Hatfield Calls For Poet Laureate For Ontario

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MPP Percy Hatfield has introduced a Private Member’s Bill to establish a Poet Laureate for Ontario.

“Our own Poet Laureate for the province of Ontario would help celebrate Ontario culture and heritage through literacy, along with raising public awareness of poetry and of the spoken word,” said Hatfield.

Hatfield said that Poets Laureate have been officially recognized at all levels of Canadian government and in at least 15 countries around the world.

“Canada has a Poet Laureate, as does Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and Yukon,” said Hatfield. “You’ll even find Poets Laureate in Ontario cities like Windsor, Toronto, Barrie, Coburg, Cobalt, Brantford, Owen Sound, London, Kingston and Sudbury.”

Responsibilities of an Ontario Poet Laureate would include raising the profile of Ontario poets, visiting schools and occasionally writing poetry for use in the legislature.

“One hundred years ago Major John McCrae wrote, ‘In Flanders Fields’. Who among us is not aware of that great Poem – written in 1915? Poetry lives forever,” said Hatfield.