Poet Laureate Map of Canada
Why does Canada have a Parliamentary Poet Laureate?

Canadian legislators wanted to encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture and language within Canadian society by drawing the public’s attention to poetry, both spoken and written, and to the nature of and need for poetry. The term of the Parliamentary Poet Laureate is two years.
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2010 Griffin Poetry Prize Winners

2010 Canadian and International winners of the tenth annual Griffin Poetry Prize. [details]
We're citizens of the nation of poets. There's one noble nation on this earth – the nation of poetry – the people's republic of poetry.
Matthew Rohrer
Griffin Trust Poetry awards June 6/07
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Poet Laureate Map of Canada

Map Candice James - Poet Laureate of New Westminster, B.C. Roger Nash, Sudbury, Ontario Jill Battson, Cobourg, Ontario pj johnson, Poet Laureate of the Yukon Kristan Anderson, Owen Sound Ontario Roland Pemberton - Poet Laureate of Edmonton, AlbertaBrad Cran - Poet Laureate of Vancouver, B.C. Poet Laureate of Newfoundland: Agnes Walsh Linda Rogers - Poet Laureate of Victoria, B.C. Douglas Lochhead, Sackville, New Brunswick Shauntay Grant - Poet Laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia John B. Lee, Brantford Ontario Dionne Brand, Toronto, Ontario Pierre DesRuisseaux - Parliamentary Poet Laureate - Ottawa Hugh MacDonald, Prince Edward Island Robert Currie, Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan Gary Hyland, Poet Laureate, City of Moose Jaw, SK Poet Laureate of Cobalt Ann Margetson

Rita Joe

Rita Joe

Poet Laureate of the Mi’kmaq nation
2007

The Honourable Rita Joe was a well-known Nova Scotian Mi’kmaq writer. Her publications include Poems of Rita Joe and Song of Rita Joe: Autobiography of a Mi’kmaq Poet. She was a contributor to Kelusultiek: Original Women’s Voices, published by Mount Saint Vincent University’s Institute for the Study of Women. She was an officer of the Order of Canada, a member of the Privy Council, and a recipient of an honourary degree from Dalhousie University and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1997. Her most recent books are We are the Dreamers (new poems and all of her first book, Poems of Rita Joe) and For the Children (2008).

The Aboriginal Achievement Foundation says Joe worked throughout her life to counter native stereotypes, and her poems and songs reflect both pain and hope.

"If you write in a positive way, or think in a positive way about your culture … it will come back positive," she said in an interview with CBC Radio. "I was brainwashed. 'You're no good,' I was told every day at Shubie [residential school]."

Joe was born in 1932, in Wycocomagh, Cape Breton Island and attended Shubenacadie Indian Residential School until the eighth grade. She was the child of Josie Gould and Annie (Googoo) Bernard, and from the age of ten she lived a hardscrabble existence, from foster home to foster home, experiences that helped her decide to admit herself to the residential school, a place most Mi’kmaq people had come to dread. It was a rare example of the child choosing Shubie, "to better myself," to get an education—an example of Rita Joe¹s determination. In 1954 she married Frank Joe, and lived most of her life in Eskasoni. They had eight children and adopted two more. She passed away in 2007.

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