Giving voice to the community with the Windsor Poets Laureate program

Windsor, Ontario is one of several Canadian cities that boasts a Poet Laureate program. In this podcast, we talk with the two current Poets Laureate of Windsor, Poet Laureate Mary Ann Mulhern and Youth Poet Laureate Samantha Badaoa.

Mary Ann Mulhern, Poet Laureate of Windsor, was a well-respected teacher before she embarked on a second career as a poet. Mulhern’s first book of narrative poetry, The Red Dress, which focused on her experiences living in a convent for eight years in the sixties, was published by Black Moss Press in 2003. Her next book, Touch the Dead, was published in 2006 and focused on her life experiences growing up in a "cemetery house," located at the edge of a cemetery in St. Thomas, Ontario, where her father was grave-digger and caretaker. She has published countless poems, and seven books to date, including When Angels Weep (2008), Brides in Black (2010), How We Fare (2016), and All the Words Between (2018.)

Samantha Badaoa is Windsor’s inaugural Youth Poet Laureate. As a poet and spoken word artist, she has developed a reputation for excellence at open mic events and, in particular, Windsor Poetry Slam events. She has served as a contributor and editor for publications including The Windsor Salt (Poetry and Prose, 2014); The South Detroit Chapbook Series (Water Damage, 2015); Sundays with the Tigers: Eleven Ways to Watch a Game (2015, Black Moss Press); The Voodoo Journals: Dispatches from a Haitian Grave (2016, Black Moss Press); and The Spitfire’s Embers: A Windsor Poetry Slam Collection (2018). 

You can find out more about the Windsor Poet Laureate program here: https://www.citywindsor.ca/residents/Culture/Pages/Poet-Laureate.aspx