Erin Mouré


Erín Moure is a Canadian poet and translator of poetry from languages which include French, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish to English. She is the recipient of several awards.

Early and personal life

Her mother Mary Irene was born 1924 in what is today western Ukraine, and emigrated to Canada in 1929. Her father is William Mouré, born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1925 and a great-grandson of the painter George Théodore Berthon. Erín Moure is the oldest of three, having two younger brothers, Ken and Bill.
In 1975 Moure moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she took her second year classes at University of British Columbia in philosophy. After only taking one year of classes she left University of British Columbia and got a job at Via Rail Canada where she continued to write poetry. This is where she learned French. She learned Galician language in the early 21st century in order to translate the poetry of Chus Pato.
She still lives in Montreal, Canada.

Writing and style

According to an interview conducted in the early 1990s, Moure has four major influences which led her to become a writer, other than the work of other writers or poets: "Landscape of cars, her mother going to work, her mother teaching her to read, and in a small way losing her sense of touch".
Of her more recent work, Melissa Jacques wrote, "Erin Mouré's poetry is fragmented, meta-critical and explicitly deconstructive. Folding everyday events and ordinary people into complex and often irresolvable philosophical dilemmas, Mouré challenges the standards of accessibility and common sense. Not surprisingly, her work has met with a mixed response. Critics are often troubled by the difficult and therefore alienating nature of the writing; even amongst Mouré's advocates, the issues of accessibility and political efficacy are recurrent themes."
Moure has been nominated for, and has won, many writing awards for her writing and her translation. These include the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, Governor General's Award for poetry, A.M.Klein Prize for Poetry.
Her newest poetry book, The Elements, is slated for publication in 2019.

Awards and honours