Widely published poet and novelist is named Poet Laureate

A poet who has been widely published in Canadian magazines throughout his career has been named Canada's poet laureate. John Steffler, who has published in the Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Fiddlehead, Event, The Antigonish Review, Poetry in Canada, Queen's Quarterly, Descant and Canadian Literature. The post of poet laureate at least in theory means that he will have the responsibility for writing verse to mark significant occasions.

Steffler, 59, who lives in Montreal but taught for many years at Memorial University in Newfoundland, replaces Pauline Michel, who completed her two-year tenure last month. He becomes the third poet to hold the largely ceremonial office since its inception four years ago. He will get an office on Parliament Hill and $13,000 a year over his two-year tenure.

"As an award-winning poet and fiction writer, Mr. Steffler has been a highly regarded ambassador of Canadian writing for many years," Speaker of the Senate, Noël Kinsella, said Monday in making the announcement.

"His career-long interest in the interaction between people and the places they inhabit will lead to some insightful poetic reflections on the Canadian experience."

Steffler was born in Toronto and grew up in Thornhill. He obtained his Masters degree from the University of Guelph and taught in Guelph and at Sir Wilfrid Grenfell College, Memorial University starting in 1975 until he retired.

He told the CBC: "They say, so far, that there is no requirement to write things on demand for the government. They're just so happy with whatever you produce as a poet," Steffler told CBC News. "But I'm certainly going to try to go beyond that and act as an advocate for writing across the country."

Steffler's books of poems include That Night We Were Ravenous, The Wreckage of Play and The Grey Islands. A novel, The Afterlife of George Cartwright, was shortlisted for the 1992 Governor General's Award for fiction and won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction award.