Janet Marie Rogers
poet, media artist - Janet Marie Rogers – spoken word, radio host
Victoria Poet Laureate 2012 -2015
Janet is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in southern Ontario. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people (Victoria, British Columbia) since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, short fiction, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poems with music and script writing.
Janet has three published poetry collections to date; Splitting the Heart, Ekstasis Editions 2007, Red Erotic, Ojistah Publishing 2010, Unearthed, Leaf Press 2011. She is presently creating a new collection to be published with Talon Books late 2014. Her poetry CD titled Firewater 2009, gained nominations for best spoken word recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards and the Native American Music Awards. You can hear Janet on the radio as she hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV fm and Tribal Clefs on CBC fm in Victoria BC. Her radio documentary “Bring Your Drum” (50 years of indigenous protest music) won Best Radio at the imagaineNATIVE Film and Media festival 2011. She was also commissioned to create a radio art piece by the same company that same year.
Ojistah Publishing (Mohawk word for star) is Janet’s publishing label.
ikkwenyes or Dare to Do is the name of the collective both Alex Jacobs and Janet started in 2011. Through the collective they produced a poetry CD titled “Got Your Back” nominated for Best Album Cover Design APCMA 2012 and nominated for Best Spoken Word at the Native American Music Awards 2013. Ikkwenyes won a Loft Literary Prize 2013 from which they will create poetry based performance art that promote the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture.
