The Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild is delighted to announce that GERALD HILL of Regina is the new Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan. Gerry’s term will begin January 1, 2016 and will run until December 31, 2017.
Two-time winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry, Gerald Hill published his sixth poetry collection, Hillsdale Book, with NeWest Press, and A Round For Fifty Years: A History of Regina’s Globe Theatre with Coteau Books, both in 2015. In the fall of 2015 he was Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence at Fool’s Paradise in Toronto. He lives and writes in Regina, retired from his career teaching English and Creative Writing at Luther College at the University of Regina.
In choosing the new Poet Laureate, the Selection Committee believes it is important that the Poet Laureate have “meaningful connections with other writers and experience organizing occasions for thinking about poetry differently.” While the Committee trusts that Gerry Hill possesses the qualities needed for the position: “Gerald Hill’s engaging and outgoing personality will help him rise to any occasion in which he is asked to represent the poets and writers of Saskatchewan.”
Hill is the sixth person to hold the title of Poet Laureate; his five predecessors were Glen Sorestad (2000-2004), Louise B. Halfe (2005-2006), Robert Currie (2007-2010), Donald Kerr (2010-2012), and Judith Krause (2013-2015).
Commencing in 2000, the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Program was the first provincial program of its kind in Canada. The Saskatchewan Arts Board, Saskatchewan Book Awards and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild are partners in the program, which is under the patronage of the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, Her Honour the Honourable Vaughn Solomon Schofield.
