About Fenna Schaapman

Born in Zwartsluis, The Netherlands, Fenna Adriana Schaapman, describes herself as a human polder: a momentary consciousness reclaimed from the shadowy sea of the subconscious and in constant danger of inundation. Although immigrating to inland Alberta at 18 months, ocean tides and what they swirl to the surface still inform much of her writing. She calls her genre, process poetry, poetry that risks wading into the scary waters of reality to discover floating.

Fenna has been a word collector and scribbler of phrases all her life. It was a wonderful discovery that phrases, listed one beneath the other formed a poem! Even when she found out that good poetry was a slightly more complex process than making a list, the poetic form remained her first choice for exploring her personal thoughts, feelings and process. She often says, “writing poetry makes me stay with a feeling or thought long enough to discover what it really means to me beneath mine or others first guesses.”

Journal writing and all the ways to find the gold in the written word has also been a passion of hers for over 20 years and she loves to invite others to discover the magic of the written word. For 16 years she has offered workshops and retreats using the tool of writing for personal growth and for the profoundly amazing fun of it. Many of these workshops were offered independently to a variety of writing communities. She has also been a presenter at the national conferences of Healing Touch Canada, Tapestry of Healing Voices; The United Church of Canada and Inscribe Christian Fellowship.

Her engagement with writers from every faith tradition, socio/economic background and writing skill informs her belief that humanity holds a powerful set of metaphors in common. When we allow these metaphors to inform our conversations we open a path from discord to unity: from darkness into light.

Her work has appeared in publications such as Prairie Messenger and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction.

In 2002 she was the first place winner of the Odes Of March poetry contest with her piece titled, Rachel’s Stones.

Fenna was the 2004 president of The Calgary Society of Poets, Bards and Storytellers whose mandate is to take poetry to the streets. Each year a band of about 90 poets stroll the coffee shops in the Kensington area of Calgary offering poetry in the traditional spoken word format to enthusiastic listeners.

In 2003 she initiated the Writing Toward The Light Poetry Contest and Concert, which evolved into Toward The Light in late 2005 and Toward the Light: Journal of Reflective Word & Image in 2006.

Her first book of poetry, Songs My Shadow Sings Me, was published in May 2005 by if press. It has been well received and has gone through three print runs.