Karis Shearer is an Associate Professor in English & Cultural Studies at UBCO where her research and teaching focus on literary audio, the literary event, the digital archive, book history, and women’s labour within poetry communities. Her current research projects include a biography of Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt and a case study of the role of epic poetry in Finnish women’s migrant communities in Northern Ontario. The former study understands migration to be central to Marlatt’s lived experience and her poetics. The latter study considers the central role of poetry and poetry reading practices in sustaining language and culture amongst Finnish migrant communities in North America, with a particular focus on women.