The Electrocutionist Poetry Launch

Event Description

ictoria-raised poet Danielle Hubbard is returning to Vancouver Island on Sunday, November 1, to launch her debut poetry collection, The Electrocutionist, at the Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion.

Published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, The Electrocutionist is a deeply personal collection exploring grief, family, desire, infidelity and the complicated ways people respond to loss.

The collection began in 2021 after Hubbard’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Living on the Prairies at the time, Hubbard returned home to Vancouver Island to support her parents. During the final months of her mother’s life, she challenged herself to write a poem every day.

Those poems became the beginnings of The Electrocutionist.

“I hope The Electrocutionist reads like a story as much as a collection of poems,” says Hubbard. “The characters and plot points have been fictionalized, but not the feelings behind the events.”

The collection follows a narrative through a mother’s death and the unravelling of an affair and a marriage, moving between rural Manitoba and Vancouver Island.

Hubbard grew up in Victoria and has since lived and worked across five provinces. She now lives in Kelowna, B.C., where she serves as CEO of the Okanagan Regional Library. Her poetry has appeared in The Malahat Review, Grain, Geist, CV2, Room, Prairie Fire, Queen’s Quarterly and EVENT. Her poem “Swan dive” won The New Quarterly’s 2024 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest.

The November 1 launch brings Hubbard back to the community where she grew up for an informal evening of poetry, drinks and snacks, including readings from The Electrocutionist.