2020 Year in Review - Duncan Mercredi, Winnipeg Poet Laureate

Duncan Mercredi was named Winnipeg's second Poet Laureate in early 2020. Winnipeg Arts Council Executive Director Carol A. Phillips announced his appointment stating "Duncan Mercredi has spent decades exploring themes of cultural resurgence, of connection to the land, and of the urban Indigenous experience. As Winnipeg's Poet Laureate for 2020 & 2021, we look forward to his insight, his commentary, and his reflections on our city."

With the arrival of the pandemic shortly after his appointment, Duncan's ability to host public events was curtailed from the beginning. However, it could not stop him from writing and creating new works, many of which are archived on the Winnipeg Arts Council website. Duncan has responded to numerous invitations and commissions, all the while keeping up his practice of storytelling and working with schoolchildren.

A new volume, Duncan's first since the 1990s, was published in Fall 2020 by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. A Winnipeg launch for the book was planned but like so much else this year, it was delayed by COVID. mahikan ka-onot: The Poetry of Duncan Mercredi, a collection spanning his earliest work to recent previously unpublished poems, will be launched in early 2021.

Wilfrid Laurier University Press describes his work as "...poems of life on the land as well as life in the city, vibrant with the rhythms of traditional Cree and Métis storytelling but also with the clamour and the music of the streets" —a perfect testimonial for an ambassador of Winnipeg and of the literary arts.