Penguin Random House Canada imprint McClelland & Stewart has announced that poet, novelist, and essayist Dionne Brand has been hired in the newly created position of poetry editor.*

Brand, the former poet laureate of Toronto and an Order of Canada appointee, has been recognized with numerous accolades  – among them, the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize for her collection Ossuaries, published by M&S.

M&S’s poetry program relaunched in March 2014, under the leadership of then-publisher, the late Ellen Seligman, and a dedicated poetry board. Brand, who has served on the board since its inception three years ago, will now helm the program, acquiring three to four titles per year and editing a selection of the list. Brand will be joined by M&S publishing manager Kelly Joseph, who will handle administration, and senior editor Anita Chong, who will serve as a consultant alongside Knopf publishing director Lynn Henry.

Brand says in a press release:

I’m happy to have the opportunity to be editor for this great house of poetry. I love poets with strong voices and innovative prosody. The best poetry jolts and shocks, it mines language for what we have not seen, have not heard.

 

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*Correction, Aug. 17, 2017: An earlier version of this story stated in the headline that Brand was M&S’s first poetry editor.