Richard Osler

Richard Osler is a 70 year-old Canadian poet and long-term poetry blogger who has led generative poetry writing workshops and retreats in Canada, the U.S. and Italy, and now on Zoom, as well as twice-weekly generative poetry therapy workshops at a major mental health facility on southern Vancouver Island, B.C. Nothing in his previous life as a national business print journalist with the Financial Post, national business columnist on Canada’s CBC radio network and self-employed money manager would have suggested his current occupations. Richard was a finalist for the Malahat Journal Open Season poetry prize in 2011 and 2017 and was a 2021 finalist in the U.S. based Ruminate Magazine’s Broadside Prize. His poems have been published in U.S. and Canadian literary journals and poetry anthologies. In 2016 Quattro Books of Toronto published his first full-length collection, Hyaena Season and in 2012 Leaf Press published his chapbook Where the Water Lives. Richard’s blog and website: recoveringwords.com.

“You have given me the gift of poetry through patience, grace, humour and ultimately love, You are a master at holding space for this new voice.”

–Christine L., La Romita, Oct. 2018

“I’d worked briefly with Richard once and knew he would bring big energy and head and heart full of poetry. He did that and more. The more is his uncanny ability to enable people to find their own poetry.”

–Tonya L., La Romita, July 2017