![Margaret Christakos at Kelly Writers House](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Margaret_Christakos_at_Kelly_Writers_House.jpg)
Margaret Christakos (born 1962 in
Sudbury,
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 ...
) is a
Canadian poet who lives 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 ...
.
Life
Christakos was born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario. She is a Canadian poet, fiction author, literary essayist and creative writing instructor. Since 1989, she has published ten collections of poetry, a novel, an intergenre memoir including photography, numerous chapbooks and has appeared in a diverse range of literary journals and anthologies. Christakos received her B.F.A. in Visual Arts from
York University
York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...
in 1985. She lived in Montreal from 1985 to 1987, settling in Toronto in 1988. She went on to pursue an M.A. in Education from
OISE
Oise ( ; ; pcd, Oése) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,419 ...
in the History and Philosophy of Education in 1995. Christakos held a teaching position at
OCAD
Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...
from 1992-1997. From 2004-2005 she was the
University of Windsor
, mottoeng = Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge
, established =
, academic_affiliations = CARL, COU, Universities Canada
, former_names = Assumption College (1857-1956)Assumption University of Windsor (1956-1963)
, type = Public universit ...
's Canada Council Writer in Residence. Additionally, she worked under
PEN Canada
PEN Canada is one of the 148 centres of PEN International. Founded in 1926, it has a membership of over 1,000 writers and supporters who campaign on behalf of writers around the world who are persecuted, imprisoned and exiled for exercising their r ...
in the political interests of exiled writers and has contributed to numerous poetry publications and events. She was an editor with Fireweed, with Women's Education des femmes, and with MIX: the magazine of artist-run culture. She worked for several years with Canadian high school students through the Writers In Electronic Residence (WIER) program and with adult students in the Creative Writing Certificate program at
The University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
School of Continuing Studies. From 2006-2011 she taught poetry and creative writing courses as well as designed and ran the poetry course Influency: A Toronto Poetry Salon. She was Publishing Editor of the online poetics magazine Influencysalon.ca. She is Associate Faculty with the Creative Writing MFA at University of Guelph-Humber. In 2016-2017 she was Canada Council Writer in Residence at Western University (London, Ontario). In 2017-2018 she was Writer in Residence at the University of Alberta. In the 2018-2019 academic year she is Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor at the University of Toronto's University College.
She identifies as
bisexual
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...
.
Work
Many writers have influenced Christakos' appreciation of literature. She has mentioned
Nicole Brossard
Nicole Brossard (born November 27, 1943) is a leading French-Canadian formalist poet and novelist. Her work is known for exploration of feminist themes and for challenging masculine-oriented language and points of view in French literature.
Sh ...
,
Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) ea ...
,
Daphne Marlatt
Daphne Marlatt, born Buckle, CM (born July 11, 1942 in Melbourne, Australia), is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
At a young age her family moved to Malaysia and at age nine they moved to British Columbia, ...
,
Erín Moure
Erín Moure (born 1955 in Calgary, Alberta) Erín Moure is a Canadian poet and translator with 18 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a volume of essays, a book of articles on translation, a poetics, and two memoirs; she has translated ...
, and
Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...
, among others.
Christakos writes about the fluid and intersecting lines of
sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
and
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
. In addition, she explores
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
and
motherhood
]
A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gesta ...
in her work. She has shown an interest in recombinant poetics as well as in
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
's formal and social concerns.
"Who's Who." The League of Canadian Poets
Selected bibliography
*''Not Egypt'' (Toronto: Coach House Books
Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...
, 1988)
*''With all my heart i heard u speaking'' (Toronto: Ice Floe Press
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...
, 1991)
*''Other Words for Grace'' (Stratford, Ontario: The Mercury Press
The Mercury Press is a Canadian publishing company which publishes literary fiction, poetry, and non-fiction works by Canadians. Mercury has a substantial jazz list and has also published murder mysteries. Books published by Mercury have won or bee ...
, 1994)
*''The Moment Coming'' (Toronto: ECW ECW may refer to:
Professional wrestling
* Extreme Championship Wrestling (originally Eastern Championship Wrestling), a professional wrestling promotion that operated from 1992 to 2001
* The Alliance (professional wrestling) (originally the WCW/E ...
, 1998)
*''Wipe Under A Love'' (Toronto: The Mansfield Press
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, 2000)
*''Charisma'' (Toronto: Pedlar Press, 2000) (novel)
*''Excessive Love Prostheses'' (Toronto: Coach House Books
Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...
, 2002)
*''Sooner'' (Toronto: Coach House Books
Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...
, 2005)
*''Retreat Diary'' (Toronto: BookThug Book*hug, formerly BookThug, is a literary press in Toronto, Canada, founded in 2003, which originally concentrated on experimental poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature tha ...
, 2005)
*''Adult Video'' (Vancouver: Nomados, 2006)
*''What Stirs'' (Toronto: Coach House Books
Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...
, 2008)
*''Welling'' (Sudbury: Your Scrivener Press
In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers.
History
''You'' comes from the Proto- ...
, 2010)
* ''Multitudes'' (Toronto: Coach House Books
Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...
, 2013)
*''Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies'' (Toronto: Book*hug Book*hug, formerly BookThug, is a literary press in Toronto, Canada, founded in 2003, which originally concentrated on experimental poetry and currently publishes contemporary books of literary fiction, literary nonfiction, literature in translation ...
Press, 2016).
* ''Space Between Her Lips: The Poetry of Margaret Christakos'', ed. Gregory Betts ( t.Catherines,_ON:_Wilfrid_Laurier_University_Press,_2017.html" ;"title="Wilfrid_Laurier_University_Press,.html" ;"title="t.Catherines, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press,">t.Catherines, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017">Wilfrid_Laurier_University_Press,.html" ;"title="t.Catherines, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press,">t.Catherines, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017
*''charger'' (Vancouver: Talon Books, 2020)
* ''Dear Birch,'' (Windsor, ON: Palimpsest Press, 2021).
See also
*Canadian literature
*Canadian poetry
*List of Canadian poets
References
Sources
*"The Mansfield Press--Margaret Christakos." ''The Mansfield Press Website''
* Gregory Betts ed.:''Space Between Her Lips. The Poetry of Margaret Christakos''. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017
External links
Official website
* ttps://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/margaret-christakos Margaret Christakosat The Canadian Encyclopedia
''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; french: L'Encyclopédie canadienne) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with the support of Canadian Heritage.
Available fo ...
, accessed September 1, 2019
*http://open-book.ca/tags/view/Main+tags/Margaret+Christakos
*https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/review-welling-by-margaret-christakos/article1388864/
*https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2016/Women-s-Writer-s-Block-Margaret-Christakos
*https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2017/09/margaret-christakos-writer/
*https://www.woablog.com/tag/margaret-christakos/
*https://www.uc.utoronto.ca/magazine/composing-community-margaret-christakos-frames-writing-life-social-pursuit
*https://lemonhound.com/2017/10/10/margaret-christakos/
*https://jacket2.org/content/margaret-christakos
*https://jacket2.org/content/margaret-christakos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christakos, Margaret
Canadian women poets
Canadian feminists
1962 births
Living people
Writers from Greater Sudbury
20th-century Canadian poets
21st-century Canadian poets
20th-century Canadian women writers
21st-century Canadian women writers
Canadian LGBT poets
Bisexual women
Bisexual academics
Canadian bisexual writers
21st-century Canadian LGBT people
20th-century Canadian LGBT people
Canadian LGBT academics