Erín Moure

Her most recent poetry book, The Elements, appeared in 2019.

According to an interview conducted in the early 1990s, Moure has four major influences which led her to become a writer, other than the work of other writers or poets: "Landscape of cars, her mother going to work, her mother teaching her to read, and in a small way losing her sense of touch".

In 1975, Moure moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she took her second year classes at University of British Columbia in philosophy. After only taking one year of classes she left University of British Columbia and got a job at Via Rail Canada where she continued to write poetry. This is where she learned French. She learned Galician in the early 21st century in order to translate the poetry of Chus Pato. She also translates from Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Erín Moure (born 1955 in Calgary, Alberta) Erín Moure is a Canadian poet and translator with 18 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a volume of essays, a book of articles on translation, a poetics, and two memoirs; she has translated or co-translated 21 books of poetry and two of biopoetics from French, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, and Ukrainian, by poets such as Nicole Brossard (with Robert Majzels), Andrés Ajens, Chantal Neveu, Rosalía de Castro, Chus Pato, Uxío Novoneyra, Lupe Gómez (with Rebeca Lema Martínez and on her own), Fernando Pessoa, and Yuri Izdryk (with Roman Ivashkiv). Three of her own books have appeared in translation, one each in German, Galician, and French. Her work has received the Governor General’s Award twice, Pat Lowther Memorial Award, A. M. Klein Prize twice, and has been a three-time finalist for the Griffin Prize and three-time finalist in the USA for a Best Translated Book Award (Poetry). Her latest is The Elements (2019) and Theophylline: an a-poretic migration will appear in 2023. Her work is rooted in a philosophical mix that accepts mystery, not always immediately accessible, and she has won several prizes, including the Governor General's Award twice.

Her mother was born 1924 in what is today western Ukraine, and emigrated to Canada in 1929. Her father, born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1925 was a great-grandson of the painter George Théodore Berthon. Erín Moure is the oldest of three, having two younger brothers.