Photo credit
Diane Smithers

Biography

Leanne Dunic (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, editor, teacher, and writer. She is the author of trans-media projects such as To Love the Coming End (Book*hug/Chin Music Press 2017) and The Gift (Book*hug 2019), and most recently, a poetic memoir with music entitled One and Half of You (Talonbooks 2021). Her work explores identity and culturally diverse narratives and has been described as genre-fluid, experimental, poignant, provocative, elegant, and brutal. She loves reading/writing poetry that pushes boundaries in both form and content. Some of her favourite poets include Sarah de Leeuw, Souvankham Thammavongsa, and Rena Priest.

A graduate of UBC’s Creative Writing MFA program, Leanne is the leader of the band The Deep Cove, an editorial board member for fine.press, and the fiction editor at Tahoma Literary Review. She has taught at UBC and currently teaches at SFU’s The Writer’s Studio. Leanne writes on the unceded and occupied traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and səl̓il̓wətaʔł (Tsleil-Waututh) people.  www.leannedunic.com

Micro-interview

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

I did! I learned of the poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" via a Monty Python sketch, and it led me to memorizing the poem. All these decades later, I only remember the first verse. I also liked William Blake.

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

I started in high school, then took a break for a decade while I ran my businesses. I sold my store to focus on writing, so at that point, I had no choice but to start thinking of myself as a writer and poet.

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

To deeply feel and distill.

If you have a poem in our anthology what inspired you to write it?

I wrote this poem after getting a cheongsam altered to fit me better. I wondered if the seamstress was thinking that I wasn't "Chinese enough" to wear this dress.

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

Craig Santos Perez's “One fish, Two fish, Plastics, Dead fish.” 

Publications

Title
One and Half of You
Publisher
Talonbooks
Editors
Cecily Nicholson
Date
2021
Publication type
Book
Title
To Love the Coming End
Publisher
Book*hug
Editors
Phil Hall
Date
2017
Publication type
Book
Poem title(s)
End of Winter, Life Span
Title
Room
Publisher
Room
Date
2021
Publication type
Periodical/Magazine
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