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 on an ongoing basis starting in 1996, died on February 8, 2026 at a friend’s house in Saanich after a long illness.
Sandy’s initiative to have poetry always visible on public transit built on the first appearance in BC of Poetry in Transit: a 1986 Vancouver Centennial project of a writers’ group she was an active member of, the Vancouver Industrial Writers Union (VIWU). Her initiative 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 VIWU, 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 co-founded by authors Tom Wayman and M.C. Warrior, and included Kate Braid, Kirsten Emmott, and Calvin Wharton among its members. Shreve would become one of 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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Comments from fellow poet and author, TomWayman:
Sandy in all her writing and speech was frank and direct, cutting to the core of the topic at hand to everyone’s benefit. Just as one example, In her introduction to the Room of One’s Own special issue on work she edited, Working for a Living, she writes:
“Work is integral to all our lives; we spend at least half our waking hours at it. While we all need to feel productive and useful, far too many jobs are unfulfilling; far too many workplaces imprison workers in hierarchies, regulations, and attitudes that restrict rather than encourage growth and potential. Freedom at work is an anomaly, job satisfaction rare. While women and men certainly face similar problems and triumphs in their work, there are issues specific to women in the workplace, as there are outside it. These range from sexual harassment, to double and triple workloads, to pay inequity, and they are instrumental in depriving women of the rewards they should reap from their work.
“How we are treated at work directly affects and reflects our place in society, what rights we are accorded, what ones denied. At the same time this treatment both creates and perpetuates discrimination. Becoming conscious of and writing about the worlds of our work can be a vehicle for seeing through and beyond the claims of ‘equal opportunity,’ ‘democracy’ and ‘justice’ in our social, political and economic system.”
Her contribution to the ongoing development of labour arts, as well as to the wider BC arts world and beyond, will be much missed.
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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)
Sandy and I met, she thought at a Polestar party at Michelle Benjamin and Kate Walker’s place, but I think we already knew each other from readings a bit by then. 1990-ish? I had an idea for a women’s writers’ process group, where we spoke of ancillary issues with art/writing lives, such as writer’s block, agents, submission concerns, reception to our work, fear, money/payment/advances/shows/readings and like concerns, rather than sharing and critiquing work, and, over time, with Kate Braid and Christine Hayvice, we formed a group eventually called Sex, Death and Madness. (Note now we would not use that ableist word “madness.”) I remember thinking that well, from a dyke’s perspective, we didn’t really talk about sex or rel’ts, and we rarely discussed death, either, but the group name stuck. Let me think who came on board: I invited Cynthia Flood, Joy Kogawa, the painter Sheila Norgate, Margaret Hollingsworth, Thuong-Vuong Riddick, and others invited Carmen Rodriguez, Margaret Hollingsworth, Bonnie Klein, Kath Curran and Tana Runyan. The group was a source of great sustenance and meaningful connections were formed. Sandy and I were practically next-door neighbours, and had become fast friends. I also became close with her hubs, Bill. We kept up as we both moved to gulf islands, me because of grandkids, and Sandy and Bill to retire. The pandemic hit, and that meant we could no longer see one another, for as a long-disabled person, I went into isolation. I also could not keep up even via online events, bc they just didn’t work for my AuDHD. Alas. I missed her. We were in pretty frequent contact during S’s illness and had shared our art on Insta while I was still there, but our in-person connections had lapsed. I’ve missed Bill acutely the last months and now I shall miss Sandy forever. It’s sad for me and for lit in so many ways. I hope Sandy’s work and friendship is valued by Canada forever.
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.