U of T Mississauga student aims to inspire as the city's poet laureate

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U of T Mississauga student Ayomide Bayowa was named Mississauga's fourth poet laureate in November (Photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Sharon Aschaiek

Topic

City & Culture

poet laureate

U of T Mississauga

Ayomide Bayowa began writing poetry as a hobby – but he now sees it as a force for good.

“With poetry, the people oppressing you get to hear about what you’re experiencing, and they may realize how powerful your message is,” said the fourth-year ��Ƶ Mississauga student who is Mississauga's newest poet laureate. “It can be a catalyst for social and economic change.”

Bayowa, who studies theatre and drama, was named Mississauga's fourth poet laureate last month for a 30-month term. His first official act in the role was to recite “In Flanders Fields” by U of T alumnus John McCrae at the city's Remembrance Day ceremony at the Mississauga Civic Centre.

“It was a fabulous experience. Until that day, I didn’t realize how much that poem means to people. I wanted everyone there to also feel moved by the words,” Bayowa said.

Bayowa grew up in Nigeria without access to internet or a computer, so he wrote poetry the old-fashioned way: using pen and paper. “We never had access to data, and we didn’t have access to light,” Bayowa told CityNews. “We would charge our phones just to make a call once in a while, we never had the luxury of internet, and we poets don’t write with laptops in Nigeria.”

His first book of poetry, Stream of Tongues, Watercourse of Voices, was published in 2018. His writing has been longlisted for the 2018 Nigerian Students Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the 2018 Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize and the 2019 Christopher Okigbo Interuniversity Poetry Prize.

He and his family moved to Canada three years ago and settled in Mississauga. Bayowa enrolled at U of T Mississauga to build on his previous university-level theatre training. As a student, he wrote, directed and acted in the 2019 short Do I Need To Remind You? – the story of a young girl looking to reconcile with her homeland's traditions.

The film received the Best Picture Award at this year's U of T Mississauga Film Festival and a merit award at the Canadian & International Short Film Fest.

Bayowa also directed the shorts Thus Said Zara (2020) and Home; Nowhere (2019).

At U of T Mississauga, Bayowa established and currently leads the Scenery Film Club for student filmmakers.

Bayowa's poetry has appeared in a long list of publications: Barren Magazine, Agbowó, African Writers, Kreative Diadem, Stone of Madness Press and Guesthouse.

As the city’s poet laureate, Bayowa aims to nurture the next generation of creative writers by organizing regular poetry contests and publishing the winners’ work. “What the poet needs to do is read, write and listen to your soul,” he told CityNews.

U of T alum and adjunct prof Anne Michaels named Toronto poet laureate

sgupta — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 15:33:03 +0000

U of T alum and adjunct prof Anne Michaels named Toronto poet laureate sgupta Wed, 10/14/2015 - 11:33

Arthur Kaptainis

Author legacy

Arthur Kaptainis

Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

George Elliott Clarke

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

All five poets laureate have been members of U of T community

The ��Ƶ has a lock on local couplets – again.

Anne Michaels, an adjunct professor of English and former Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor in Canadian Studies at University College, has been named Toronto’s poet laureate. She follows George Elliott Clarke, the E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at U of T.

“Toronto is fortunate to embrace dozens of languages and has an invaluable literary history,” Michaels said in a statement released by the City of Toronto. “I am looking forward to celebrating our many voices, old and new."

The native Torontonian graduated from U of T in 1980 and launched her literary career in 1986 with The Weight of Oranges. Miner’s Pond (1991) received the National Magazine Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry and a nomination for the Governor General's Award.

Michaels’s most recent volume of poetry, Correspondences (2014), is an elegy to her father, replete with references to 20th-century artistic and intellectual figures. Published with folded pages in the manner of an accordion, the book was shortlisted for the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Among her most acclaimed works is the 1996 novel Fugitive Pieces, which won the Trillium Book Award, the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Guardian Book Prize and Orange Prize for Fiction (U.K.) and America’s Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. The movie based on this book was screened on the opening day of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

Michaels is Toronto’s fifth poet laureate; all five have been members of the U of T community.

First in 2001 was U of T alumnus and former Victoria College English instructor Dennis Lee. He was followed by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, an alumnus who became a visiting professor in the St. Michael’s College graduate department of Italian studies; and Dionne Brand, an alumna of both U of T and OISE.

The university has figured in the work of the poets it has touched or generated. Fugitive Pieces, a novel about war and memory, includes as a major character Athos Roussos, a geologist who escapes Greece during the Second World War to take a position at U of T. Michaels has called the war the “formative event” for people of her generation.

Michaels’s interest in multiculturalism and language is manifested in this novel particularly in the figure of Jakob Beer, an orphan from Nazi-occupied Poland whose acquisition of Greek and English erases his memory of the Holocaust.

"With that book, I was asked am I Jewish, am I Catholic, am I Greek,” Michaels told The Guardian newspaper in 2009. “And, yes, I did resist answering, because I really feel that to answer would be a cop-out."

Michaels, who founded the long-distance creative writing program at U of T's School of Continuing Studies, was named one of the inaugural University College Alumni of Influence in 2012. Her term as poet laureate, to be confirmed by Toronto City Council in November, will last for three years.

Clarke is delighted by the nomination of Michaels and the link to U of T.

"Whenever I teach Canadian Poetry, I always point out the strong connection between Canada's most appreciated Eglish-language poets and the ��Ƶ," he told U of T News.

"After all, this was the home of poet E.J. Pratt and the great critic Northrop Frye. Together, they nurtured the finest poets of the mid-20th century, including Margaret Atwood and Jay Macpherson, and made Canadian poetry a distinctive, valued genre for creativity and for study.

"Anne Michaels is an heir to the marvelous legacy engendered by this institution. Perhaps alumni will now raise funds for a Poets’ Tower to join the splendid Soldiers’ Tower on our campus."

Organizations and individuals took to social media to congratulate Michaels and thank Clarke for his services. Among them was mayor and U of T alumnus John Tory, who tweeted: "I want to thank George Elliott Clarke for serving as Toronto's Poet Laureate & all he’s done to promote our city’s diverse voices."

Read the Toronto Star story on the poet laureate

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