George Elliott Clarke has been appointed Toronto’s fourth Poet Laureate.

The Nova Scotia-born poet, dramatist, author and teacher is a seventh-generation Canadian of African-American and Mi’kmaq Amerindian heritage. He is currently the E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto.

Clarke won the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry in 2001 and has many other honours to his credit, including becoming an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Clarke says, “I look forward to the stimulating challenge of imagining words of beauty and emotion that might possibly mirror and echo the multicultural mosaic that is Toronto the Great.”