Di Brandt

Di Brandt (née Janzen; 31 January 1952) often stylized as di brandt, is a Canadian poet and scholar from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Life and career

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 earned a Bachelor of Theology from the Canadian Mennonite Bible College in 1972. She was poetry editor at Prairie Fire Magazine and Contemporary Verse 2 during the 1980s and 1990s. 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.