ABOUT POÉSIE MONCTON POETRY
Greater Moncton has long been a vibrant locale thriving with poets and writers. “A city of words”, as Gérald Leblanc wrote, our city is a place where many languages and cultures meet. The unique oral and literary excellence of the region is celebrated in this project: Poésie Moncton Poetry. Poésie Moncton Poetry is a living archive of video poetry that honours poets who live or have lived in Moncton and in the Mi’gmaq communities of Amlamgog (Fort Folly), Elsipogtog (Big Cove), Tjipõgtõtjg (Bouctouche) and L’nui Menikuk (Indian Island). Poésie Moncton Poetry was conceptualized by inaugural Poets Laureate/Poets Flyés, Kayla Geitzler and Jean-Philippe Raîche, as a legacy of unity and literary excellence to be carried on by future Poets Laureate.
Jean-Philippe Raîche · Kayla Geitzler
Poésie Moncton Poetry : Presentation / Présentation
To cite this article:
Jean-Philippe Raîche
An Acadian poet born in 1970, Jean-Philippe Raîche evokes tragic collective destinies, voluntary exile, and wandering in his work. Establishing uprootedness as a symbol of the human condition, he makes the body of the beloved the only place of return.
As a young student at the University of Moncton in the late 1980s, he relaunched Perce-Neige, which would become the leading Acadian publisher. He then studied at the University of Montreal, McGill University, and Paris VII University. In 1997, he joined the Canadian Embassy in Paris. He was initially responsible for universities and then headed the book and film department. In 2012, he returned to Acadia and settled in Moncton, where he spent three years directing the poetry collection for Perce-Neige Publishing.
In 2001, his first collection of poetry, Une Lettre au bout du monde, was published by Perce-Neige. Noticed by critics, the work was nominated for the Antonine-Maillet Prize, the Emile-Nelligan Prize, and the Governor General’s Award. In 2007, Ne réveillez pas l’amour avant qu’elle ne le veuille (Don’t Wake Love Before She Wants to Be Woken), which transposes the Song of Songs to the modern era, was published by the same publisher and received the Aliénor Prize and the Louise-Labé Prize in France. His texts have appeared in several magazines and anthologies in Canada and France.
Kayla Geitzler
Kayla Geitzler was born and raised in Moncton NB. Her adventurous spirit has taken her all over the world and onto cruise ships where she worked for two years. This inspired her first poetry collection That Light Feeling Under Your Feet. Published by NeWest Press in 2018, it won the 2016 WFNB Bailey Prize, made the Calgary Bestseller List, and was shortlisted for the 2018 NB Fiddlehead Poetry Prize and Alberta Publishers’ Award. The CBC has recognized Kayla as a poet who reflects “the enduring strength of the literary form in this country” and All Lit Up has named her a “Rad Woman of Canadian Poetry”.
Kayla holds an MA in English Creative Writing from UNB, has worked on the largest pipeline projects in Canada, and designed courseware for Air Traffic Controllers. She is the host of the Attic Owl Reading Series, the Moncton Representative for WFNB, and a member of Poetry in Voice and the League of Canadian Poets. Her writing has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Galleon, Poetry is Dead, Les Effeuilleuses, Gnaw and Gnarl: A Chapbook of NB Poets and most recently in Thirteen: New Collected Poems from LGBTQI2S Writers in Canada. She has read at literary festivals across Canada and the 2019 Frye Festival’s Prelude. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming multilingual chapbook of NB Women Writers Cadence. Kayla works as an editor and consultant, so that she can help businesses and writers capture their best writing.
