Canadian Female Poets

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet and novelist. Her works encompass themes, such as religion and myth, climate change, and gender and identity. An award-winning writer, many of Atwood's works have been made into films and television series; her work, The Handmaid's Tale, has had several adaptations. Perhaps, Margaret Atwood's most important contribution is her invention of the LongPen device.

Rupi Kaur is an Indian-born Canadian poet, photographer, illustrator, and author. Born in India, she moved to Canada at an early age. She began performing in 2009 and gained international fame through her Instagram posts. She often explores her South Asian identity and femininity in her work. Her latest poetry collection, Home Body, released in 2020, was a resounding success. 

Born to a banker in Toronto, Anne Carson grew up to study Classics and later taught at institutes such as Princeton University. Her signature style consists of a mix of prose and poetry. One of her notable works, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, was inspired by Greek mythology.

English-Canadian writer Susanna Moodie is best known for her realistic depictions of her life in “the bush” or the wilderness of Canada, which was a British colony back in her time. Her most popular work remains Roughing it in the Bush. She had initially also penned several children’s stories.

Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet, freelance writer, and teacher. She studied at Simon Fraser University and once ran an independent bookstore. She explores different literary forms in her work. Her book of poetry, Debbie: An Epic (1997), was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. She has taught at the California College of Art and the University of Cambridge.

Anne Michaels is a Canadian novelist and poet whose works have been published in over 45 countries. Her novels, such as Fugitive Pieces, have also been adapted into films. Michaels, who served as the poet laureate of Toronto from 2016 to 2019, has received several awards like the Orange Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction, and the Guardian Fiction Prize.

Marie-Claire Blais is a French Canadian writer, poet, and playwright. Born into a blue-collar family, she was unable to pursue full-time education. However, she did attend a few classes at Université Laval and began her literary career at the age of 20. She eventually became a successful author with numerous novels, plays, and poetry collections to her name. 

Anne Hébert was a French Canadian poet and author who won the Governor General's Award, which is regarded as Canada's top literary honor, on three occasions. During her career, she also won other prestigious awards like the Molson Prize and the Ludger-Duvernay Prize. Hébert's works have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, English, and German.

Susan Musgrave is a Canadian poet and writer of children’s literature. She started writing as a child and published her first work when she was 16. She has authored several collections of poems, fiction, and children’s literature. Besides writing, she teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She was married to  Stephen Reid, a writer and convicted criminal. 

Dorothy Livesay was a Canadian poet whose works earned her the prestigious Governor General's Award on two occasions. During the 1970s and 1980s, she was referred to as the senior woman writer in Canada, an honorable status in Canada. During her career, Livesay won several awards, including the Lorne Pierce Medal, the Queen's Canada Medal, and the Persons Case Award.

Parween Pazhwak is an Afghan artist, poet, and writer. Pazhwak moved to Canada seeking asylum after the Soviet-Afghan War which resulted in the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. After moving to Canada, Pazhwak has produced many works of literature, including short stories and modern Persian poetry.

Margaret Avison was a Canadian poet whose works earned her two Governor General's Awards as well as the Griffin Poetry Prize. Regarded as a spiritual poet, Avison's works were compared to the works of the best-known metaphysical poets of the 17th century. In addition to being a poet, Avison also served as the University of Western Ontario's writer-in-residence in 1973. 

Isabella Valancy Crawford was a Canadian poet and writer. The author of Malcolm's Katie, a popular poem held in high regard in the history of Canadian poetry, Crawford is widely regarded as Canada's first major poet. She made a living using her skills as a freelance writer, one of the first Canadians to do so.

Ketty Nivyabandi is a Burundian human rights activist and poet. Her French-language poetry has been featured in popular magazines like Words Without Borders and World Literature Today. Ketty Nivyabandi voiced her opinion during Burundi's constitutional crisis in 2015. She also led her country's first women-only protest.

Jay Macpherson was a Canadian scholar and lyric poet who belonged to the mythopoeic school of poetry, expressing serious philosophical and religious themes in symbolic verse that was comic or lyrical in nature. In 1957, she received the President's Medal from the University of Western Ontario and the Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize. In 1958, she received the Governor General's Award.  

Susan Goyette is a Canadian novelist and poet whose first poetry book was nominated for several prestigious awards, including the 1999 Governor General's Award. In 2017, she served as a judge for the Griffin Poetry Prize. A celebrated writer, Susan Goyette was named Halifax's eighth poet laureate in April 2020.

One of the most significant female French Canadian poets, Blanche Lamontagne-Beauregard wrote mostly on historical and regional themes that centered around the Gaspé Peninsula. However, following her marriage to a renowned lawyer, she was unable to devote herself to writing. Through Our Fields and Shores remains one of her best-known works.