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One year in: Edmonton's Poet Laureate Shima Robinson

August 22, 2024

Shima Robinson performing in front of August Klintberg’s installation "Love Empire" at the Art Gallery of Alberta, presented with National Gallery of Canada. Photo credit: DB Photographics.

The City of Edmonton’s current and tenth Poet Laureate, Shima Robinson a.k.a. Dwennimmen, has been serving as the City’s ambassador to the literary arts since July 2023. We recently caught up with the community builder, poet and spoken word artist about the highlights of her first year as Poet Laureate and what Shima plans to achieve in the latter half of her two-year term. During her first year, Shima built on her existing practice and carried on full stride to present her poetry to local audiences and work more with organizations and communities outside of Edmonton. ​“Poetry has long since got me all over the place, but at a different level of depth,” explains Shima. ​“I think that’s a really important detail and specificity for me; it’s a deepened engagement with my community as the Laureate. Poetry has taken me all over the country from, let’s say, Fredericton, all the way to Haida Gwaii.” 

The first year of Shima’s term has kept her very busy. The work and the audiences have been greatly varied, allowing Shima to share her words with unions and organizations at annual general meetings and other gatherings, while working the open mic circuit to continue honing her freestyle hip-hop skills at the Underdog (Black Dog Free House), Grindstone Theatre, and River City Revival. She also released her second book, Bellow, as an audio and performance project that she continues to perform. 

Two of the most notable experiences according to Shima, have been performing at North Country Fair, and working with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s WordsWorth summer camp. 

“North Country Fair was a great way to branch out and meet a whole bunch of people from all kinds of places. Even when I wasn’t the Laureate they were having me do tweener sets, and now they give me time to work on building rapport with people out there through the art form [poetry] that I’m most honored for.” With a large contingent of Edmontonians attending the music festival, Shima has been able to connect with local musicians who share an interest in poetry. ​“Those opportunities that I’ve most cherished, I think, are the away gigs; the away gigs where people from Edmonton are repping super hard and we get to showcase what our city values and appreciates.” 

Shima was also deeply impacted by her time as an instructor at the WordsWorth summer camp at the Red Deer Polytechnic where she shared her love for poetry with young artists who believe in the power of words and storytelling. Describing her work as ​“strangely solo,” Shima relished the opportunity to collaborate and share her craft with eager young minds. “[15 to 19] is an interesting age range to work with; 15 is very different from 19. One of the youths got back to me very recently saying what wild success they’ve experienced since coming to my class there. It instills confidence in me about my workshopping capacity, my capacity for managing youth’s attention, because youth have lots of questions, energy, and catastrophes. But I’m glad to be honing those skills and just having a ball. That’s probably the most gratifying of the experiences thus far.” 

With one more year to go in her tenure as Poet Laureate, Shima has several big ideas still percolating. Building on the skills she has been sharpening at hip-hop nights across the city, one of Shima’s ambitions is to create a hip-hop album. Another idea she has been musing is a project at a gallery space in Edmonton. While there are no firm details to share just yet, keep your eyes peeled for information later in the summer. 

One of Shima’s priorities as Poet Laureate has been to build community relationships and engage with different poets and poetry lovers to help raise the profile of the Poet Laureate program. ​“I’m working with the City on library appearances. People will be able to come in and do a workshop or for a couple of hours, like something accessible for youth, families, low budget access,” details Shima. ​“People who are curious and don’t know much about the Laureate program can come to the library to learn about it. That’s not written in stone yet, but it’s something I’m really driving to do.” 

Shima is also hoping to reconnect with the places that helped shape her as a poet: her alma maters Harry Ainlay High School and MacEwan University. “[Harry Ainlay] made a huge impression on me; the education programs that came out of there really shaped who I am today,” says Shima. ​“And I’m a huge proponent of literacy and education. Youth in that age bracket tend to want to be able to articulate themselves about things that are so idiosyncratic, and their willingness to do it makes it worth all the effort to get all the thoughts out on paper. I like that vehemence and attention. I think it’s great to open their minds to the fact that their thoughts matter a lot.” 

While many of these projects and appearances are still in the planning stages, you can catch Shima at the following upcoming events: 

Keep informed about Shima’s work and events by following @dense_verse on Instagram, @denseverse on Facebook, and visiting her website den se v erse .net.

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