Library and Archives Canada Youth Advisory Council
In November 2023 I was selected as one of 20 Canadian youth aged 16 to 25 to participate in Library and Archives Canada's Youth Advisory Council (LAC-YAC). This is a contracted position which will finish in May of 2024. The purpose of the council is to help LAC understand how youth view, access and relate to Canada's documentary heritage, as well as asses current public service and outreach offerings in order to provide recommendation and ideas on service transformation.
As a member of the 2023/2024 LAC YAC cohort, my role is to attend monthly zoom meetings, participating in discussion with LAC employees and other YAC members. We are responsible for completing monthly assignments and research and promoting the LAC. We are also expected to develop recommendations on how the LAC should interact with the public through communications, programming, and services.
Meetings & Discussion
Every month, the LAC-YAC meets on zoom for 1.5 hours. LAC employees share information with cohort members, discussion is facilitated, and we are assigned our project for completion the following month.
Assignments
There is a variety of assignments we engage in. Some are research focused, assessing usability of LAC resources. Others are writing based, providing an opportunity to explore Canadian heritage through a unique lens. Sometimes, we are encouraged to attend conferences or provide submissions for relevant writing opportunities.
Gwendolyn MacEwen Sample
Gwendolyn MacEwen was a celebrated Canadian writer. Referenced as “the last of the bardic poets’ by Michael Ondaantje, MacEwen was born in Toronto in 1941. She published her first poem in the Canadian Forum at age 17, and her first poetry collection, titled The Drunken Clock, by the age of 20. By 1967, she was awarded the Governor General’s Award for Writing for her poetry collection, The Shadowmaker.
MacEwen produced work rich in symbolism and metaphor, imbued with all that is mystical and occult. She was particularly fascinated by themes in Egyptian and Greek mythology, writing several novels on topics playing with qualities of magic, history, and hermetic philosophies. Teaching herself Hebrew, Arabic, French, and Greek, she eventually translated the Aristophanes play, The Birds, from Greek to English amidst a relationship with Greek writer Yiannis Ritsos.
Emerging in history at the height of Second Wave Feminism, MacEwen rose to be one of Canada’s few femme poets to reach celebrity. Writing everything from novels, to poetry, to children’s books, her work often appeared alongside the likeness of fellow Canadian writers such as Leonard Cohen and Margret Atwood, whom she not only shared the skill of the craft with but also an expansive friendship. In Atwood’s 1990 short story Isis in Darkness, the poet Selena is based on MacEwen.
Parallel her influence, MacEwen battled alcoholism her whole life. Plagued by the very forces which illustrate her writing so boldly, her prolific career was cut short in 1987 at the age of 46. While it is speculated she died of alcoholism, some alleged she had committed suicide. Physically escaping the suffering she wrote so sincerely of on this plane, her voice has been preserved.
MacEwen’s savvy utilization of early recording techniques have made her spoken word widely available online, immortalizing her haunting prose. Recordings of hers can be found to this day, MacEwen speaking in an airy hush, whispering of forces few are privy to personal acquaintance with. Her writing remains as one of Canada’s most precious literary gems.
