Josephine LoRe, poet and photographer
... a pearl in this diamond world
I respectfully and humbly acknowledge that I live and create on land traditionally inhabited and traversed for centuries by the Piikani, Siksika, Kainai, Tsuut'ina and Nakota peoples, their antecedents and their descendants. I am grateful to the peoples who first brought language and poetry to this land, and engage to embody their values and sense of oneness with the Earth.
Her childhood dream was to become a writer.
Her first publication was in the Toronto Gladstone Library anthology at age 12. Josephine LoRe went on to receive the Norma Epstein Prize for Creative Writing in her third year at University College (UofT) for her first collection of poetry.
Josephine LoRe came back to writing a decade ago as life’s circumstances left her time to process her experiences and emotions through the beauty and power of the word. Her poems are often rooted in and inspired by nature and family, and contain lyricism and depth. Her writing oftentimes reveals an underlying universality and echoes with truth. She feels most successful when her poetry resonates with readers and listeners.
Josephine has published two collections, the cross-genre Unity which integrates her photographs, poetry and prose, and The Cowichan Series, a Calgary Herald bestseller which includes her photographs and poetry created during a visit to the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.
Josephine enjoys collaborating with other artists and writers, and her poetry has been read on stage and in international Zoom rooms, put to music, danced, and integrated into paintings & visual art. She writes in English, French and Italian, and one of her poems has been translated into Farsi. Individual pieces have been published in literary journals and anthologies in Canada (including Vallum, Freefall Magazine, Prairie Journal), the US (Tiny Seed Journal, the upcoming Fixed and Free anthology), England (Constellate Literary Journal), Ireland (The Same Page), Japan (various haiku publications) and five other countries: India, France, Wales, Italy, and China. Her poem “The Tea Set” was shortlisted for the 2019 Room Poetry Prize.
During covid, Josephine has extended poetic connections around the globe and is now active in numerous poetic societies in Canada and abroad. She has taken classes with esteemed writers, mentored evolving writers, been involved in editing for the Parkland Poets’ “Poem in Your Pocket” project as well as their upcoming 2021 anthology.
She was invited to judge the poetry competition for the 2021 Wine Country Writers’ Festival and is on the editorial board for the US anthology PoetryXHunger. She teaches classes in creative writing through the Alexandra Writers’ Center Society, When Words Collide and the Wine Country Writers' Festival.
excerpt from 'Minus the Killing'
published in the 2020
Pandemic Poems Anthology
...
I discover I like the dark
walking in the rain
the song of the birds in the morning
All their voices
the questions of the robin
The bossy crow
the tapping and flicker
on the side of my house
My favourite time is dusk
when the sky mutates
from cornflower to periwinkle
And robins again ask
The same questions
I keep my bedroom windows open
for news of the birds
Barbecue sauce the burning of wood
...
