On Wednesday 29 January 2025, the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons announced the appointment of Chimwemwe Undi as the 11th Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Ms. Undi’s poetry explores themes from gender and belonging, to racism, language and immigration. Her debut full-length collection of poems, Scientific Marvel, won the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award in Poetry.
Biography
Chimwemwe Undi is a poet, editor and lawyer based on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her debut full-length collection, Scientific Marvel, won the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award in Poetry. Having been an active member of Manitoba’s poetry community for more than ten years, Ms. Undi is the recipient of a CBC Manitoba “Future 40” award and a Winnipeg 150 Medal, among other awards. Her writing explores questions of identity, belonging, climate change, justice and the limits of language.
Ms. Undi is an advocate in many senses. From 2023 through 2024, she served as the third Winnipeg Poet Laureate. In addition to her work in the literary world, she is a lawyer at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP, where her practice is focused on professional regulation, labour and employment.
Prior to studying law, Ms. Undi received undergraduate and graduate degrees in linguistics from the University of Manitoba and York University in Toronto. She lives in Winnipeg with a cellist, a kitten and a mutt.
Bibliography – Chimwemwe Undi
Please note that this bibliography includes Ms. Undi’s published books and articles up to the beginning of her term on January 1, 2025.
Scientific Marvel: Poems, House of Anansi Press, Toronto, 2024
Chimwemwe Undi Winnipeg’s Poet Laureate in conversation with Clarise Foster, Prairie
Fire Magazine, Volume 45, No. 4, Winnipeg, Winter 2024-2025
Winnipeg Poem, Grain Magazine, Regina, September 2024
The Work, for Planet Love, curated by hannah_g, Buhler Gallery, October 2023
Aubade, CBC Manitoba, December 2022
Two Poems, Canthius Magazine, Issue 10 Digital Content, October 2022
On the Imminent Destruction of Portage Place Mall, Canadian Literature, Issue 248,
Vancouver, September 2022
Spring, or Spiral in Three Parts, for Sanctuaries, curated by Patterns Collective, Gallery
1CO3, the University of Winnipeg, 2021
Translation of a Photo of Myself, for Born in Power – Auntie Lens, curated by Jaimie Isaac,
Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2021
Black, Alive & Looking Back at You, CV2 Magazine, Co-editor, Volume 44, No.1 Special
Issue, Summer 2021
Erratum, Brick Magazine, Issue 106, Toronto, 2020
Three Poems, Border Crossings Magazine, Issue 155, Winnipeg, 2020
Duplex: Grunthal, Manitoba (2019), Poetry is Dead, Issue 20: Small Towns, 2019
3 Poems after John K. Samson, Prairie Fire Magazine, Volume 40, No. 1, Winnipeg,
Spring 2019
This Tenacious Light, Speaking My Truth CBC Manitoba Project, Winnipeg, December 2019
The Habitual Be, Chapbook from African New Generation of African Poets, A Chapbook Box
Set, part Nne, ed. Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani, Akashic Books, Brooklyn, 2017