Author of seven books of poetry (most recently the visual poem suite Kern), four volumes of conceptual fiction (most recently the short fiction collection Local Colour: ghosts, variations) and over 150 chapbooks, derek beaulieu’s work is consistently praised as some of the most radical and challenging in contemporary Canadian writing.
His first volume of criticism, Seen of the Crime, was published Fall 2011 by Snare Books and is now available on UBUWeb. In 2012 Bookthug published his critical edition (co-edited with Gregory Betts) of bill bissett’s seminal 1972 volume of experimental commentary RUSH: what fuckan theory and in 2013 Wilfrid Laurier University Press published Writing Surfaces: Selected Fiction of John Riddell (co-edited with Lori Emerson).
In 2013 Wilfrid Laurier University Press published Please, no more poetry: the poetry of derek beaulieu as edited by Kit Dobson. This marks the 1st time an author under 40 has been honoured by inclusion in this series.
beaulieu teaches Creative Writing, Theory and Contemporary Canadian Literature at the Alberta College of Art + Design.
In 2011 beaulieu was named by Broken Pencil Magazine as one of their “favourite indie artists of the last 15 years” and in 2007 he was the Alberta Magazine Publishers’ Association’s Volunteer of the Year. He has also been nominated as part of The Calgary Herald / Calgary Public Library 10 Calgary Mavericks (2010), Avenue Magazine’s Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 (2009) and the Alberta Magazine Publishers’ Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2009). He was a short-listed nominee for the position of Calgary’s 1st Poet Laureate (2011). beaulieu’s papers are collected by Simon Fraser University’s Contemporary Literature Collection.
Publisher of the acclaimed smallpresses housepress (1997-2004) and no press (2005-present), and former editor of filling Station, dANDelion, endNote, Speechless and The Minute Review, beaulieu has spoken and written on poetics internationally in both popular and academic settings.
beaulieu is the Visual / Concrete Poetry Editor for Ubuweb.