Biography
Annick MacAskill is a poet, editor, translator, and educator based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia, the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq. MacAskill is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including Shadow Blight (Gaspereau Press, 2022), winner of the Governor General's Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada and abroad and in the Best Canadian Poetry anthology series. MacAskill's fourth book will be published with Gaspereau Press in 2024.
Micro-interview
I read a lot of poetry in high school! I was quite taken with my mother's tattered copy of Poets of Contemporary Canada, an anthology edited by Eli Mandel, which contained pieces by folks like Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, and Gwendolyn MacEwan. I read whatever classics I could find around me, like Shakespeare and Whitman, but I was most taken with the poetry of Evelyn Lau, an author I discovered at the local public library. I was a big fan of her collections Oedipal Dreams and In the House of Slaves.
I first started writing poetry as a child, around the age of seven or eight. I started thinking of myself as a poet in high school. My confidence grew thanks to an encouraging teacher.
I think a poet's job is to compose (write/sing/speak) poetry. I'm not keen to define that further.
I like to memorize poems that make for good company. If I'm waiting for the bus, or a friend, or a meeting, it's nice to have something familiar to turn over in my head. For that reason, I'd say Souvankham Thammavongsa's "Gayatri," because it's about friendship, but also because of the way I can feel my mind expanding when I consider Thammavongsa's lines. She's a master of perspective. In your French anthology, I'd pick "Liberté" by Paul Éluard, because it's about solitude and resilience, and because of its lovely use of anaphora.