Canadian poet, novelist, scholar, and former laureate
Frederick James Wah , OC, (born January 23, 1939) is aCanadian poet ,novelist ,scholar and formerCanadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate .
Wah was born inSwift Current ,Saskatchewan , but grew up in the interior (West Kootenay ) ofBritish Columbia . His father was born in Canada and raised inChina , the son of aChinese father and aScots -Irish mother.[ 1] [ 2] Swedish-born Canadian who came to Canada at age 6.[ 3]
Wah studied literature and music at theUniversity of British Columbia . While there, he was a founding editor and contributor toTISH University of New Mexico inAlbuquerque andUniversity at Buffalo, The State University of New York . He has taught atSelkirk College ,David Thompson University Centre , and theUniversity of Calgary . Well known for his work on literary journals and small-press, Wah has been a contributing editor toOpen Letter since its beginning, involved in the editing ofWest Coast Line , and withFrank Davey edited the world's first online literary magazine,SwiftCurrent . Wah won the 'Governor General's Award' for his 1985 book "Waiting for Saskatchewan".
Wah retired after 40 years of teaching and lives inVancouver , British Columbia with his wife Pauline Butling. He remains active writing and performing public readings of his poetry. From 2006 to 2007, he served as the Writer-in-Residence atSimon Fraser University inBurnaby , British Columbia.
On December 20, 2011, Wah was appointed as Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate.[ 4]
Lardeau (1965)Mountain (1967)Among (1972)Tree (1972)Earth (1974)Pictograms from the Interior of B.C. (1975)Selected Poems: Loki is Buried at Smoky Creek (1980)Owners Manual (1981)Breathin' My Name With a Sigh Talonbooks, 1981,ISBN 9780889221888 Grasp The Sparrow's Tail (1982)Waiting for Saskatchewan Turnstone Press Canada, 1985,ISBN 9780888011008 The Swift Current Anthology (1986; edited withFrank Davey )Rooftops (1987)Music at the Heart of Thinking (1987)Limestone Lakes Utaniki (1989)So Far (1991)Alley Alley Home Free (1992)Diamond Grill NeWest Press , 1996; NeWest, 2006,ISBN 9781897126110 Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity Critical Writing 1984-1999. NeWest Press, 2000,ISBN 9781896300078 Isadora Blue (La Mano Izquierda Impressora, Victoria, 2005) Articulations (Nomados, Vancouver, 2007) Sentenced to Light (2008)is a door Talonbooks, 2009.ISBN 9780889226203 Permissions: Tish Poetics 1963 Thereafter- (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2014) 33 pp.ISBN 9781553803294 Scree: The Collected Earlier Poems 1962-1991 (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2015) 633 pp.ISBN 9780889229488 Music at the Heart of Thinking a poetry collection published in July 2020.[ 5] A Door to be Kicked: A Radio Play by Fred Wah a radio play script authored by Fred Wah based on theDiamond Grill . The radio play was produced and recorded byKootenay Co-op Radio in February 2022 and won the 2023 National Community RadioBest in Podcasting Award.Banting, Pamela.Body Inc.: A Theory of Translation Poetics . Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1995. Diehl-Jones, Charlene.Fred Wah and His Works . Toronto: ECW Press, 1996. Louis Cabri, ed. (2009).The False Laws of Narrative: The Poetry of Fred Wah ISBN 978-1-55458-046-0 John Z. Ming Chen:The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers . Mellen, 2008.
1980s 1990s Margaret Avison ,No Time (1990)Don McKay ,Night Field (1991)Lorna Crozier ,Inventing the Hawk (1992)Don Coles ,Forests of the Medieval World (1993)Robert Hilles ,Cantos from a Small Room (1994)Anne Szumigalski ,Voice (1995)E. D. Blodgett ,Apostrophes: Woman at a Piano (1996)Dionne Brand ,Land to Light On (1997)Stephanie Bolster ,White Stone: The Alice Poems (1998)Jan Zwicky ,Songs for Relinquishing the Earth (1999)2000s Don McKay ,Another Gravity (2000)George Elliott Clarke ,Execution Poems (2001)Roy Miki ,Surrender (2002)Tim Lilburn ,Kill-site (2003)Roo Borson ,Short Journey Upriver Toward Oishida (2004)Anne Compton ,processional (2005)John Pass ,Stumbling in the Bloom (2006)Don Domanski ,All Our Wonder Unavenged (2007)Jacob Scheier ,More to Keep Us Warm (2008)David Zieroth ,The Fly in Autumn (2009)2010s Richard Greene ,Boxing the Compass (2010)Phil Hall ,Killdeer (2011)Julie Bruck ,Monkey Ranch (2012)Katherena Vermette ,North End Love Songs (2013)Arleen Paré ,Lake of Two Mountains (2014)Robyn Sarah ,My Shoes Are Killing Me (2015)Steven Heighton ,The Waking Comes Late (2016)Richard Harrison ,On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood (2017)Cecily Nicholson ,Wayside Sang (2018)Gwen Benaway ,Holy Wild (2019)2020s
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