC – Future Tense (Baseline Press) 9. “A City Most at Home in the Rain” by Tom Wayman, Winlaw, BC – Out of the Ordinary (Harbour Publishing) 
8. “Do This, Do That: Exercise 2” by Calvin Wharton, North Vancouver, BC – This Here Paradise (Anvil Press) 

  Poetry in Transit has been running since 1996, making it the longest-running poetry on transit program in Canada. Poems eligible for the project must be by BC-based writers and published in book form by Canadian publishers. Poems are submitted by publishers and selected by a jury. The 2025-26 jury included Vancouver poets Evelyn Lau and Rob Taylor.  Find more information about this project at https://www.poetryintransit.ca/