Tofino’s New Poet Laureate
June 21st, 2024
The District of Tofino has announced Janice Lore as the new Poet Laureate for the term 2024-2026. As Tofino’s Poet Laureate, Lore will act as an ambassador of literacy, writing and performing poetry while facilitating community events and celebrating local poets and other creatives.
Lore has cherished poetry and theatre since childhood, writing poems, plays, and stories from the age of seven. “Writing,” she says, “is one of the ways I make sense of the world.”
Raised on a farm in southern Alberta in a family of entrepreneurs, she moved to Tofino in 1994. She ran an accounting business for nearly 40 years while writing poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction and plays, and collaborating on various performances in her spare time. Despite her extensive work, she still has an unfinished novel and play and is striving to write a poem inspired by a dream about balancing accounting entries.
Lore’s work has been featured in anthologies, literary magazines and on CBC Radio. Passionate about multi-disciplinary art projects, she enjoys collaborating with other artists. She scripted and staged a performance of her poetry chapbook, Ipsissima Verba (Leaf Press, 2003), which is a “found” poem on math, philosophy, definitions and a middle-aged woman’s life. Her first commissioned piece, “Requiem for the Fridge,” was written on the door of a dead refrigerator, and she also creates handmade books to showcase her poetry.
Lore is a member of the Clayoquot Writers Group, Federation of British Columbia Writers, and an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets. She co-founded the Performance Anxiety Collective, a performance poetry group that debuted in December 2011, and is part of The Diversity Project, a performance group exploring universal themes through various art forms. Their first show, Unwrapping Fear, premiered in 2014.
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