Marty Gervais

Marty Gervais is a Canadian poet, photographer, journalist, and teacher. Gervais has also published plays, children’s books, non-fiction, and a book of photography, A Show of Hands: Boxing on the Border (2004). In 1998, he won the prestigious Toronto’s Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. In 1996, he was awarded the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award for his book, Tearing into a Summer Day. That book was awarded the City of Windsor Mayor’s

Award for literature. Gervais won this award again in 2003 for another collection, To Be Now: New and Selected Poems. Gervais has also been the recipient of 16 Western Ontario Newspaper Awards for journalism. His first published novel, Reno, appeared in 2005 from Mosaic Press and was nominated for the International Three-Day Novel Writing contest. In 2006, Gervais and his work were the subject of a TV Bravo episode of the television series Heart of a Poet produced by Canadian filmmaker Maureen Judge. Marty Gervais served as Windsor’s first poet laureate for seven years, and now is poet laureate emeritus. His most recent book, The Sky Above, was ranked  as one of this Fall’s books to watch by CBC. Gervais was Windsor’s inaugural poet laureate, and now is Poet Laureate Emeritus.