Di Brandt grew up in Reinland, a traditionalist Mennonite farming village in southern Manitoba, Canada, which she left at the age of seventeen. She studied English Literature at the Universities of Manitoba and Toronto. She has taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the Universities of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Alberta, Windsor and Brandon MB. She was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta in 1995–96, and SSHRCResearch Fellow in Canadian Literature at the University of Alberta in 1996–98. She has given literary readings, lectures, performances and workshops across Canada and around the world, including at the Universities of Trier, Germany; Graz, Austria; Aarhus, Denmark; Chiba, Japan; Canada House in London, UK; the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo; the Arts and Cultural Centre in Jerusalem, Palestine; Chateau de Lavigny, Switzerland; and the 13th International Poetry Festival in Medellin, Colombia, in 2005.
Work
Di Brandt has published eight collections of poetry:
SHE: Poems inspired by Laozi, with ink drawings by Lin Xu. Chapbook.
The Lottery of History. Chapbook.
Walking to Mojacar, with French and Spanish translations by Charles Leblanc and Ari Belathar,
Di Brandt's poetry has been adapted for television, radio, video, dance, sculpture and theatre. questions i asked my mother was a bestseller in Canada. Di Brandt's poetry has been the subject of numerous scholarly essays and monographs. Di Brandt's essay collections and literary critical studies are:
So this is the world & here I am in it.
Dancing Naked: Narrative Strategies for Writing Across Centuries.
Wild Mother Dancing: Maternal Narrative in Canadian Literature.
Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women's Poetry, ed. with Barbara Godard.
Re:Generations: Canadian Women Poets in Conversation, ed. with Barbara Godard.
Emily, The Way you Are, a one-woman chamber opera about the life and work of Emily Carr, with musical score by Jana Skarecky, premiered at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, ON, in 2011, featuring mezzo-soprano Ramona Carmelly and the Talisker Players directed by Gary Kulesha.
Gabrielle Roy Prize for "best book of literary criticism in Canada," with Barbara Godard, for Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women's Poetry.
Pat Lowther Award for "best book of poetry by a Canadian woman, nomination, for mother, not mother.
Pat Lowther Award nomination,for Jerusalem, beloved.
Pat Lowther Award nomination, for Now You Care.
McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award nomination, for So this is the world & here I am in it.
McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award nomination, for Wild Mother Dancing: Maternal Narrative in Canadian Literature.
McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award nomination, for Walking to Mojacar, with French and Spanish translations by Charles Leblanc and Ari Belathar.
Di Brandt served as Poetry Editor at Prairie Fire Magazine and Contemporary Verse 2 during the 1980s and 90s. She also served as Manitoba and Prairie Rep at the League of Canadian Poets National Council and the Writers' Union of Canada National Council for several years during these same years.
