Canadian Poetry Today: Introductions and the Laurier Poetry Series
Sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Recorded on 04/03/2023
Posted in The Authority File
Episode 307
With the rise of “insta poetry” and young poets taking up a (small, but present!) section of everyone’s local Barnes & Noble, you might assume that awareness and appreciation for poetry in today’s youth is alive and well. And while those factors are significant for boosting sales and public engagement in contemporary and traditional poetry, garnering interest in the classroom is a different matter.
As Tanis MacDonald, General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series, explains, poetry collections often do not stay in print. This presents a problem, as teaching from a volume of poetry creates a much richer educational experience for the reader than single poems. To fill this gap in academia, the Laurier Poetry Series emerged in the early 2000s. The Series publishes selected poetry series spanning years of a poet’s work with a scholarly and historical overview of each poet to help introduce young academics or a general audience to the text. In this four-part series, we speak with Tanis about the impact of the Laurier Poetry Series, teaching poetry in today’s age, and her own work as a writer and poet.
In this first episode, Tanis discusses her past research as an elegy specialist and her time as a support worker in at-risk communities, in addition to her current teaching role in English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Tanis also provides background on the Laurier Poetry Series, exploring its aim to make poetry accessible to undergraduates and available in print—her first task as editor was to create a collection for Canadian feminist poet Lillian Allen. Last, she underscores the importance of having physical books of poetry available to students in order to support the authors and strengthen interest in poetry as an art form.
About the guest:
Tanis MacDonald
Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies
Wilfrid Laurier University
Tanis MacDonald (she/her) is a Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. She is the author of three books of non-fiction and four books of poetry, and she is the General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series. Her book The Daughter’s Way: Canadian Women’s Paternal Elegies was a finalist for the 2012 ACQL Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism. She is the host and Artistic Director of Watershed Writers, a radio documentary and podcast that champions writers living and working in the Grand River Region in southwestern Ontario, traditional Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee territories. Her latest book, Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female, received an Honourable Mention in the 2022 Betsy Warland Between Genres competition.
Enjoy the conversation? Listen to the rest of series:
- Teaching, Expanding, and Advocating for Poetry Courses
- The Art and Artist
- Contemporary Poets, Hyperlocal Literature, and Straggle
Check out our previous series with Wilfrid Laurier University Press:
– Animal Studies, Postcolonial Literature, and Multispecies Modernity
– Unpacking the Personal Library
– Cultivating Indigenous Studies
– Michelle Porter and the Métis Way
– Looking at Community Music
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