Anne Szumigalski Lectures 2002 – 2019
Established in 2002 and modeled after the Margaret Laurence lecture series, the Anne Szumigalski lecture series presents an annual lecture from a distinguished Canadian poet on craft, culture, and community.
Past lecturers have included Billy-Ray Belcourt, Louise Bernice Halfe-Sky Dancer, Tolu Oloruntoba, Alice Major, Lillian Allen, Anne Carson, and Dionne Brand, among others.
These lectures have ranged from deeply academic to profoundly creative, and have engaged questions of social justice, politics, and identity in their explorations of poetry.
Lectures are available to view on Youtube, or to read in the anthology Measures of Astonishment or in Prairie Fire magazine.
Billy-Ray Belcourt
2019: Billy-Ray Belcourt | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2019
Alice Major
2018: Alice Major | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2018
Marilyn Dumont
2017: Marilyn Dumont | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2017
Gregory Scofield
2015: Gregory Scofield, "Conversation with the Poet / Who didn't know my aunty--" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Autumn 2015
Lillian Allen
2014: Lillian Allen, "Black Voice: Context and Subtext" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2014
A.F. Moritz
2013: A.F. Moritz, "A Garden is Not a Place: Poetry and Beauty" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2013
Robert Currie
2012: Robert Currie, "Coming (back) to Poetry) | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2012
Glen Sorestad
2011: Glen Sorestad, "Pristine and Startled: Ways of Seeing" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2011
Anne Simpson
2010: Anne Simpson, "Poetry and Community" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2010
Marilyn Bowering
2009: Marilyn Bowering, "Re-Discovering Ancient Springs: a consideration of metaphorical space" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2009
Don McKay
2008: Don McKay, "Ediacaran and Anthropocene: poetry as a reader of deep time" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2008
Mark Abley
2007: Mark Abley, "The Angel of the Big Muddy" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Fall 2007
Margaret Atwood
2006: Margaret Atwood, "Why Poetry?" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Summer 2008
George Elliott Clarke
2005: George Elliott Clarke, "Frederick Ward: Writing as Jazz" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Winter 2005
Anne Carson
2004: Anne Carson, "Every Exit Is an Entrance (A Praise of Sleep)" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Fall 2004
Dionne Brand
2003: Dionne Brand
Tim Lilburn
2002: Tim Lilburn, "Poetry's Practice of Philosophy" | Read in Measures of Astonishment | Read in Prairie Fire, Fall 2002