When I first heard about Neil Surkan’s appointment as Nanaimo’s poet laureate, I was immediately intrigued—but I also realized just how little I understood about what a poet laureate actually is. 

As the end of Surkan’s two-year term draws near, I decided to sit down with the man himself to find out more about his role.

According to The Poetry Archive, the tradition of government-appointed poets dates back to 17th-century England.

Ben Jonson was the first poet to receive a government salary in 1616. He earned his money by performing at royal banquets and writing plays for the public theatre.  

In 1668, the title of poet laureate became official, and John Dryden became the first to hold it. He was appointed poet laureate of England and had an entire literary era named after him: the Age of Dryden.

Today, the poet laureate represents the literary and cultural landscape of a city, country, or sometimes an organization. Other cities around Nanaimo—like Victoria, Vancouver, and New Westminster, to name a few—have their own poet laureates.

Nanaimo’s poet laureate, Neil Surkan, has worked on numerous different projects during his two-year term. These include: the Poetry Trail, the reading series Poetry in the Harbour, curated community readings, Luminous Paths, and mentoring the youth poet laureate.

Near the beginning of his term in December 2024, Vancouver Island University (VIU) conducted a five-question interview with Surkan about his new role as laureate. Now that his term is coming to a close, I’d like to reflect on that sentiment by asking a few more questions about how this role has unfolded for him over time.

Together, we sit on a bench in VIU’s Tamagawa Gardens. The sun is warm, and the koi fish glide across the pond as Neil starts sharing about his life. 

He is an English professor at Vancouver Island University and also teaches a few Creative Writing courses. Neil is a father and an author. His poetry books include Empties, Unbecoming, and On High.

Question: Can you introduce your role as poet laureate?

NS: “My role as laureate, as I see it, is to be an invitation to my neighbours and my fellow community members to consider the place that really carefully crafted language might have in their own lives.”

Question: You have been working on a project in collaboration with the city called the Poetry Trail. Did you have any specific inspiration that you drew from to create this project?

NS: “Yeah, this project actually has a really funny backstory… So I proposed these kinds of prompt-based sites, and they were based on the little flora cards that you can see at Mafeo Sutton in a flower bed, telling you about our local plants.”

Neil Surkan and Jaime-Brett Sine, cultures coordinator for the City of Nanaimo, created the Poetry Trail with the help of joint funding from Park and Pathways. The project is a collection of installations that frame scenic areas along Nanaimo’s bike paths. 

NS: “And as someone who loves cycling and loves good cycling infrastructure, that felt like a match made in heaven.” 

The path includes prompts that ask the public to engage with the environment in a meaningful way. Beside the prompt, there is a QR code for passersby to submit their poems to an archive of community responses available to read on the City of Nanaimo’s website.

NS: “Jaime-Brett is wonderful … She is the person that worked on the designs for the viewfinders that specifically have these little portals where a little bit of landscape pops up. And when she sent them to me, I was like, this is so much more than I was imagining.”

MZ: “I really love the interactive kind of side of it, where I can just go on the website and see what other people have sent in. Those QR codes are really cool.”

NS: “And I hope they will be maintained even past my term because people still send them in and there are wonderful poems to encounter.”

MZ: “Yeah, I think it brings us a sense of vulnerability to the community.”

The first time I heard about the Poetry Trail was through my boyfriend, who works by the E&N trail. He sent me a picture of this installation while on shift, and I thought up ways to interpret the prompt from afar.

You can submit anonymously, or even submit a photo with no text at all. One of these days I might send something in.

Question: Are there any ways you found that being poet laureate has influenced your own writing?

NS: “When I think about how it’s actually changed my poetry, more than anything, it’s just being really inspired by other writers around us in Nanaimo who have taken risks to show up to events—that risk-taking is totally infectious.”

NS: “I welcome that contagion. You know what I mean? To write with an emphasis on wonder, which I see a lot of the writers doing around here. An emphasis on being an activist writer, being political in one’s work, and expressing one’s concern or outrage about the way they see the world at given times.”

Out of the many classes I have taken at VIU, poetry classes have sparked some of the most productive conversations about larger issues. I found that we educated each other, discussed changes we’d like to see, and found ways to express these ideas effectively through poetry.

