Biography
Di Brandt grew up in Reinland, a Mennonite farming village in southern Manitoba near Winkler. Her first volume of poetry questions i asked my mother was published by Turnstone Press in 1987. Since then she has published seven more volumes of poetry, as well as literary criticism. Brandt has degrees from the University of Manitoba and University of Toronto and has also taught Canadian literature and creative writing. She was poetry editor at Prairie Fire Magazine and Contemporary Verse 2 during the 1980s and 90s. She also served as Manitoba and Prairie Rep at the League of Canadian Poets National Council and the Writers' Union of Canada National Council. In 2018, she became the first Poet Laureate of Winnipeg, a position she held through 2019, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by MacEwan University in 2021.