Douglas Lochhead

2010—Literary Arts

Douglas Lochhead

Douglas Lochhead came to Sackville in 1975 as director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison, bringing with him an illustrious record as scholar, poet and founder/life member of the League of Canadian Poets.

Honours accumulated, including Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada, nomination for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, honorary degrees, appointment for life as Sackville’s official poet laureate and, in 2005, recognition as the first non-Italian recipient of the prestigious Carlo Betocchi Poetry Prize. All reflect the accomplishments of a prolific and perceptive observer of life, whose insights are preserved in more than thirty published volumes of poetry.

When asked once why so much of his poetry reflects Sackville and the surrounding marshes he replied, “The whole world is in your back yard if you choose to see it there, in the voice of a neighbour, the call of a chickadee. That’s the material from which I work.”