I have experienced this “contagion” in the classroom many times before, but I also agree that it goes beyond that. It seeps into the broader community. 

“There’s a frankness about Nanaimo that I’ve always loved. And it shows up in the arts scene.” – Neil Surkan

NS: “It has made a totally indelible impact on my own life: to be astonished by one’s surroundings, to care about the history of a place.”

Question: Do you read at community or municipal events?

NS: “Yeah, I do lots of presenting and reading around the city in this role. My maxim has just been to always say yes. My favourite, I think, was maybe the Rotary Club Daybreaks, which started at seven in the morning.”

I have seen Surkan read at department meetings and in the classroom, reciting his own work and others’. The way he performs and his manner of speech feel calm yet impactful. There is intention in every word.

NS: “I read at Canada Day this year, right after the MP spoke. The crowd was definitively not there specifically for poetry. Except for maybe my son and my partner.” 

NS: “So I try to rise toward that challenge and to find a way in without being self-deprecating, without undercutting the importance of that space, but as an invitation.”

Question: What would you say, now that you’re closing out your term, would be one of the most meaningful experiences that you’ve had as poet laureate?

NS: “I curate these community readings, where I give a prompt and then invite people to submit a single poem that they’ll read. We had many readers, 15-20 for the first one … it was on poets writing about the theme of hope.”

NS: “I found it to be such an inspiring night, and there were a lot of readers who had never read before. To really take a moment to acknowledge that it’s an intimidating necessity to be there and to share one’s work in this way—I still carry it with me as being really spectacular, really special.”

We watched the people cross the bridge above the pond, rushing to and from class. 

The interview leaves me feeling like I had just spent time laughing and discussing with an old friend. Surkan’s stories and adventures from his time as laureate helped me to reflect on just how much creativity can do for the community.

I also had the pleasure of speaking with Jaime-Brett Sine, the culture coordinator for the City of Nanaimo and the person who keeps the poet laureate program running. 

She has worked side-by-side with Surkan during his term.

Every time a new laureate steps into the role, they bring their own vision and ideas for the projects they might want to implement. 

“With Neil, it’s quite unique because he had given a lot of thought to the connection to place. And a lot of the programs he put into action related to those themes,” Sine explains.

As mentioned previously in Surkan’s interview, one of his major projects was the Poetry Trail. 

One of the installations is located in the Bing Kee community “Food Forest,” where Surkan’s prompt reads: “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?”

I find the nature of this project so beautiful because it not only presents a piece of art, but also encourages the public to create something themselves.

Sine also comments about the accessibility of the piece, and how it leaves a creative influence even if a person does not choose to submit a poem.

“I think that understanding that the prompt is there—reading it, having a look at the view—you are, in fact, accessing poetry and accessing the literary arts. It gets everyone to contemplate the place they’re in for a moment.”

Previous Laureate Kamal Parmar executed a similar project to Surkan’s Poetry Trail called Poetry in the Park. A collection of QR codes was scattered around Nanaimo’s Bowen Park, and each code led to a YouTube video of Parmar reciting a poem in the location.

Another example is the Hidden Message Poetry Project, where Parmar’s haiku poems were installed onto concrete trails. They were stencilled onto the ground using hydrophobic materials that revealed the poems during rainy weather conditions.

With a new laureate starting their term in 2027, I asked Sine what her hopes are for the program’s future. “Neil has done such a phenomenal job in creating what he has of this program and engaging so much of the literary community,” Sine shares.

“I want to see that continue … with new ideas and new ways to grow the program. [What] exactly is that going to look like? I guess we’ll see. I would like to complement what’s been done in the past.”

There are three more of Surkan’s Poetry Trail viewfinders coming to Nanaimo in the coming months, closer to the North end of town. 

His next Poetry in the Harbour reading series will be held on November 25, 2026, at the Piper’s Lagoon Lobby in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre.

And if you are a seasoned poet looking to bring the community together through your creativity, the application deadline to be the next poet laureate is October 25th, 2026.

I encourage you to use the community resources that are made available by the poet laureate program. 

Attend the reading series, submit to the Poetry Trail and attend the community readings. 

Poetry has the potential to help you see your town in a different light—with a sense of heightened wonder.