1975
Photo credit
Jennifer Houle

Biography

Ian LeTourneau is the author of Metadata from a Changing Climate (forthcoming spring 2025 from Gaspereau Press) and Terminal Moraine (Thistledown Press, 2008), as well as two chapbooks, Defining Range (Gaspereau Press, 2006) and Core Sample (Frog Hollow Press, 2017). From 2016-2018, he was the City of Fredericton’s Cultural Laureate, and he was also part of the founding committees of the New Brunswick Book Awards and Word Feast: Fredericton Literary Festival. By day he is the Managing Editor of The Fiddlehead and Studies in Canadian Literature, and by night he is publisher of the chapbook press Emergency Flash Mob Press. He lives in Fredericton, NB. 

Micro-interview

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

Yes I read poetry in high school, and that's where I truly fell in love with poetry. Poems by T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats were influential, as well as the Romantic poets Wordsworth. Colleridge, and Keats. The pivotal poem was George Herbert’s “The Collar.” The metaphor “rope of sands” was so evocative of spiritual struggle — it made me realize that an image and a metaphor could be powerful things to get a message across that were memorable and make me feel the feelings expressed in the poem more than the a simple prose passage could. 

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

I started writing poetry in high school but really got into it in university. In 2001 I decided to take my writing seriously by reading as much as I could get my hands on and writing every day. I truly started thinking of myself as a poet when my first poem was published in the following year. 

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

The poet’s job is to observe and try to use language to convey what he or she observes. Within the very good poems are universal truths and records of times and places. All poets contribute to this. Poetry can be political, environmental, or about anything really, but at the heart of a poem, no matter the cause or subject, is precise observation. 

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

“Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The rhythms are beautiful and the theme universal. I am moved by the last lines every time I hear them or I read them. 

Publications

Title
Core Sample
Publisher
Frog Hollow Press
Date
2017
Publication type
Book
Title
Terminal Moraine
Publisher
Thistledown Press
Date
2008
Publication type
Book
Title
Defining Range
Publisher
Gaspereau Press
Date
2006
Publication type
Book
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