Audrey Poetker
{{Short description|Canadian writer}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Audrey Poetker
| birth_name =
| image =
| birth_date = {{birth year|1962}}
| birth_place = Steinbach, Manitoba
| occupation = Poet
| period = 1980s–present
| nationality = Canadian
| notableworks = standing all the night through
| spouse = {{marriage|Jack Thiessen|1991|2022|end=died}}
| website =
| alma_mater =
}}
Audrey Poetker (born 1962) is a Canadian poet and translator from New Bothwell, Manitoba.{{cite book|title=i sing for my dead in german|author=Audrey Poetker|publisher=Turnstone Press|year=1986}}{{cite web|title=An Explorer's Guide to Manitoba Books|publisher=Armin Wiebe|url=http://www.arminwiebe.ca/Pages/!books.htm|accessdate=August 20, 2022}}
Career
Born in Steinbach, Manitoba,{{cite book|title=i sing for my dead in german|author=Audrey Poetker|publisher=Turnstone Press|year=1986}} Poetker grew up in a Mennonite home in rural Manitoba.{{cite book|title=i sing for my dead in german|author=Audrey Poetker|publisher=Turnstone Press|year=1986}} She began publishing poetry in the 1980s and is the author of three volumes of poetry: i sing for my dead in german (1986), standing all the night through (1992) (writing as Audrey Poetker-Thiessen) and Making Strange to Yourself (1999), all published by Turnstone Press.{{cite book|title=Making Believe:Questions About Mennonites and Art|author=Magdalene Redekop|publisher=University of Manitoba Press}} standing all the night through was a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.{{cite book|title=A Capella:Mennonite Voices in Poetry|author=Ann Hostetler|publisher=University of Iowa Press}} Along with Di Brandt her work is considered an important early example of secular Mennonite poetry and, along with Armin Wiebe, she is noted for the use of untranslated Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German) words within her texts.{{cite web|title=Book Reviews|publisher=Journal of Mennonite Studies|url=https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?start=10&q=audrey+poetker&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5}}{{cite book|title=Reading Mennonite Writing:A Study in Minor Transnationalism|author=Robert Zacharias|publisher=Penn State University Press|year=2022}}
Poetker was married to lexicographer Jack Thiessen from 1991 until his death in 2022, with whom she has translated Bern G. Langin's The Russian Germans Under the Double Eagle and the Soviet Star into English.{{cite book|title=A Capella:Mennonite Voices in Poetry|author=Ann Hostetler|publisher=University of Iowa Press}}{{cite web|title=Jack Peter Thiessen Obituary|publisher=Crossings Funeral Care|url=https://www.crossingsfuneralcare.ca/obituaries/john-thiessen|accessdate=October 12, 2022}}
References
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Category:People from Eastman Region, Manitoba
Category:Writers from Steinbach, Manitoba
Category:20th-century Canadian poets
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