Josephine LoRe
poet, writer and photographer
... a pearl in this diamond world
I respectfully and humbly acknowledge that I live and create on land traditionally inhabited and traversed for centuries by the Piikani, Siksika, Kainai, Tsuut'ina and Nakota peoples, their antecedents and their descendants. I am grateful to the peoples who first brought language and poetry to this land, and engage to embody their values and sense of oneness with the Earth.
Her childhood dream was to become a writer. Her first publication at age 12 appeared in the Toronto Gladstone Library collection. Josephine went on to win the Norma Epstein Prize for Creative Writing in her third year at University College (University of Toronto) for her first collection of poetry.
Josephine 's poems are rooted in and inspired by nature and family, and contain lyricism and depth. Her writing oftentimes reveals an underlying universality and echoes with truth.
Carmel, California, 2015
Josephine has published three collections: Unity, which integrates her photographs, poetry and prose; The Cowichan Series, a Calgary Herald bestseller written on and inspired by the spectacular Cowichan valley on Vancouver Island; and In My Father's House, poetry of family and place.
Individual poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies on four continents, fifteen countries and in five languages. She has also published a number of short stories.
Josephine has extended poetic connections around the globe and is active in numerous poetic societies in Canada and abroad. She is a member of The League of Canadian Poets, Haiku Canada, the Writers' Guild of Alberta, the Alexandra Writers' Center Society, Parkland Poets, the Stroll of Poets, Cultivating Voices Online Live Poetry, and Brownstone Poets.
Josephine enjoys collaborating with artists and writers, and her poetry has been read on stage and in international Zoom rooms, put to music, danced, and integrated into paintings & visual art. Beyond writing, Josephine has taught numerous workshops both live and online, served as editor, judge, and mentor.
excerpt from 'Minus the Killing'
published in the 2020
Pandemic Poems Anthology
I discover I like the dark
walking in the rain
the song of the birds in the morning
All their voices
the questions of the robin
The bossy crow
the tapping and flicker
on the side of my house
My favourite time is dusk
when the sky mutates
from cornflower to periwinkle
And robins again ask
The same questions
I keep my bedroom windows open
for news of the birds
barbecue sauce , the burning of wood
