DOUGLAS BURNET SMITH
Douglas Burnet Smith, is the award-winning author of 17 poetry collections. He teaches at St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
ABOUT
Douglas Burnet Smith is the author of 17 books of poems. His work has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry, and has won The Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize. A selection of his poems was a finalist in the 2016 National Magazine Awards, and appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2016. His book Learning to Count was one of the Best 100 Books of 2010 as selected by The Globe & Mail.
Burden, a book of poems set in the trenches of World War I, is now available from The University of Regina Press’s Oskana Poetry and Poetics series.
Smith has served as Chair of the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada, and as President of the League of Canadian Poets. He was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2013, and has served as Writer in Residence at a number of universities, colleges, and private and public high schools across Canada and in the U.S.
He has read widely from his work in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. He is currently the Writer in Residence for the Antikythera Archaeological Project, Athens, Greece, where he spends part of each year. He teaches at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and lives in Sylvan Valley, NS with his wife and children.
Smith’s style achieves the perfect balance of incisive exactness and lyric profusion for the voice of someone enchanted by the rational apprehension of invisible, matter-defying forces.
Robert Levine, Literary Yard
PUBLICATIONS:
BOOKS OF POETRY
Burden (Oskana, Regina)
White Corvettes (The Alfred Gustav Press, Vancouver)
Nine Kinds of Light (The Alfred Gustav Press, Vancouver)
Learning to Count (Frontenac House, Calgary)
Sister Prometheus: Discovering Marie Curie (Wolsak & Wynn, Toronto)
Les Sacrifies (Les Ecrits des Forges, Montreal/Trois Rivieres)
Helsinki Drift (Beach Holme Books, Vancouver)
Chainletter (Trout Lily Press, Stratford, Winnipeg)
The Killed (Wolsak & Wynn, Toronto)
Two Minutes For Holding (Anasi Press, Toronto)
Voices From a Farther Room (Wolsak & Wynn, Toronto)
The Knife-Thrower’s Partner (Wolsak & Wynn, Toronto)
Ladder To The Moon (Brick Books, Ilderton)
Living In The Cave Of The Mouth (Owl’s Head Press, Riverview NB)
Scarecrow (Turnstone Press, Winnipeg)
The Light of Our Bones (Turnstone Press, Winnipeg)
LIBRETTOS
Eight Songs About Shostakovitch Symphony #1 (Bradyworks, Montreal)
National Tour: Canada Council for the Arts
Ghost Tango (Bradyworks, Montreal)
National Tour: Canada Council for the Arts
15 Stages in the Search of Radium & Love (Discovering Marie Curie) (Bradyworks, Montreal)
National Tour: Canada Council for the Arts
The Knife-Thrower’s Partner (Bradyworks, Montreal)
National Tour: The Canada Council for the Arts
AUDIOTAPES
The National Gallery of Canada, The Permanent Collection
Poems Accompanying Selected Paintings
WRITING AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
Best of Canadian Poetry 2016 (ed. Molly Peacock)
Finalist, Poetry, National Magazine Awards
(for work in The Malahat Review)
Best 100 Books of 2010, The Globe and Mail
Nominated, Governor General’s Award for Poetry
Nominated, Atlantic Poetry Prize
Nominated, Atlantic Poetry Prize
The Long Poem Prize, The Malahat Review
SELECTED INTERNATIONAL & CANADIAN POETRY READINGS
International Poetry Festival, Havana
Le Marche de la Poesie, Paris
The Abbey Bookshop/La Librairie Canadienne à Paris
Canadian Cultural Centre/Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris
Theatre du Rond-Point, Champs Elysees, Paris
Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival
Ottawa International Writers’ Festival (Polish Embassy)
Festival Franco-Anglais, Paris
Vancouver Public Library
The Toronto Metro Reference Library
International Poetry Festival, Rosario, Argentina
International Poetry Festival, Sarajevo
International Writer’ Festival, Belgrade
Mostar Cultural Centre, Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Tuzla Public Library and Cultural Centre, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Le Scriptorium, Seminaire de Poesie, Marseille
National Library of Canada
SELECTED LITERARY APPOINTMENTS & ACTIVITIES
Spiti Logotehnias (House of Literature) Residency (Lffkes, Greece)
Writer-in-Residence, The Antikythera Machanism Archeological Project (Athens/Antikythera, Greece)
Selected for Can Serrat Artist Residency, Spain
Hawthornden Fellow, Hawthornden Castle (Endenburgh, Scotland)
Executive Committee and Past Chair:
The Public Lending Right Commission of Canada
Electronic Writer-in-Residence, Fern Hill School (Etobicoke, ON)
Electronic Writer-in-Residence, St. Clements School (Toronto)
Adjuct Professor of Creative Writing, American University of Paris
Artist-in-Residence, Shawnigan Lake School (Shawnigan Lake, BC)
President, League of Canadian Poets