The City of Edmonton named Medgine Mathurin as its new poet laureate on Wednesday. Mathurin is a spoken word artist (who speaks three languages) whose work is driven by her personal experience as an immigrant, a woman of colour and a person living with a chronic illness. She was born and raised in Haiti before moving to Alberta at 11 years old. Her journey with poetry started later in university, sparked in part by the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. “That really stirred unrest in my spirit and not really knowing how to make sense of what I was seeing from my home country,” she said. “Poetry became this outlet where I can at least release all of the unrest that’s happening inside of me. And, little by little, it just kind of took a life of its own.” Mathurin’s work has been featured on CBC, Global TV, the Edmonton Poetry Festival and at SkirtsAfire Festival. She is the author of the multilingual poetry book Waiting in the Land of the Living / Attendre dans le monde des vivants, as well as a two-time award winner from the National Black Coalition of Canada and recipient of the 2023 Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Award. She is Edmonton’s eleventh poet laureate and will hold the title for two years. “It’s mind blowing to me that I am in this position, especially because, having navigated chronic illnesses, there’ve been a lot of instances where I just couldn’t find words,” Mathurin said. “It’s just an incredible gift.” “I’m excited to connect with others in the city who are lovers of poetry, but even those who are curious … There’s so many different ways that poetry can live and exist, and so I’m excited to engage with the city a bit more on showcasing that.” Edmonton’s poet laureate is a city ambassador for the literary arts and brings poetry to official and informal city events. You can find her on her website or Instagram.
