Clara A.B. Joseph
Biography
Clara A.B. Joseph is Calgary Poet Laureate for 2026–2028 and Professor of English at the University of Calgary. She is a poet, essayist, and teacher whose work brings together poetry, listening, migration, memory, faith, and civic life. She is the author of several poetry collections, including M/OTHER, which received first place from the Catholic Media Association. Her poetry and teaching invite readers and students to attend to voice, place, responsibility, and the lives of others. As Poet Laureate, she is especially interested in helping students encounter poetry as attention, courage, and community-making. Her school visits may include readings, discussion, writing prompts, performance practice, and conversation about how poetry can help young people listen to themselves, one another, and the city around them.
Micro-interview
Yes. I read poetry in more than one language, and I came to poetry first through sound, memory, prayer, song, and recitation. As a teenager, I was drawn to poems that seemed to carry more than their words: grief, beauty, longing, faith, and the ordinary lives of people around me.
I began writing poetry early, but I came to understand myself as a poet more gradually. Poetry became the place where I could listen closely to experience: to family stories, migration, faith, silence, injustice, humour, and the small details that remain with us long after an event has passed.
A poet’s job is to listen carefully and to help others listen. Poetry does not need to solve everything. It can make room for attention, truth, memory, wonder, grief, and courage. A poem can hold what ordinary speech often rushes past.
I would choose a poem that students can carry in the body as voice: a poem with music, image, emotional clarity, and enough mystery to return to again.
Clara A.B. Joseph is Calgary Poet Laureate for 2026–2028 and Professor of English at the University of Calgary. She is a poet, essayist, and teacher whose work brings together poetry, listening, migration, memory, faith, and civic life. She is the author of several poetry collections, including M/OTHER, which received first place from the Catholic Media Association. As Poet Laureate, she is especially interested in helping students encounter poetry as voice, attention, courage, and community-making. Her school visits may include readings, discussion, writing prompts, performance practice, and conversation about how poetry can help young people listen to themselves, one another, and the city around them.
