Award-winning Poet Liz Howard Braids Western Physics with Anishinaabe Sky Knowledge

Award-winning Poet Liz Howard Braids Western Physics with Anishinaabe Sky Knowledge

by Kieran Kalls Rice

Vic students will have the opportunity to learn from one of Canada’s most acclaimed poets this year. Award-winning poet Liz Howard has been appointed Victoria College’s Shaftesbury Creative Writer-in-Residence for 2022–2023 and will teach and mentor students in the Creative Expression and Society program and the Norman Jewison Stream of Vic One program. Howard won Canada’s most prestigious poetry award, the Griffin Poetry Prize for her book Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent. Her poems have been described as being “filled with energy and magic” and “scintillating” by the jury of the Griffin Poetry Prize. Her second poetry collection, Letters in a Bruised Cosmos, was also nominated for the Griffin prize. She is of mixed settler and Anishinaabe heritage and an adjunct English professor and instructor U of T.

Q: How did growing up on Treaty 9 territory in Northern Ontario influence your work?

A: My consciousness developed in and was shaped by the landscape and sociohistorial context of where I grew up. This is reflected in my work by the presence of the bush, lakes and rivers, the Canadian shield, and also industrial development, colonization, and issues of race, gender and class in that context.

Q: You studied psychology before completing your MFA. Can you talk about the transition to creative writing?

A: I have always been interested in the human mind, in its biological basis and the phenomenology of consciousness, cognition, and subject experience that arises from it. Such an interest lends itself to both the study of psychology and creative expression.

Coming from a family heavily impacted by mental health issues, and being the first in my family to pursue post-secondary studies, I felt a sense of urgency in studying psychology towards eventually being of help in some way, as a clinician or researcher. After graduating I was hired as a lab manager for an aging and cognition laboratory and gratefully had the opportunity to learn about the research process firsthand. I planned to go to graduate school in psychology and was working to pay down my student debt to allow for that possibility.

At the same time, I was reconnecting with my love of poetry and writing by taking poetry classes and attending readings around the city. I found an incredible community of writers, thinkers, and art-makers. I decided what I wanted, needed really, to do was to write a book and I applied to a master’s program to facilitate that process.

Q: Is it fair to say that your scientific background informs your poetry?

A: Absolutely. My background in science has informed how I interpret the world, my own thinking, and by extension, what I write. I find the beauty of neuroanatomical terms. I am also interested in the language and frameworks of other disciplines such as cosmology, physics, medicine, archaeology and even environmental science.

I braid aspects of Western cosmology and physics with Anishinaabe sky knowledge and personal experience to examine consciousness, trauma, and survival. For example, in one poem I reference astrocytes, which are starshaped cells present in the human brain and spinal cord. I think the name has interesting connotations in terms of human pattern-recognition and analogical/metaphorical thinking. It also has resonances with Carl Sagan’s offering that “we are made of star stuff” and the Anishinaabe belief that humanity has its origin in the stars. So here is a cell that is part of the biophysical apparatus that facilitates or creates consciousness, that is composed, as all things are, of material forged in the bellies of stars, and itself resembles such a celestial body, at least as seen from the human vantage point of earth. It’s hard not to reach for the poetic when one spends a bit of time thinking through this kind of inter-connectedness!

Q: Can you talk a bit about the work you’re doing at U of T?

A: As the Shaftesbury Creative Writerin-Residence at Victoria College, I will deliver a keynote address in the fall and teach a seminar on creative citizenship in the winter term. This past year I also had the honour of teaching poetry writing courses through the School of Continuing Studies, mentoring a graduate student in the MA in English in the Field of Creative Writing program, and teaching a thirdyear creative writing poetry class.

Q: What are you most looking forward to as Vic’s Shaftesbury Creative Writer-in-Residence?

A: I look forward to fostering a creative community and working with students. I am excited to return to campus and to have the time and space to develop my next book.

Q: What do you hope to achieve in this role?

A: A deeper understanding of what it means to be a creative citizen. To also act as a guide for others in the process.