Poetry Trail

The City of Nanaimo, in collaboration with Poet Laureate Neil Surkan, is excited to launch the Poetry Trail this fall. Designed to spark reflection and creativity outdoors, the project places poetic prompts along city trails, inviting residents to engage with poetry in everyday life. 

Each prompt is featured on a custom “viewfinder” that frames the surrounding landscape, encouraging visitors to pause, reflect, and poetize their experience in relation to a specific place. A QR code on each installation links to an online form where participants can share their own poetic responses. Selected submissions will be curated and shared by the Poet Laureate on public platforms. 

See poetry submission form below.

Locations

INTERACTIVE ONLINE MAP

Queen Elizabeth Promenade

This is a shifting place, one where elements mix and move.

Write a poem about a change — one you’re witnessing, one you’ve lived, one you wish for. 

Harbourfront

A harbour is a place of arrival, departure, and refuge, but we can also harbour secrets in ourselves.

Write a poem about where you’re headed, what you’re harbouring, and how you’ll know when you’ve arrived. 

Bing Kee Trail

Here is a space for community and cultivation — a zone of sprouts, and roots, and inklings.

Write a poem that plants a seed of gratitude, of protest, of grief…

What will grow from it?

Poetry Submission

Questions?