Cover Photo Credit: Huy Vo
October 2nd–4th, 2026 was the 23rd annual Poetry Weekend, an event in which poets from across Canada gather at UNB’s Memorial Hall to read poetry and celebrate new publications. This year’s event hosted the highest number of poets yet, with 73 readers in attendance. Local poet and UNB Professor Emeritus Ross Leckie organized the event, as he does yearly.
The structure of the weekend involved a series of six panels, where each poet read 2–3 poems. As always, Leckie brought a large selection of books from his personal collection to sell, all of the money going toward travel funds for poets to attend Poetry Weekend next year. Friday consisted of a special reading series hosted by Icehouse, Goose Lane Editions’ Poetry imprint. Sunday morning was dedicated to the poets who released chapbooks in the last year, with a table at the back where attendees could purchase the chapbooks. Most audience members left with arms full of poetry.
This year there were poems on multifarious topics, including El Salvador’s civil war, the Dropout TV show Game Changer, Black history in New Brunswick, radiotrophic fungi, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gandalf with “big naturals,” and pickleball. What all of these poems had in common, though, was their ability to point to the human power of noticing. A poem is evidence of where a poet has pointed their attention, and where a poet points their attention matters, perhaps more now than ever in a world of Artificial Intelligence and broken attention spans.
Every year, Leckie appoints a “presiding spirit,” an individual in the poetry community who will open and close the weekend with a short speech and a few poems. For Poetry Weekend 2026, the presiding spirit was The Brunswickan’s 2026–2027 Business Manager Jamie Kitts. Kitts’ opening address spoke to the community-building possibility within the gathering, mentioning some of the recent chapbooks she has published out of her micropress Gridlock Lit. While in her opening remarks Kitts took a more calm, relational tone, removing her literal and figurative “hats” from her many roles in the Fredericton poetry community, in her closing remarks Kitts was jam-packed with energy.
In a finale reminiscent of a pro wrestler entering the ring, Kitts began above the audience in the balcony, unleashing a loud outcry to get the audience’s attention. Music played while Kitts ran through the building to make her way to the podium. At the podium, Kitts implored the audience to do more to protect trans and queer rights in Canada. Kitts had the audience participate in her final poem, the whole room collectively reciting, “We all know how to start fires.” The energy was electric, and many in the audience were teary-eyed as Poetry Weekend 2026 came to a close.
Because of the stained glass windows and lofty rafters of Memorial Hall, Poetry Weekend participants have begun to call the building the “cathedral of poetry.” What a pleasure it is to be able to congregate.
