Poets

Don McKay, CM (born 1942) is a Canadian poet, editor, and educator.

Mckay was born in Owen Sound, Ontario and raised in Cornwall, McKay was educated at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Wales, where he earned his PhD in 1971. He taught creative writing and English for 27 years in universities including the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick.

In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

McKay is the author of twelve books of poetry, including Long Sault (1975), Lependu (1978), and Apparatus (1997). He has twice won the Governor General's Award, for Night Field (1991) and Another Gravity (2000). In June 2007, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006).

McKay, published since 1973, is described as ' a poet with a patient eye, an acute arresting ear, over flowing with details of ornithology, botany, weather, industry, books and music; nuanced descriptions, philosophical phrasing, folksy idiom. madcap humour and elegy'. Others, consider 'awe, astonishment and wonder to be the keynotes of McKay's poems and poetics' and that his prime subject matter to be 'the workings of the human mind'.

Mckay has also made a wide impression as a teacher and editor. He is the co-founder and manuscript reader for Brick Books ., one of Canada's leading poetry presses, and was editor of the literary journal The Fiddlehead from 1991-96. He has participated in the Sage Hill Writing experience in Saskatchewan and h..