Author of twenty-six books of poetry, conceptual fiction, and critical writing, as well as over 200 chapbooks and 6 edited volumes, Derek Beaulieu’s work is consistently praised as some of the most radical and challenging in contemporary Canadian writing. His poetry has been projected on buildings and towers, tattooed on bodies, inspired sound choirs and musicians, transformed into rugs, been translated internationally, and has anchored artistic exhibitions internationally.
Beaulieu holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the UK’s Roehampton University and has been recognized with 9 teaching awards locally, provincially, and nationally for his contributions to university-level education. He served as Poet Laureate of both Calgary (2014–16) and Banff (2022–24), and was named the University of Calgary’s only “Celebrated Alumni” from Literature and Creative Writing and the only recipient in Creative Writing to receive Roehampton University’s Chancellor’s Alumni Award.
In 2022, Beaulieu received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, which stated “Derek Beaulieu not only constitutes one of the most innovative of all authors in Canada, but he has committed himself to service on behalf of others, providing leadership in the arts throughout his career and promoting the poetic merits of Canada to audiences around the world”
In 2012 Bookthug published his critical edition (co-edited with Gregory Betts) of bill bissett’s seminal 1972 volume of experimental commentary RUSH: what fuckan theory. In 2013 Wilfrid Laurier University Press published Writing Surfaces: Selected Fiction of John Riddell (co-edited with Lori Emerson), in 2018 Beaulieu edited Nights on Prose Mountain, the Fiction of bpNichol and in 2024 he co-edited Some Lines of Poetry from the Notebooks of bpNichol with Gregory Betts.
Since 2018 Beaulieu has been the Director of Literary Arts at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada’s foremost post-secondary institution dedicated to the mentorship and education of arts and culture workers internationally.
Beaulieu was also the Visual / Concrete Poetry Editor for Ubuweb. Publisher of the acclaimed smallpresses housepress (1997-2004) and no press (2005-present), and former editor of filling Station, dANDelion, endNote, Speechless, and The Minute Review, Beaulieu has spoken and written on poetics internationally in both popular and academic settings.
Email Derek Beaulieu at derek@housepress.ca
Download Beaulieu’s CV (PDF, December 2024)
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