Winnipeg poet’s reading whole new ‘level of intensity’ Undi in Ottawa to celebrate installation of Canada’s 31st Governor General
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Winnipeg poet and editor Chimwemwe Undi debuted a new work in Ottawa on Monday, titled Reasons, that will hold a place in Canadian history.
Undi, Parliament’s poet laureate, read the poem during a ceremony that installed Louise Arbour as Canada’s 31st Governor General.
“There were a lot of very important people in the room, and the room is quite small and it was quite packed,” Undi said from Ottawa after the ceremony. “It was certainly kind of another level of intensity.”
The 32-year-old lawyer, whose expertise includes professional regulation, wrote the poem specifically for the swearing-in, which was held in the Senate chamber.
Arbour and Prime Minister Mark Carney thanked her and other artists during conversations afterward.
“She expressed her gratitude for the poem and for what it brought to the ceremony,” Undi said prior to a reception at Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General.
At the ceremony, Reasons was introduced as a poem that reflects on notions of identity, empathy and human connection.
“What felt really meaningful was having the opportunity to write a poem for Her Excellency that sort of reflects on the work that I think we have all have to do as Canadians to protect democratic values and institutions, and to celebrate how much of Her Excellency’s life she’s spent doing just that,” Undi said.
“What felt really meaningful was having the opportunity to write a poem for Her Excellency that sort of reflects on the work that I think we have all have to do as Canadians to protect democratic values and institutions.”
Montreal-born Arbour, 79, is a former Supreme Court of Canada justice who was a chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. She was the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights from 2004 to 2008.
Arbour replaced Mary Simon as King Charles’ representative in Canada.
Lt.-Gov. Anita Neville, the monarch’s representative in Manitoba, and Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, from Pinaymootang First Nation in the Interlake, attended the ceremony.
Undi was familiar with Arbour’s work as a distinguished jurist, when Carney last month announced the latter’s appointment as Canada’s next governor general. A draft of Reasons required a quick turnaround so it could be translated into French.
As for the poem’s meaning, Undi said she hopes people “take what they want or need” from it.
”I guess generally I think that we as Canadians are really fortunate to live in a country with stable democratic institutions, an independent judiciary, free and fair elections, etc.,” she said.
“In the poem, I wanted to sort of recognize that those were things we cannot take for granted.”
Undi’s debut full-length collection, Scientific Marvel, won the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.
When she finished reciting the poem in English at Monday’s ceremony, a French translation was read by Koby Jean, a Grade 6 student at École élémentaire publique Louise-Arbour in Ottawa. It was a special moment for Undi.
“It’s the honour of my life.”
“I’m really passionate about young people being involved in poetry, so it was really meaningful to me and an honour to have him read that poem in the ceremony,” she said, while also recognizing Marie Frankland, a poet from Montreal who translated Reasons into French.
Undi is in the last of year of a two-year term as the 11th Parliamentary poet laureate. The position was created in 2001 to expand the understanding of and appreciation for poetry in Canada.
“It’s been a real honour and a pleasure. Before this role I was (the City of Winnipeg’s) poet laureate, and getting to continue doing that kind of work on a wider scale has been really amazing,” Undi said. “It’s the honour of my life.”
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Ode to a Governor General
Chimwemwe Undi read her poem Reasons during a swearing-in ceremony for Louise Arbour, Canada’s 31st governor general, in Ottawa on Monday.
Reasons
When it reaches for a country, the mind instead
summons an illustration, perhaps of a width of sky
this thinking an effort to transpose the abstract
into a certainty to love. Modern transposition
demands a sense of the world as a handshake deal
in which each hand took to the feel of the other hand’s palm.
Giving takes an understanding of the world as little
more than that choice to hold on, to raise a reconstructed
past under light and see each edge as an invitation.
This way, easier to teach than travel, calls us to speak
to echo the silenced, to listen first to understand
certain only that our good fortune is luck, not reward
a debt discharged with brief, erratic tender: life spent
making this place mean something we are proud to signify.
Raisons (translated by Marie Frankland)
Quand il aspire à un pays, l’esprit invoque
plutôt une image, peut-être une portion de ciel
ce travail, un effort destiné à convertir l’abstrait
en garantie d’amour. La transposition moderne
exige un accord convenu par une poignée de main
où une paume s’est familiarisée avec l’autre.
Pour donner, il faut comprendre le monde comme guère plus
que ce choix de tenir, mettre un passé reconstruit
sous la lumière et voir dans chaque suture une invitation.
Plus facile à enseigner qu’à répandre, cette idée nous pousse
à parler pour ceux réduits au silence, à écouter pour comprendre
certains seulement que notre sort tient du hasard et non du mérite
une dette acquittée par une monnaie brève et inégale: une vie passée
à donner à ce lieu un sens que nous sommes fiers de porter.
— Library of Parliament
Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.
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