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A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds. Henry Moore

Vanessa Moeller

Poet

Vanessa Moeller’s poems and short stories have appeared in numerous periodicals including The Fiddlehead, Prism International, The Antigonish Review, CV2, The Pottersfield Portfolio and Qwerty and have won several awards including the 2002 Atlantic Poetry Prize. She has worked on Qwerty and The Fiddlehead and is currently a poetry editor for Goose Lane Editions. She completed her MA in creative writing at the University of New Brunswick. She now lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Books in Print

Our Extraordinary Monsters 2009, Signature Editions, ISBN 1-897109-35-0

About the Book:

Our Extraordinary Monsters is Vanessa Moeller's debut poetry collection which uses language(s) to build a written architecture where meaning(s) reside(s). The work resembles M.C. Escher's lithographs of impossible spaces but ones created from language and memories where investigations of self, identity and voice occur, where dichotomies exist and where correspondences are created, sent, delivered and read. Within this imaginary space Moeller explores her constantly shifting identity as a poet, as a woman, as a second-generation German-Canadian immigrant to Atlantic Canada. There is constant negotiation where the "I" becomes a filter through which experiences are sifted, molded, changed, archived, restructured and re-imagined onto the page with language(s).

Reviews:

"How can this be Vanessa Moeller's first collection? Her glowing, sensuous 'language of amber' only emphasizes the power of these poems. They form a Möbius strip revealing one language, then another, as she puts us in a world of magical possibilities. Anything can happen, and does happen, inside the pages of this marvelous book." — Anne Simpson

Awards
2010    National Magazine Award, Poetry Category, Honorable Mention
2004    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Scholarship [Creative Writing Proposal]

2002    New Brunswick Arts Board Arts Scholarship

2002    Dean D. Kermode Parr Prize in English, University of New Brunswick

2002    Sir Charles G.D. Roberts Memorial Prize, Short Fiction, University of New Brunswick

2002    Atlantic Writing Competition, First Prize, Poetry, Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia

2001    Alumni Merit Award for Creative Writing, University of New Brunswick

2001    Marshall D’Avray Prize in English Literature, University of New Brunswick

2001    Bliss Carman Poetry Prize, University of New Brunswick

1998    Clare Murray Fooshee Poetry Prize, Dalhousie University