RIP Sandy Shreve (1950 – 2026)
February 10th, 2026
Sandy Shreve, the poet, editor, community activist and visual artist who introduced poetry on Vancouver public transit in 1996, died on February 8, 2026 at a friend’s house in Saanich after a long illness.
Shreve’s initiative to have poetry on public transit was approved after the CEO of BC Transit had seen the New York Poetry in Motion project while he was visiting the Big Apple. That New York program had commenced in 1992 after London’s Poems on the Underground program had been started in 1986, sparking similar poetry-in-transit programs for Paris and Dublin. That’s how Vancouver became the first Canadian city to have an ongoing poetry program on public transit in 1996.
Shreve coordinated the project for its first three years before handing over administration to the Association of Book Publishers of BC. A transit survey found that 85% of riders had a positive response to the project.
Her other “day” jobs over the years included communications manager, student advisor/conference organizer, secretary, library assistant and reporter. In the 1980s, Shreve edited Working for A Living, a collection of writing by women about their work. She was a founding member of an informal women’s collective, SDM (Sex, Death & Madness).
In 1990, Shreve published her first collection of poetry, The Speed of the Wheel Is Up to the Potter (Quarry Press) and went on to release four more poetry books and two chapbooks. Shreve also participated in the Vancouver Industrial Writers’ Union, which functioned as a writers’ circle between 1979 and 1993. It was established to promote literature focused on the experiences of working people and the workplace. The group was founded by poet and author Tom Wayman, along with Kate Braid, Kirsten Emmott, Phil Hall and M.C. Warrior. Shreve would become one of the VIWU’s most energetic organizers.
Sandy Shreve signing copies of her poetry collection, “Belonging.” Undated.
With author and poet, Kate Braid, Shreve co-edited In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry, a ground-breaking collection of distinct poetic forms that was initially published by Polestar (2005) and later a 2nd edition was released by Caitlin (2016).
Having been given her father’s 1936 diary from his days as a 21-year-old, overseas deckhand on a Canadian Steamships freighter, Sandy Shreve spun the “found words” into Waiting for the Albatross (Oolichan, 2015). “Although I’ve fiddled and tinkered with Dad’s diary,” she said, “the poems I’ve written remain true to the experiences he described and retain his voice.” The diary contains a wealth of sea-going jargon and imagery, historical references and the thoughts of a young man making his way in the world. Leaving from Halifax, Jack Shreve spent five months sailing from Halifax, down the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and across the wide Pacific to New Zealand and Australia before returning home.
“Poetry fascinates me,” Shreve told BC BookWorld. “The math of it—that meticulous balancing of ideas, through image, metaphor and other devices; and the music of it—meticulous, again, that selection of words and their order until they sing.
“It’s the kind of fascination that makes it not just possible, but essential and delightful (even when agonising) to spend hours, days, weeks and more honing a poem until it’s as close to right as I can get it.
“Then, after all the scribbling and tossing away and starting all over again; after all the tinkering and tweaking—the relief (if I’m lucky) of still being moved by the finished work.”
Born in Quebec in 1950 and raised in Sackville, New Brunswick, Shreve moved from Vancouver to North Pender Island in 2012. She had also resided in Fredericton, NB; Halifax, NS; North Rustico, PEI; and Bardou, France. In 1973 she earned a BA (Canadian History) from the University of New Brunswick.
Shreve won the Earle Birney Prize for Poetry and was shortlisted for the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award and a National Magazine Award (honorable mention for poetry). She also won a 1980 Alberta Poetry Competition prize.
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BOOKS
Poetry:
Waiting for the Albatross (Oolichan, 2015)
Level Crossing (chapbook, Alfred Gustav Press, 2012)
Cedar Cottage Suite (chapbook, Leaf Press, 2010)
Suddenly, So Much (Exile Editions, 2005)
Belonging (poetry; Sono Nis Press, 1997)
Bewildered Rituals (Polestar Book Publishers, 1992)
The Speed of the Wheel Is Up to the Potter (Quarry Press, 1990)
Editor:
In Fine Form: A Contemporary Look at Canadian Form Poetry, 2nd edition (Caitlin, 2016). Co-editor Kate Braid.
In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry (formerly Polestar, 2005 and Tightrope Books; now Caitlin 2013). Co-editor Kate Braid.
Working For a Living (special double-issue of Room of One’s Own, 1988)
And how could I forget to mention that yes, Sandy was a wonderful and well-known poet, but when she moved to Pender Island some years ago she did some serious photography, then took a painting class with our friend Judy Walker. And metamorphosed into a fabulous painter. Her studio was a wonder of surprises. Every time you walked in that door, there were new colours, new shapes, whole new approaches to art. Toward the end she blended her two loves and produced small folding books with beautiful photos on one side, and a relevant poem on the other. Amazing woman.
Thank you for honouring Sandy in this way. In addition to all the accomplishments you list, she was also an activist and political organizer – for left-wing groups in ’70s Vancouver, and for the first AUCE local at SFU. Sandy was profoundly important in my life as a poetry mentor since I joined VIWU in 1986, my sister-friend and later, co-editor of “In Fine Form.” We used to joke that we were born to meet. When I moved into a rented house in Vancouver with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, we kept getting mail for the previous tenant, one Sandy Shreve. So it was as if I already knew her when we actually met at VIWU. It’s been wonderful knowing her since then. Fare thee well, my friend. We won’t forget you.