Poets

A.F. Moritz has published his twentieth collection of poems, As Far As You Know (Anansi, 2020). 

Vancouver poet Adèle Barclay's second collection is Renaissance Normcore from Nightwood. 

Spiritual Advisor of Algonquin, of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, Albert Dumont has 6 collections of poetry. 

Andrée Christensen has published over twenty-five works in poetry, novel and literary translation. 

Andre Fenton represented Halifax at 7 national poetry slams across Canada. 

Colombian poet Angye Goana was imprisoned for her work defending Indigenous people. Her poems find satori in catastrophe. 

Desmeules’ collections have garnered many awards, including the GG’s Award and the Prix de poésie de Radio-Canada. 

Annick MacAskill's Murmurations is a collection of love poems that explores how intimacy tests the capacity of language. 

Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir is an Icelandic poet and an artist.  

Where Things Touch (Book*hug) is the first book of Bahar Orang. 

A local and much lauded poet, Ben Ladouceur's most recent is Mad Long Emotion (Coach House). 

Brandon Wint's first print collection is Divine Animal (Write Bloody North, 2020). 

Originally trained in contemporary dance, Catherine Lalonde is a poet and journalist. 

Born in Beijing and raised in Saskatchewan, Chuqiao Yang’s poetry has received many awards. 

Conyer Clayton’s long-awaited debut collection is We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite. 

Ottawa poet David O’Meara is the author of four collections of poetry so far. 

Dimorphic discovered spoken word in 2008, and has represented Lanark County at 7 national festivals. 

Dominique Bernier-Cormier's Correspondent was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. 

Poet, motivational speaker, Éric Charlebois specializes in English-language aboriginal poetry translation. 

S’accorder (BouquinBec) by Eve Bilodeau is like playing with the filaments of hope that surround us. 

Gabrielle Marceau is currently completing a book of poems entitled A Tree in Miami. 

Helen Robertson was longlisted for the 2019 Vallum Award for Poetry. 

Irfan Ali’s debut collection, Accretion is their humility. Faith and cynicism, love and betrayal. 

Itinerant poet JR Carpenter lives in Edmonton, where she is the writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. 

The poems of cultural journalist and communicator Janick Belleau have been published for over 30 years.  

For Ottawa poet Jayde, spoken word is an opportunity to reclaim self. 

Jennifer Pederson's poems have been called powerful and sensual. 

Johannes Göransson makes “a language out of the bleed-through” as you’ll see in Poetry Against All (Tarpaulin Sky). 

Irish poet and lawyer Julie Morrissy released Where, the Mile End with Book*hug in 2020. 

Justin Million’s first book EJECTA!: The Uncollected KEYBOARDS! Poems is forthcoming with Apt. 9 Press. 

Kaie Kellough experiments in sound and poetry and has authored two sound-poetry recordings. 

Kamal Hakim is a Somali-Canadian spoken word, hip hop artist, and entrepreneur from the city of Ottawa.  

Karen Solie's most recent collection, The Caiplie Caves (Anansi), was short-listed for the TS Elliot Prize. 

Karuna Vellino's chapbook A Year In Violets is a collection of poems that give voice to Karuna’s experience with love and identity. 

Poet, editor and teacher, Ken Babstock’s latest is Swivelmount from Coach House books.  

Ken Victor's We Were Like Everyone Else (Cormorant Books) traverses humanity's challenges. 

Part of the 2015 Saskatoon Slam Team, Larissa Tarasoff won first place at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.  

Laura Kasischke poems work in haunting fragments and visceral snippets in New and Selected (Copper Canyon). 

Lindsay B-e's The Cyborg Anthology melds sci-fi and poetry, human and machine. 

Margo LaPierre’s Washing Off the Raccoon Eyes finds passion in chaotic liminal spaces. 

One of Canada's leading haikuists Marshall Hryciuk makes a return visit to VERSeFest. 

Maude Pilon's projects involve generous doses of collaboration and performance.  

In her first collection, Maya Cousineau Mollen explores paths of anger, be it territorial, identity-based or femininity. 

Le poème involontaire is Michel Therien's eleventh collection. 

Montreuil is a prevailing voice in tanka, haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun in English and French Canada.  

Berliner Monika Rinck writes poems of pointed social critique. They will make you be more beautiful. 

Namitha Rathinappillai published her first chapbook Dirty Laundry with Battleaxe Press in 2019. 

Natalie Hanna's work has appeared with above/ground press, In/Words Press, phafours press, and Hussy Press.  

Nelson Charest teaches modern poetry at the University of Ottawa. 

PEЯFACT is Nicole Raziya Fong’s moving, philosophical debut in poetry. 

Performer, translator and poet Oana Avasilichioaei writes of surveillance and resistance in Eight Track (Talon). 

Pearl Pirie's fourth collection is footlights from Radiant Press. 

Philip Metres' latest collection is Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon 2020). 

rob mclennan's most recent are A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019) and Life sentence, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019),  

Sara Dignard’s debut collection, Le cours normal des choses, won the Prix Jovette-Bernier for poetry. 

Shawn K went to the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word with a poem called Gratitude.  

Shazia Hafiz Ramji swept up the prizes with her Port of Being (Invisible). 

Rising iterary star Shery Alexander Heinis is the author of Splinter. 

Simon Brown's This Mud, A Word, was recently released by Frog Hollow Press. 

stephanie roberts dreams of a compassion-based society and wrote rushes from the river disappointment  

Belfast poet Stephen Sexton’s If All the World and Love Were Young won the Forward Prize. 

Susan Atkinson's debut poetry collection is The Marta Poems (Silver Bow Press, 2020) 

Switch Bridges was a member of the CFSW Championship Youth team in 2011. 

Véronique Sylvain specialises in literature of the North French Canadians. 

Vivian Vavassis's poetry surges with alert energy.