Waterloo alumnus and nationally celebrated writer George Elliott Clarke adds Parliamentary Poet Laureate to his long and illustrious post-graduation track record. Announced recently, his two-year appointment with Canada’s Parliament is dedicated to the promotion of writing and reading poetry in English and French for all Canadians.
"The appointment is a personal holiday gift, but it is a transcendent, national recognition of the vitality of our official languages and doubly powerful poetries, informed by two great literary traditions,” said Clarke in the release announcing his new role.
Waterloo English grad
Acclaimed for his poetry, fiction and playwriting, he has also won laurels for his work as an anthologist and scholar of African-Canadian literature. He is the inaugural E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto, a position established specifically for a poet-professor.
Collaboration with history prof. Jim Walker
Clarke, an Officer of the Order of Canada, is currently working with James Walker, a professor in Waterloo’s history department, on a book about the late Rocky Jones, a Nova Scotia black civil rights activist, who was a personal friend of both Clarke and Walker.
"I'm humbled and honoured, inspired and eager, to follow previous Parliamentary Poets Laureate in valuing in verse our super-natural nation's exemplary experiments in democratized humanism," said Clarke in a release.
Established in 2001, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate performs a range of duties, including writing poetry for use in Parliament on state occasions, sponsor poetry readings, and advise the Parliamentary Librarian on the Library’s cultural collection.
Story originally published on Waterloo Stories.