Dionne Brand is internationally known for her poetry, fiction, and essays. She has received many awards, notably the Governor Generalâs Award for Poetry, the Trillium Award ( Land to Light On ), 1997), the Pat Lowther Award ( thirsty , 2005), the City of Toronto Book Award ( What We All Long For , 2006), and the Harbourfront Festival Award (2006), given in recognition of her substantial contribution to literature. She is a professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. Leslie C. Sanders is a professor at York University, where she teaches African American and Black Canadian literature. She is the author of The Development of Black Theatre in America , the editor of two volumes of Langston Hughesâs performance works, and a general editor of the Collected Works of Langston Hughes . She has written essays on African American and Black Canadian literature.
"As American poet Anne Waldman usefully asks, 'And what to make of
[poetry]? "Do" with it? "Do" anything? Is it part of the poet's vow
to perpetually catch, distill, refine, re-imagine where one walks,
what one notices?' I can't answer for all poets here. As a teacher,
however, I can say that yes, it is our vow as instructors to show
students how poetry perpetually catches, distills, refines, and
re-imagines our selves and our worlds. I agree with Neil Besner,
general editor of Wilfrid Laurier Press, that what we 'do' with
poetry starts with our students. We need to attend more carefully
to what poetry we teach as well as how we teach it. I thus applaud
the efforts of the Laurier Poetry Series, which, with the hopes of
creating and sustaining 'the larger readership that contemporary
Canadian poetry so richly deserves,' has been publishing 'useful,
engaging, and comprehensive introductions' to the life's work of
major Canadian poets. Each of these volumes includes 35 poems
selected and introduced by a critic, followed by an afterword by
the poet. The volumes are intended, Besner argues, to make the
connections between the life and the work more accessible to a
'general' reader ('Foreword'). ``Besner's eloquent, timely, and
practical arguments remind me of Lyn Hejinian's belief that our
poetic revolutions will always be 'local, particular, and
temporary,' but are nonetheless undiminished. Let us consider what
poetry is doing in the world. Let us consider how Laurier's texts
differ, as Besner argues in their intent, from the conventional
anthology and whether they in fact demonstrate the relevance of
poetry to a life. Let us consider, for example, how in the Laurier
Poetry Series' most recent collections, Mobility of Light: The
Poetry of Nicole Brossard and Fierce Departures: The Poetry of
Dionne Brand, we might understand what it means to live. Let us
think about how, through poetry, we can re-imagine who we are as
well as the world we walk through." -- Emily Carr -- ARC Poetry
Magazine, Winter 2010, 201001
"The quest for a wider audience for poetry may be quixotic, but
this series makes a serious attempt to present attractive,
affordable selections that speak to contemporary interests and
topics that might engage a younger generation of readers. Yet it
does not condescend, preferring to provide substantial and
sophisticated poets to these new readers. At the very least, these
slim volumes will make very useful introductory teaching texts in
post-secondary classrooms because they whet the appetite without
overwhelming." -- Paul Milton -- Canadian Literature, 193, Summer
2007, 201003
"Leslie Sanders provides an insightful and engaging introduction
which delineates some of the central themes and dilemmas that
course through Brand's work, and calls attention to some of her
unique poetic gifts. As a reader who was award of Brand, but had
never read or studied her work, I found this format very effective.
The collection provides a broad sampling across Brand's writing
career and makes it possible to trace the evolution of her thematic
concerns and also the diminution of some themes and the growth of
others, a perspective that could not be easily achieved by reading
the individual works. This collection serves both as an overview
and as an appetizer, a small feast that serves to awaken the desire
to seek out the works in their original, organic forms. The poems
themselves are strong and beautiful... [and] constitute an animated
conversation between figure and ground, person and place.... Fierce
Departures functions as a showcase for Dionne Brand's considerable
gifts, and provides a delightful introduction to her range, her
pre-occupations and her unforgettable sound. Read this collection
if you would like to understand why she has won so many awards, and
how well she has earned her position as Poet Laureate for Toronto."
-- Elaine Jackson -- Canadian Woman Studies, Volume 28, number 1,
201010
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