October 4, 2006 Source: :
http://www.mala.ca/media/release.asp?ID=961 Canadian Dionne Brand the
2006 Distinguished Poet at
Malaspina Governor General Award
winning poet Dionne Brand has accepted the appointment as the 2006
Distinguished Poet for the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Chair at Malaspina
University-College and will be visiting the campus to kick-off her one-year
posting later this month. "Dionne Brand is one of Canada's best living writers and thinkers," said
Kate Braid, poet and creative writing professor at Malaspina. "Her superb readings always leaves me feeling I've just experienced magic,
have just learned (or perhaps remembered) something important, life-changing
even. Her appearances in Nanaimo are not to be missed." "In a wide country that sometimes feels thin, silence finds a voice in
Brand," said Keith Harrison, novelist and professor in Malaspina’s English
and Creative Writing Departments. Brand will appear at two free public events at Malaspina this month. The
first is a student-centered event on Oct. 18 from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in Building
355, Room 211. The second is the Ralph Gustafson Distinguished Poet Lecture
on Oct. 19 starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Gustafson Theatre, Building 355. The
focus of Brand’s lecture is Inventory, her recently published collection of
poetry from which she will read. The evening event will be followed by a
cocktail reception. Brand’s appointment to Malaspina’s Poetry Chair promises to be memorable for
all who hear her. Deborah Torkko, Malaspina English professor, recalls the
pleasure of hearing Brand read at a literary festival a few years ago. "Brand’s gift for reading aloud, for capturing the rhythms and cadences of
language, captivate the listener’s heart and ear," said Torkko. Inventory (2006), is a long poem that "bears powerful witness to the
seemingly unending wars, the ascendance of fundamentalisms, the nameless
casualties that bloom out from near and distant streets." It is an important
work, an urgent and burning lamination for our times. As distinguished Canadian poet Gary Geddes remarks, Brand’s "poetry escapes
the stigma of mere rhetoric or propaganda by transmuting these feelings into
image, voice and music." A writer of fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry, Brand’s latest novel
What We All Long For (2005) was published with great acclaim in Canada and
abroad and received the 2006 Toronto Book Award. Works of non-fiction
include Bread Out Of Stone (1994), a book of essays, and A Map to the Door
of No Return (2001), which is a meditation on Blackness in the diaspora. Brand, a Trinidad-born Canadian writer and scholar, currently resides in
Toronto. She attended the University of Toronto where she received a
Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy and a Master of Arts in the
Philosophy of Education. "What I write for is to restore and regenerate myself and the communities I
belong to. To record things I think have happened, how they have survived,"
said Brand of her own work. For more information about Brand and the 2006 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Chair
go to http://www.mala.ca/english/or phone 753-3245, local 2127. -30- -30- For more information contact: Toni O'Keeffe, Director of Communications &
Public Relations. Phone (250) 740-6341; FAX (250) 740-6474; E-mail
okeeffet@mala.bc.ca
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