Maxianne Berger

Maxianne Berger’s most recent book is Dismantled Secrets (Wolsak and Wynn, 2008). She has been involved with poetry in and around Montreal since 1985. Her debut collection, How We Negotiate, appeared in 1999 with Empyreal Press. A French version was published by Écrits des forges in 2006; translated by Florence Buathier, it is titled Compromis. Her recent poems flow in two directions: in some she explores OuLiPo-style constraints, and in others the minimalism of Japanese forms. Her “Winnows” project serves these approaches simultaneously. Active in both the French and English haiku and tanka communities, she reviews for Tanka Canada’s Gusts, and writes on the poetics of tanka for the Revue du tanka francophone. In 2003, she co-edited (with Angela Leuck) the anthology Sun Through the Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today. In 2012 and 2013, she co-edited two French-language tanka anthologies (with Mike Montreuil of Ottawa) for Éditions des petits nuages.