Lisa Robertson (born July 22, 1961) is a Canadian poet, essayist and translator. She lives in France.
Life and work
Born in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, Robertson moved to
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
in 1979, first living on Saltspring Island, then in Vancouver, where she began to publish and work collectively in a community of poets and artists. During the 90s, she was a member of
The Kootenay School of Writing
The Kootenay School of Writing (KSW) is a Vancouver-based writers' collective.
Founded in 1984 after the forced closure of David Thompson University Centre in Nelson, British Columbia KSW relocated to Vancouver to offer inexpensive courses (in ...
, which was a writer-run collective, and Artspeak Gallery. From 1988 to 1994 she ran Proprioception Books, a bookstore in downtown
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
specializing in poetry, theory and criticism, where she also hosted readings. Her first book was a
chapbook
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...
, ''The Apothecary'', published by Tsunami Editions in 1991. Since then she has published nine books of poetry, three books of essays, and a novel.
Robertson studied English literature and art history as a mature student at Simon Fraser University (1984–1988) before leaving the university without a degree to become an independent bookseller (1988–1994). Since 1995 she has been a freelance writer and teacher, occasionally working as a writer in residence or visiting professor in various universities in Canada, the USA and the UK. Her first such position was as Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellow in Poetry, at Cambridge University in 1999. During that time she completed the research that resulted in her book ''The Weather'' (2001), which has since been translated to French and Swedish. Her many essays on the contemporary visual arts, published in gallery and museum catalogues since the mid-1990s, are collected in her 2003 book ''Occasional Works and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture''. ''Anemones: A Simone Weil Project'', her 2021 book, contains Robertson's translations of
Simone Weil
Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995.
...
's 1941 essay "What the Occitan Inspiration Consists Of" and the 12th C poem "Lark" by
Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn (also Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn; – ) was a French poet-composer troubadour of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Generally regarded as the most important troubadour in both poetry and music, his 1 ...
, as well as extensive annotations, an introductory essay, and archival material.
In 2006, Robertson was a judge of the
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...
and Holloway poet-in-residence at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
. From 2007 to 2010 she taught at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. In Fall 2010 she was writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. In Spring 2014 she was the Bain Swigget lecturer in Poetry at Princeton University. In 2017 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, and in 2018 she received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts C.D. Wright Award. Her literary archive is housed at Simon Fraser University Library's Special Collections.
Her first novel, '' The Baudelaire Fractal'', was published by Coach House Books in January 2020. It was a finalist for the ReLit Award for fiction in 2021, and for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the
2020 Governor General's Awards
The shortlisted nominees for the 2020 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on May 4, 2021, and the winners were announced on June 1.
* ''The Barscheit Horse'' with Catriona Strang and Christine Stewart (Hamilton, Ontario: Berkeley Horse, 1993)
* ''XEclogue II-V'' (Vancouver: Sprang Texts, 1993)
* ''XEclogue'' (Vancouver: Tsunami Editions, 1993; reissued by New Star Books, 1999)
* ''The Glove: An Essay on Interpretation'' (Vancouver: UBC Fine Arts Gallery, 1993)
* ''The Badge'' (Hamilton, Ontario: The Berkeley Horse/Mindware, 1994)
* ''Earth Monies'' (Mission, BC: DARD, 1995)
* ''The Descent'' (Buffalo, NY: Meow, 1996)
* ''Debbie: An Epic'' (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1997; UK: Reality Street, 1997)
* ''Soft Architecture: A Manifesto'' (Vancouver: Artspeak Gallery, 1999)
* ''The Weather'' (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2001; UK: Reality Street, 2001)
** French edition: ''Le Temps'', translated by Éric Suchère (Caen: Éditions Nous, 2016)
** Swedish edition: ''Vädret'', translated by Niclas Nilsson (Malmö: Rámus, 2017)
* ''A Hotel'' (Vancouver: Vancouver Film School, 2003)
* ''Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture'' (Astoria, OR: Clear Cut Press, 2003)
* ''Face/'' (New York: A Rest Press, 2003)
* ''Rousseau's Boat'' (Vancouver, BC: Nomados, 2004)
* ''First Spontaneous Horizontal Restaurant.'' Belladonna 75. (Brooklyn: Belladonna Books, 2005)
* ''The Men: A Lyric Book'' (Toronto: BookThug, 2006)
* ''Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip'' (Toronto: Coach House Press, 2009)
* ''R's Boat'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010)
* ''Nilling: Prose'' (Toronto: BookThug, 2012)
* ''Cinema Of the Present'' (Toronto: Coach House Press, 2014)
* ''3 Summers'' (Toronto: Coach House Press, 2016)
* ''Starlings'' (San Francisco: Krupskaya, 2018)
* ''Proverbs of a She-Dandy'' (Paris/Vancouver: Libraries Editeurs, 2018)
* ''Thresholds: A Prosody of Citizenship'' (London: Bookworks, 2019)
* '' The Baudelaire Fractal'' (Toronto: Coach House Press, 2020)
*''Anemones: A Simone Weil Project'' (Amsterdam: If I Can't Dance, 2021)
Selected essays
* "Coasting" with Jeff Derksen, Nancy Shaw, and Catriona Strang. ''Telling it Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s''. Ed. Mark Wallace. (Tuscaloosa: Alabama UP, 2002)
* "The Weather: A Report on Sincerity," from ''DC Poetry Anthology 2001''.
* "How Pastoral: A Manifesto." ''A Poetics of Criticism''. Ed.
Juliana Spahr
Juliana Spahr (born 1966) is an American poet, critic, and editor. She is the recipient of the 2009 Hardison Poetry Prize awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library to honor a U.S. poet whose art and teaching demonstrate great imagination and dari ...
Canadian poetry
Canadian poetry is poetry of or typical of Canada. The term encompasses poetry written in Canada or by Canadian people in the official languages of English and French, and an increasingly prominent body of work in both other European and Indigenou ...