George Elliott Clarke and Gary Geddes in conversation with Catherine Bush
George Elliott Clarke: The 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17). A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke, McGill, UBC & Harvard. His recognitions include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize and Governor-General’s Award for Poetry. His acclaimed titles include Whylah Falls (1990), Beatrice Chancy (1999), Execution Poems (2001), Blues and Bliss (selected poems, 2009), I & I (2008),(2008), Illicit Sonnets (U.K., 2013), Traverse (2015), and Canticles II (MMXX) (2020). His latest works are Canticles I in two parts: MMXVI and MMXVII.
Gary Geddes has written and edited more than fifty books of poetry, fiction, drama, nonfiction, criticism, translation and anthologies and been the recipient of a dozen national and international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. He has lectured and performed his work in twenty countries and been translated into six languages, dramatized, staged, set to music and been featured and broadcast by NPR, BBC and CBC radio. His latest work is The Ventriloquist from Rock Mills Press.
Catherine Bush is the author of five novels, including Blaze Island (2020), a Globe & Mail Best Book, and The Rules of Engagement (2000), a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book. Her books have been shortlisted for the Trillium and City of Toronto Book Awards. Her nonfiction has been published in the New York Times, Brick, Emergence, and Best Canadian Essays. She has been the Coordinator of the Guelph Creative Writing MFA since 2008.