Poet Laureate Program

Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan 

The current Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan is Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye (Aug 1, 2024 - July 31, 2026). The current Youth Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan is Dash Reimer (Aug 1, 2024 - July 31, 2025). 

Thank you to our previous Poet Laureate dee Hobsbawn-Smith and Youth Poet Laureate Lauren Klassen for all of their hard work connecting the people of Saskatchewan with poetry in the past year!

 

Commencing in 2000, the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Program was the first provincial program of its kind in Canada. Originally a partnership between the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Saskatchewan Book Awards, the SWG assumed sole responsibilty for the Poet Laureate program in 2019 and is under the patronage of the Lieutenant Governor, His Honour the Honourable Russ Mirasty.

The SWG redesigned the program in 2019 to continue the tradition of honouring Saskatchewan poets and poetry community while adding the new position of Youth Poet Laureate and exciting new community engagement opportunities.

 

Objectives 

1. To celebrate the spirit of the people and place of Saskatchewan through the literary arts.
2. To raise the profile of poets in Saskatchewan.
3. To elevate writing as a vocation.
4. To raise awareness of the power of poetry and the spoken word.
5. To act as an Ambassador for writing in general, poetry in particular and for the SWG.

Criteria 

The Poet Laureate will:

• have a significant body of work, including a minimum of two books of professionally published poetry or 3-5 years of public feature/paid performance history, outside of open mics, for spoken word poets
• have achieved recognition for the literary merit of his/her work;
• have a record of public involvement in the literary life of the province; and
• be a current resident of Saskatchewan.

The Youth Poet Laureate will:

• demonstrate a commitment to writing, with a passion for poetry and/or spoken word;
• have some record of public involvement in the writing culture of the province;
• have some form of formal or informal professional development;
• be between the ages of 18-30 years old; and
• be a current resident of Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan Poet Laureate - Peace Akintade-Oluwagbye

Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye (she/her) is an African-Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet, Public Speaker, Chorus-Poem Playwright, and Thespian residing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Organically from Yorubaland Nigeria, Peace explores the intersectionality of the artist community from an explorer's perspective, dipping her honey-stained fingers into poetry, dance, performance art, critical research, and the theatre world.

Peace has been involved in the poetry community in various ways, including co-coordinating Write Out Loud, a Saskatoon-based youth poetry community and facilitating classroom poetry workshops in classrooms across the province with a number of different community organizations.

Her work knits together folklore, current events, and vivid imagery to create bridges. She is the author of "Earth Skin", a poetry collection retelling the joys and woes of human connection. In 2021, her play "Madness with Rocks" was chosen for the 21 Black Future Project with Obsidian Theatre and CBC Gem. Her play "Painted Elephant" was shortlisted for the IBPOC 2021 Persephone Theatre Commission and debuted with the Black Theatre Workshop in Montreal. Recipient of the 2022 RBC SaskArts Emerging Artist Award and the 2023 Platinum Jubilee Queen's Medal. 2020-2021 Saskatchewan Youth Poet Laurate, 2022 and 2023 READSaskatoon Poet Laurate, Poet-in-Residence with the Remai Modern Gallery for their Here and Now: Live Arts Initiative, and currently finishing her Artist-in-residency with BamSaskatoon, which includes a 46-hour performance art of continuous writing.

Her goal is to introduce the power of traditional African (Yoruba) oral literature, storytelling, and performance art to the growing public of Saskatchewan and beyond, and to make Poetry and Spoken Word accessible to youths by integrating the creativity and resourcefulness of poetry language to music, dance, plays, on stages with thousands, or inside the classroom.

You can watch Peace performing her work here: https://youtu.be/Gc3eK9-CRe0

 

Youth Poet Laureate  - Dash Reimer

 

Dash Reimer is an artist and educator based out of Treaty 6 territory in Saskatoon. He works within the worlds of poetry and hip hop and has over a decade of experience performing on stages across Turtle Island, North Africa, South Africa and Turkey. Having grown up in Mongolia, Libya and Saskatoon, his life has been a collage of experiences and his art reflects that. While Dash is fixed within the worlds of poetry and hip hop, he works within many disciplines such as punk, jazz, improv comedy, script writing, digital art, folk and more.

Former Saskatoon Slam Champion (2014) and National Youth Poetry Slam Champion (2012), Dash has been involved as both a performer and facilitator in the Saskatoon spoken word scene for over a decade and has been a resident artist/musician for a number of camps and high schools. He has received multiple grants from SK Arts to create, produce and perform his spoken word and has self-published two chapbooks of his poetry. He has also co-created a hip-hop program based for young men on the topic of gender-based violence through Chokecherry Studio’s Young Men’s Program.

You can watch a video of Dash performing his work here: https://youtu.be/m5Q9fnKHzeU

The Youth Poet Laureate program is proudly sponsored by the RBC Emerging Artists program.

If you are interested in working with a Poet

To request a reading, talk or workshop with our Poet Laureate or Youth Poet Laureate, please contact programs@skwriter.com with the following information:

• What you are interested in our Poet Laureate or Youth Poet Laureate doing (i.e. a reading of their work, talk about poetry)
• Potential date and time (including length of requested activity)
• If this event is in-person or virtual
• Main contact person (name, email address and phone number)
• If your organization has funds to pay or subsidize the request. Please note that the Poet Laureate program has funds to cover fees and some travel expenses when appropriate but these funds are limited and are first-come, first-served. 

Due to the popularity of the Poet Laureate program, we may not be able to approve all requests. We encourage you to communicate with us at least 4-6 weeks before your event. The following criteria are important to our decision making:

• Whether this request fits within the objectives of the program (see above). For the Poet Laureate, preference will be given to public events that fit the program objectives, over private or closed events. Schools interested in poetry-related workshops may access the Author Readings Program or may request our Youth Poet Laureate.
• Availability of our Poet Laureate or Youth Poet Laureate
• Availability of funds (we have a limited budget)
• If our Poets have already been to your organization in the past fiscal year (Aug-July). Please note that we can only approve one request per year (Aug-July) per organization, ie. one visit per school, library, organization, etc.

Current and previous Poets Laureate

• Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye, Aug 1, 2024 - July 31, 2026
• dee Hobsbawn-Smith, Aug 1, 2023 - July 31, 2024
• Carol Rose GoldenEagle, August 1, 2021 - July 1, 2023
• Bruce Rice, April 1, 2019 - July 31, 2021
• Brenda Schmidt, April 1, 2017 - December 31, 2018
• Gerry Hill, January 1, 2016 - January 17, 2017
• Judith Krause, January 1, 2014 - December 31, 2015
• Don Kerr, January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2013
• Robert Currie, January 1, 2007 - December 31, 2010
• Louise B. Halfe (Sky Dancer), January 1, 2005 - December 31, 2006
• Glen Sorestad, December 1, 2000 - November 30, 2004 

Current and previous Youth Poets Laureate

• Dash Reimer, Aug 1, 2024 - July 31, 2025
• Lauren (Lo) Klassen, August 1, 2022 - July 31, 2024
• Warsha Mushtaq, August 1, 2021 - July 31, 2022
• Peace Akintade, August 1, 2020 - July 31, 2021
• Alasdair Rees, April 1, 2019 - July 31, 2020

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If your organization or writers’ group would like to work with the Poet Laureate or Youth Poet Laureate, we encourage you to read the information in the "If you are interested in working with a Poet" section above, and contact the Program Director to discuss your idea:

Program Director
T: 306.791.7743
E: programs@skwriter.com