Daphne Marlatt

Daphne Marlatt was born in Melbourne in 1941 and spent much of her childhood in Malaysia before emigrating to Canada in 1951. Marlatt was at the centre of the West Coast poetry movement of the 1960s, studying at UBC and with many of Donald Allen?s “New American Poets,” most notably Robert Creeley. Her writing includes prose narratives on the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver and of Steveston and several poetry books. Selected Writing: Network is a collection of her prose and poetry published in 1980. Her more recent writing can be found in The New Long Poem Anthology: 2nd Edition (2000), edited by Sharon Thesen. Daphne Marlatt’s This Tremor Love Is (2001) is a memory book— an album of love poems spanning twenty-five years, from her first writing of what was to become the opening section, “A Lost Book,” to later, more recent sequences.

In 2009 Marlatt was awarded the Dorothy Livesay Prize for Poetry, for her innovative long poem The Given.

Daphne Marlatt currently lives and works in Vancouver. In early 2006 she was appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of a lifetime of distinguished service to Canadian culture.

Daphne Marlatt has been a featured poet on the Heart of a Poet series, produced in conjunction with Bravo! TV. Produced and directed by Maureen Judge in association with Bravo!, and hosted by spoken word poet Andrea Thompson, Heart of a Poet is a hip half-hour show that takes viewers inside the poetry community, in all its various forms, alternate incarnations and unfettered diversity. For more information, please visit their web site heartofapoet.ca

Photograph of Daphne Marlatt courtesy Roy Miki.