Roy Miki

Roy Akira Miki Template:Post-nominals (10 October 1942 – 5 October 2024) was a Canadian poet, scholar, editor, and activist most known for his social and literary work.

Life and career

Born in Ste. Agathe, Manitoba to second generation Japanese-Canadian parents, Miki grew up on a sugar beet farm before moving to Winnipeg.<ref name="PF">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="CBC">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His family was forcibly relocated West to Manitoba where he was born in 1942 on said sugar beet farm, and interned during the Second World War.<ref name="PF" /> He earned his B.A. from the University of Manitoba, M.A. from the Simon Fraser University, and Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.<ref name="PF" /><ref name="TCE">Template:Cite web</ref> Miki taught contemporary literature at Simon Fraser University before retiring and held the title of professor emeritus.<ref name="PF" /> He lived in Vancouver. In the 1980s, Miki was "instrumental" in fighting for redress from the federal government for the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War.<ref name="CBC" /><ref name="TCE" />

In 2002, Miki's book of poetry, Surrender, won the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.<ref name="TCE" /> His poetry focuses on questions about identity, citizenship, race, and place.<ref name="TCE" /> He is the author of the critical study, Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (1998), In Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing (2011), The Prepoetics of William Carlos Williams (1983), and an annotated bibliography of the poet and novelist George Bowering (1990).<ref name="TCE" />

In 2006, Miki was made a Member of the Order of Canada and received the 20th annual Gandhi Peace Award for the truth, justice, human rights, and non-violence exemplified in his redress work.<ref name="CBC" /><ref>Template:OCC</ref> The same year, he also received the Thakore Visiting Scholar award and the Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2007, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.<ref name="TCE" /> In 2009, he was made a Member of the Order of British Columbia.<ref name="TCE" />

Miki died on 5 October 2024, at the age of 82.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Works

Poetry

• 1991: Saving Face: Poems Selected, 1976–1988, Winnipeg: Turnstone Press
• 1995: Random Access File, Markham, ON: Red Deer Press
• 2001: Surrender, Toronto: The Mercury Press, winner of the 2002 Governor General's Award for poetry
• 2006: There, Vancouver: New Star Books
• 2011: Mannequin Rising, Vancouver: New Star Books
• 2018: Flow: Poems Collected and New (edited by Michael Barnholden), Vancouver: Talonbooks

Critical studies

• 1983: The Prepoetics of William Carlos Williams, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press
• 1988: Tracing the Paths: Reading ≠ Writing The Martyrology, Vancouver: Talonbooks
• 1989: A Record of Writing: An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering, Vancouver: Talonbooks
• 2004: Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice, Vancouver: Raincoast Books

Editor

• 1985: This Is My Own: Letters to Wes and Other Writings on Japanese-Canadians, 1941–1948 by Muriel Kitagawa, Vancouver: Talonbooks
• 1997: Pacific Windows: The Collected Poems of Roy Kiyooka, Vancouver: Talonbooks

Other

• 1998: Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (Essays), Toronto: The Mercury Press

External links

• Roy Akira Miki at The Canadian Encyclopedia