Clara A.B. Joseph, just named the 2026-28 Calgary Poet Laureate, said there is one ritual that proves most effective in transporting her to a thoughtful creative headspace.

Prayer.

“It has been very important for me to have that spiritual life,” said Joseph, a University of Calgary English professor. "It’s not that my poems are devotional, far from it, but the poems have gained clarity in terms of a point of view or position through the words, of course, but also through the ethical direction that comes from prayer.”

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A committed prayer life is a pathway to better listening and discernment skills, both of which the believer in Christ self-identified as pivotal for her to properly and compellingly tell Calgary’s story.

“Poetry begins in listening, and in the discernment that listening requires,” said Joseph, who was born in India. “In a city such as Calgary, with its many histories, languages and ways of being, I see this role as an invitation to attend more carefully to one another. I hope to help create spaces where poetry is encountered not as something distant, but as a shared practice of reflection, care and connection. I am honoured to serve this city in that spirit.”

Joseph’s first collection of poetry debuted in 2016. The Face of the Other is an examination of the personal and societal themes and ideas related to colonial power and the process of “othering people,” anchored around the repeated image of the face seen from different angles and aspects. She also published Dandelions for Bhabha (2018) and M/Other (2024), which earned her first-place in poetry from the Catholic Media Association awards in 2025.

“It is a collection that's dedicated to my mother-in-law,” said Joseph about her prize-winning work. “She passed away more recently. She liked boiled eggs, and there was a particular poem where she extended a boiled egg to me as I was about to leave for the airport. The title is ‘Hard-Boiled Egg.’  I think I could call it one of my favourite poems.”

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Patti Pon, the president and CEO of Calgary Arts Development, praised Joseph for her work, which “explores memory, family and ethical attention in everyday life.” She expressed enthusiasm for how Joseph will utilize her talents through readings, conversations, collaborations with school and community organizations and other keynote civic events.

Joseph’s goal during her two-year term is to develop eight smaller communal gatherings — workshops, reading and creative writing events — and a grander city gathering centred on poetry. She also envisions developing an anthology of curated poems from the community. She will also produce work commissioned by the City Council, Calgary Arts Development and other civic bodies.

One of the blessings of this appointment, said Joseph, is that it “will make my life a lot more structured.” Her writing endeavours have been split between the creative and critical streams. Now she gets to lean into a particular path for a defined period.

As Joseph the poet prepares to take more centre stage than Joseph the critic for the next two years, there are convictions the writer seeks to impart about the nature of poetry and its place in a world increasingly moving at a dizzying pace.

“Poetry slows us down,” said Joseph. "It asks us to listen to language, to one another, to what is not easily said, but it also helps us think beyond ourselves. Even when a poem begins with the self, it can widen outward toward the body, the mind, the soul, the community and the natural world around us. The kind of poetry I value refuses to remain in navel-gazing. It teaches attention, discipline and humility. I think poetry turns both the poet and the reader towards the other.”

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Regarding Joseph’s academic oeuvre, the post-colonial critic and theorist wrote two books about the St. Thomas Christians of India: Christianity in India: The Anti-Colonial Turn (2019) and 2024's India’s Nonviolent Freedom Struggle: The Thomas Christians (1599–1799).

“What I noticed in scholarship is the assumption that colonization's purpose was to Christianize. When that idea is dominant, one loses sight of the economic basis of colonialism,” said Joseph. “I was able to introduce the Thomas Christian cases into post-colonial studies as a way to unsettle that position because the Thomas Christian tradition claims a very ancient heritage.”