The B.C. poets selected for the 2022-23 Poetry in Transit program have been announced.

And for the first time, their selected poems—published on bus cards and visible to transit users—will be accompanied by the work of local photographers.

The Poetry in Transit program, a partnership between TransLink and the Association of Book Publishers of B.C., is entering its 26th year, which makes it the longest-running such program in the country.

(Toronto and several other Canadian cities followed suit soon after Vancouver's 1996 start, according to this article by Fiona Tinwei Lam, who says the whole thing started in London's Underground in 1986 and was imitated in Paris, Dublin, and, in 1992, New York City.)

To be eligible for selection to the program, applicants must be poets residing in B.C. who have been published in book form by a Canadian publisher, who then submits selections for consideration to a jury. This year's jury included local poets Rob Taylor and Evelyn Lau.

The winning 2022/23 Poetry in Transit poets (along with their place of residence, featured book, and publisher) are listed below. (The paired photos and names of the selected local photographers—who entered a competition run by TransLink on Instagram—have not yet been released.)

Selina Boan, Vancouver, Undoing Hours (Nightwood Editions); Joseph Dandurand, Fort Langley, The East Side of It All (Nightwood Editions); Henry Doyle, Vancouver, No Shelter (Anvil Press); Leanne Dunic, Vancouver, One and Half of You (Talonbooks); Gary Geddes, Thetis Island, The Oysters I Bring to Banquets (Guernica Editions); Bára Hladík, Vancouver, New Infinity (Metatron Press); Shaun Robinson, Vancouver, If You Discover a Fire (Brick Books); Ellie Sawatzky, Vancouver, None of This Belongs to Me (Nightwood Editions); Isabella Wang, New Westminster, Pebble Swing (Nightwood Editions); Terence Young, Victoria, Smithereens (Harbour Publishing).

On September 25, as part of the Word Vancouver festival, seven of the winning poets—Wang, Dandurand, Sawatzky, Doyle, Hladík, Dunic, and Young—will read from their work at an in-person event presented by Read Local B.C. and hosted by Lau at SFU Harbour Centre. Go here for more details.