BCC Shines A Light On: Janis La Couvée
Name of the piece published by BCC:
When/where was it originally published:
In the inaugural edition of VanIsle Poetry Collective Magazine, fall 2020 – unfortunately the collective ceased publishing in early 2024 although their magazines are still available on Issu
Tell us more about your piece! What is the background of the piece? What led you to write it? What’s your process?
Subsumption was written in the fall of 2016. My husband and I spent weekends hiking in the beautiful forests of the West Coast of Vancouver Island, about 40 km from our home in Victoria BC, surrounded by green and quiet. We were at home and at peace. At the same time the initial seasons of Alone, filmed on Vancouver Island, were aired. Participants had a difficult time with our climate and landscape, yet here we were, as if as one with nature. During this same period there were three separate instances of women, seasoned outdoors people, who disappeared. I imagine them, possessed of a type of “rapture of the deep” because it has felt like that for me while hiking in the forest “pulled by deepest desires to walk on, forever.
How did you feel when it was first published and how have your thoughts or feelings on the piece changed from then to now?
This was my first published piece and I was thrilled that it was placed in a magazine with other writers from the same area. There is often a place-based nature to our writing. I live now in a more remote community, the forest five minutes from my house, I live this experience daily – I feel the poem still captures my sense of wonder.
Is there a specific message you would like readers to take away from reading this piece?
We do not have to be separated from nature, or afraid.
What else would you like to tell readers about your writing? (Doesn’t have to refer only to your BCC piece)
People have commented that I have the ability to take readers on a journey from the universal, to the personal back to the universal. I like to ponder the big questions as they relate to myself, and by extension, to each of us.
Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc)
My website is being updated janislacouvee.com
You can find me on Twitter, BSky and Mastodon @lacouvee and Facebook and Instagram @janislacouveeonline
