Poetry Workshop

Allan Cooper was to give a workshop on poetry and nature, but he has fallen ill just a couple of days short of his workshop and cannot attend. In his place, Matthew Gwathmey has graciously stepped in to lead poets in some aspect of poetry in the wonderful natural setting of Fundy National Park.

Matthew Gwathmey

Matthew Gwathmey teaches English, Writing, and Creative Writing courses at UNB (in their Department of English as well as through the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre) and STU. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia (BA), St. Thomas University (BEd), and UNB (MA & PhD).

Matthew has been awarded SSHRC scholarships for both his MA and PhD work, and he has won grants from Arts New Brunswick and the Canada Council for the Arts for his creative work. He has been published in major literary journals in Canada and the United States, for example, The Malahat Review, Crazyhorse, Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead and The Iowa Review. His first book of poetry, Our Latest in Folktales, was published by Brick Books in Spring 2019. It was featured as a “most anticipated” book on 49th Shelf, a collection “to read during the waning days of National Poetry Month” in the Toronto Star, an editor’s pick in Atlantic Books Today and a finalist for the NB Book Awards’ Fiddlehead Poetry Prize as well as the 2020 ReLit Awards. Also, he’s excited to say that his second collection, Family Band, is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press.

His research interests include ecocritical approaches to Indigenous literature, post-colonial novels, and Atlantic Canadian poetry. He hopes one day to teach a course on the Canadian graphic novel.