Di Brandt
Di Brandt often stylized as di brandt, is a Canadian poet and scholar from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She became Winnipeg's first Poet Laureate in 2018.
Life and career
Brandt grew up in Reinland, a Mennonite farming village in southern Manitoba near Winkler. Her first volume of poetry questions i asked my mother was published by Turnstone Press in 1987. Since then she has published seven more volumes of poetry, as well as literary criticism. Brandt earned a Bachelor of Theology from the Canadian Mennonite Bible College in 1972. In 1975 earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Manitoba before going on to earn a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto in 1976. She earned her PhD in Canadian literature from the University of Manitoba in 1993, and has also taught Canadian literature and creative writing. She was poetry editor at Prairie Fire Magazine and Contemporary Verse 2 during the 1980s and 1990s. She also served as Manitoba and Prairie Rep at the League of Canadian Poets National Council and the Writers' Union of Canada National Council. In 2018, she became the first Poet Laureate of Winnipeg, a position she held through 2019, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by MacEwan University in 2021.Awards and recognition
- Gerald Lampert Award for "best first book of poetry in Canada," for questions i asked my mother.
- McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award for Agnes in the sky.
- CAA National Poetry Prize for Jerusalem, beloved.
- Foreword Gold Medal for Fiction for Watermelon Syrup.
- Gabrielle Roy Prize for "best book of literary criticism in Canada," with Barbara Godard, for Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women's Poetry.
- Brandon University President's Medal for Research, Teaching and Service 2011.
- Canada Research Chair in Literature and Creative Writing, Brandon University, 2005–2011.
- SSHRC Research Fellow, University of Alberta, 1996–1998.
- Research Excellence Award, University of Windsor, 2006.
- Gold Medal for Exceptional Service to Brandon University, 2009.
- Research Fellow, Ledig House, New York, 2004.
- Research Fellow, Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, 1999.
- Research Fellow, Chateau de Lavigny, Switzerland, 2001.
- Research Fellow, Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, 2006.
- Governor General's Award for Poetry nomination, for questions i asked my mother.
- Governor General's Award for Poetry nomination, for Jerusalem, beloved.
- Griffin Poetry Prize 2004 shortlist, for Now You Care.
- Trillium Ontario Book of the Year Award for Now You Care.
- Pat Lowther Award for "best book of poetry by a Canadian woman, nomination, for mother, not mother.
- Pat Lowther Award nomination, for Jerusalem, beloved.
- Pat Lowther Award nomination, for Now You Care.
- McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award nomination, for So this is the world & here I am in it.
- McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award nomination, for Wild Mother Dancing: Maternal Narrative in Canadian Literature.
- McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award nomination, for Walking to Mojacar, with French and Spanish translations by Charles Leblanc and Ari Belathar.