Poems for Peace Video of Sharon Thesen
Sharon Thesen is a Canadian poet, writer and editor who has been living since 2003 in Okanagan country in the British Columbia interior, five hours east of Vancouver. A retired university professor, Sharon studied at Simon Fraser University and began her teaching career in 1975 at Capilano College in North Vancouver. After moving to the Okanagan, she taught creative writing at UBC Okanagan. Sharon has been involved for many years in the Vancouver and Canadian poetry scene, publishing her first book of poetry, Artemis Hates Romance, in 1980. Thirteen more books of poetry have followed since, three of them being nominated for Governor General’s Awards:. Confabulations, in 1984; The Beginning of the Long Dash, 1987; and The Good Bacteria, 2006. Sharon is also an accomplished editor. In 1982, she edited The Vision Tree, an anthology of poems by Canadian poet Phyllis Webb which won a Governor General’s Award. Sharon edited two editions of The New Long Poem Anthology, in 1991 and 2001, collections of long poems; longer works; sequential poems; extended poems; and serial, lengthy or longish poems by Canadian poets. From 2001 to 2005, Sharon edited The Capilano Review, an art and literary magazine. Sharon’s most recent book of her own poetry is The Receiver, 2017. In 2021, Sharon published The Wig-Maker, a searing tale of abuse, neglect and healing told by Janet Gallant which Sharon transcribed and lineated into a long poem.
