Blowing Up Growing Up is John Givins’ first collection of poems: it surely won’t be his last. John’s uncomplicated style allows his insights – and there are many – to appear almost as surprises in the text. Yet he never takes himself too seriously, the final lines often bringing the reader back to earth. Above all, John has fun with his words and shares much of that fun through a dry wit and eye for humour, even in the most poignant of verses.

Blowing Up Growing Up brings John’s eye for detail and close observation to everything around him, from deep love and affection through the pains and pleasures of childhood to the apparent triviality everyday objects. This is a volume to be dipped into and treasured, a book that time and again will prove to be a joyful discovery.

As a young boy, John showed very little artistic promise, yet he inherited a curious creative gene from his mother’s side and at the age of 24, in the tropics of southern India, began pen and ink illustrations and acrylic surrealist paintings at an ashram, The World Academy of Wonder.

On his return to Vancouver in 1976, he attended Langara College where he acquired a diploma in Fine Arts. He then moved on to Emily Carr University of Art + Design graduating in 1985 in the fascinating world of ceramics. He was commissioned to create ceramic relief murals of sea life for local and international restaurants, businesses and hotels.

John subsidized his sculpting by refinishing yachts, home restoration and finishing carpentry, while concurrently teaching ceramics for ten years with the Vancouver School Board.

In 2019 while walking local beaches, he discovered beauty in random pieces of driftwood and transferred his love of ceramic sculpture into creating whimsical wooden vessels with animated clay characters.

Blowing Up Growing Up is John’s first published poetry collection.

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