Tim Lilburn was born in Regina. He has published nine books of poetry, including To the River (1999), Kill-site (2003), Orphic Politics (2008) and Assiniboia (2012). His work has received Canada’s Governor General’s Award (for Kill-site), the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award and the Canadian Authors Association Award, among other prizes. A selection of his poetry is collected in Desire Never Leaves: The Poetry of Tim Lilburn (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007). Lilburn has produced two books of essays, both concerned with poetics, eros, and politics, especially environmentalism: Living in the World as if It Were Home (1999) and Going Home (2008). His work has been translated into Mandarin, French, Spanish, German, Polish and Serbian. A new poetry collection, The Names, was recently published in 2016, and a book of essays entitled The Larger Conversation: Contemplation and Place will be published by The University of Alberta Press in the fall 2017. Lilburn currently teaches at the University of Victoria.
ArtsEverywhere asked poets Tim Lilburn and Philip Kevin Paul to write about their experiences as a student (Lilburn) and teacher (Paul) of SENĆOŦEN, the language of the W̱SÁNEĆ—the original tongue of the Saanich
