Carolyn Marie Souaid

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Carolyn Marie Souaid
Close up of Montreal poet Carolyn Marie Souaid
Photograph taken in 2010 by Monique Dykstra
Born(1959-08-01)August 1, 1959
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occupationwriter, editor, educator
LanguageEnglish, French
NationalityCanadian
EducationBachelor, Master of Arts
Alma materMcGill University, Concordia University
Genrepoetry

Carolyn Marie Souaid (born 1 August 1959) is a Canadian poet, educator, publisher and editor.[1]

Biography[edit]

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, she studied at McGill University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature (1981) and a diploma in Education (1983), and at Concordia University, where she earned a Master of Arts in Creative Writing (1995). Her first poetry collection, Swimming into the Light, won the David McKeen Award for Poetry in 1996. Her books have been nominated for a number of literary awards in Canada including the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and the Pat Lowther Award.

Souaid's work focuses on pivotal moments in Québécois history[2] and on the difficult bridging of worlds (English/French; native/non-native).[3] In 2010, she and longtime poetic collaborator Endre Farkas produced Blood is Blood, a controversial video-poem dealing with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.[4]

Well known for her activism on the Montreal literary scene,[5][6][7] Souaid co-produced Poetry in Motion in 2004 (which brought poems to Montreal buses[8]) and Circus of Words / Cirque des mots, a multidisciplinary, multilingual cabaret showcasing the "theatre" of poetry.[9] In 2009, she co-founded Poetry Quebec, an online review dedicated to the English language poetry and poets of Quebec.[10] From 2008 to 2011, she served as poetry editor for Signature Editions, one of Canada's top publishers of poetry.[11]

Souaid has lived most of her life in Montreal, except for three years spent teaching in Inuit villages along Quebec's Hudson-Ungava coast in the early 1980s.[12]

Selected works[edit]

Poetry[edit]

  • Swimming into the Light. Nuage Editions, 1995. ISBN 0-921833-43-1
  • October. Nuage Editions, 1999. ISBN 0-921833-67-9
  • Snow Formations. Signature Editions, 2002. ISBN 0-921833-85-7
  • Satie’s Sad Piano. Signature Editions, 2005. ISBN 1-897109-01-6
  • Flight. Rubicon Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9781616-4-4
  • Paper Oranges. Signature Editions, 2008. ISBN 1-897109-31-8
  • Blood is Blood. Signature Editions, 2010. ISBN 1-897109-46-6
  • This World We Invented. Brick Books, 2015. ISBN 1771313544
  • The Eleventh Hour. Ekstasis Editions, 2020. ISBN 9781771714006
  • This Side of Light: Selected Poems (1995-2020). Signature Editions, 2022. ISBN 9781773241173

Fiction[edit]

Editor (selected publications)[edit]

  • Freedom: Anthology of Canadian Poets for Turkish Resistance. Poetas.com, 2006. ISBN 1-894879-12-0
  • Quotidian Fever: New and Selected Poems of Endre Farkas 1974-2004. The Muses’ Company, 2007. ISBN 1-897289-21-9
  • Language Matters: Interviews With 22 Quebec Poets. Signature Editions, 2013. ISBN 978-1927426-19-7

Critical reception[edit]

Carolyn Marie Souaid's fourth collection of poetry, Satie's Sad Piano… is a fine achievement in attempting to explain the importance of Pierre Elliott Trudeau - and his passing, five years ago - for the national imagination. … This long poem is perhaps the first serious effort to encompass the nation since Dennie Lee's problematically Ontario centric/Torontonian Civil Elegies appeared in 1868 and 1972[13]

— George Elliott Clarke, The Chronicle Herald

References[edit]

  1. ^ "12 or 20 questions: 12 or 20 questions: With Carolyn Marie Souaid". May 2008.
  2. ^ "Satie's Sad Piano, by Carolyn Marie Souaid". Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
  3. ^ "October Crisis".
  4. ^ "Duo speak to places cursed by tribal hatreds". Archived from the original on 2012-08-26. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
  5. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2011-01-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ^ "QWF Literary Database of Quebec English-language Authors : Authors: View".
  7. ^ "missing".
  8. ^ Sutherland, Anne. "Words of a Somali Poet on Montreal Buses". The Gazette}date=April 23, 2004.
  9. ^ "Montreal Mirror : 2006 Year in Review : Spoken Word". Archived from the original on 2012-06-30. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
  10. ^ "The other PQ | the Link". Archived from the original on 2011-08-25. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
  11. ^ "Signature Editions | About the Press". signature-editions.com.
  12. ^ Souaid, C.1988. Inuit-controlled School System Clashes With Traditional Lifestyle. Information North: Newsletter of The Arctic Institute of North America 14:1-4.
  13. ^ George Elliot Clarke. Goodison, Souaid Give Nation Voices. The Chronicle Herald, August 21, 2005.
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