In 2021, the City of Caraquet, in collaboration with its Acadian Poetry Festival, established the position of official poet. Its mandate is to act as a literary ambassador for the City within its territory and beyond, and to contribute to the development of its citizens through the appreciation of writing and the spoken arts in French.
Poet and theatre artist Joannie Thomas has been appointed the new Poet Laureate of the Town of Caraquet. Her appointment by the selection committee was announced by her predecessor to elected officials and citizens of the community at the regular town council meeting on May 13, 2024.
Appointed for a two-year term running until March 2026, multidisciplinary artist Joannie Thomas says she wants to base her work on humanist values, particularly by giving voice and poetry to groups whose voices our societies still struggle to value: children, women, and the elderly. “I want our poetry to flood the public space like an overflow, like a need to burst forth!” she says.
With her project entitled “Weaving our links”, she will initiate writing workshops with students in the territory in the coming weeks, and then meet with groups of women and seniors during the 28th Acadian Poetry Festival, which will take place from August 1 to 4, 2024. During the year, she will also speak in poetry at various public events in the municipality.
Joannie Thomas succeeds poet and cultural worker Jonathan Roy, who was appointed to inaugurate the position in 2022.
Born in Bathurst in 1986, he has lived in Caraquet for about fifteen years. He is the author of the collections *Savèches à fragmentation* (Perce-Neige, 2019) and *Apprendre à tomber* (Perce-Neige, 2012), both winners of the Antonine-Maillet Acadie-Vie Literary Prize. His third book, *Mélamine méduse*, will be published in spring 2023 by the same publisher. Over the years, he has contributed to journals and anthologies, designed artists’ books, written songs for Cédric Vieno and Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire, and created video poems. In addition to numerous public readings, he participated in the literary performances *Manifeste scalène* and *Fuites – Les pipelines se couchent à l’Est*, and then played himself in *Savèches*, a theatrical adaptation of his collection produced by Théâtre populaire d’Acadie in 2021. Alongside his artistic practice, he directs the Festival acadien de poésie, to which he has contributed since 2010; he is also co-director of the Poésie collection at Éditions Perce-Neige. Serving a two-year term, he is the first Official Poet Laureate of the Town of Caraquet.
