Erin Mouré



Erin Mouré (born April 17, 1955 in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian poet and translator of poetry from languages which include, French, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish to English. (ref) Her mother Mary Irene was born 1924 in Galicia, Poland (now Ukraine) and moved to Canada in 1929.(ref) Erin’s father is William Moure born in Ottawa Canada in 1925. Erin is the oldest of 3, having two younger brothers, Ken and Bill. In 1975 Erin moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she took her second year classes at University of British Columbia in philosophy. After only taking one year of classes Erin left University of British Columbia and got a job at Via Rail Canada where she continued to write poetry and is where she learnt  French, Erin still lives in Montreal Canada.

Writing and style
According to an interview conducted in the early 1990s, Erin has four major influences which led her to become a writer, other than the work of other writers or poets: “Landscape of cars, her mother going to work, her mother teaching her to read, and in a small way losing her sense of touch” Of her more recent work, Melissa Jacques has written: "Erin Mouré's poetry is fragmented, meta-critical and explicitly deconstructive. Folding everyday events and ordinary people into complex and often irresolvable philosophical dilemmas, Mouré challenges the standards of accessibility and common sense. Not surprisingly, her work has met with a mixed response. Critics are often troubled by the difficult and therefore alienating nature of the writing; even amongst Mouré's advocates, the issues of accessibility and political efficacy are recurrent themes."(on Moure's EPC page, external link below).

Erin has been nominated and won many writing awards for both her writing and her translation. Some of these awards are the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, Governor General's Award for poetry, A.M.Klein Prize for Poetry.

Works of petry

 * Empire, York Street - 1979 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * Wanted Alive - 1983
 * Domestic Fuel - 1985 (winner of the Pat Lowther Award)
 * Furious - 1988 (winner of the 1988 Governor General's Award for poetry)
 * WSW - 1989 (winner of the A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry
 * Sheepish Beauty, Civilian Love - 1992
 * The Green Word: Selected Poems: 1973-1992 - 1994
 * Search Procedures - 1996 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * A Frame of the Book - 1999
 * Pillage Laud - 1999, reissued 2011
 * O Cidadán - 2002 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * Little theatres - 2005 (winner of the A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry, nominated for a Governor General's Award, nominated for the Pat Lowther Award, shortlisted for the 2006 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)
 * O Cadoiro - 2007
 * Expeditions of a Chimæra(collaboration with Oana Avasilichioaei) - 2009
 * O Resplandor - 2010

Translated

 * Installations - 2000, translation with Robert Majzels from French of Nicole Brossard's Installations
 * Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person translation from Portuguese of Fernando Pessoa / Alberto Caeiro's O Guardador de Rebanhos- 2001 (shortlisted for the 2002 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)
 * Museum of Bone and Water - 2003, translation with Robert Majzels from French of Nicole Brossard's Musée de l'os et de l'eau
 * Notebook of Roses and Civilization - 2007, translation with Robert Majzels from French of Nicole Brossard's Cahier de roses & de civilisation (nominated for a Governor General's Award; shortlisted for the 2008 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)
 * Charenton - 2007, translation from Galician of Chus Pato's Charenton
 * Quase Flanders, Quase Extremadura - 2008, translation from Spanish of excerpts from the poetry of Andrés Ajens
 * m-Talá - 2009, translation from Galician of Chus Pato's m-Talá
 * Hordes of Writing - 2011, translation from Galician of Chus Pato's Hordas de escritura

Essays and letters

 * Two Women Talking: Correspondence 1985-1987 - 1994 (with Bronwen Wallace)
 * My Beloved Wager essays - 2009