Meisner will hold the two-year position until 2022 and replaces Sheri-D Wilson. The program has been running since 2012, when local songwriter Kris Demeanor was appointed Calgary’s first poet laureate. He was followed by derek beaulieu, who served from 2014 to 2016, Micheline Maylor from 2016 to 2018, and Wilson from 2018 to 2020.

She grew up in the South Shore of Nova Scotia and has lived in Calgary for the past 20 years. Her most recent book of poetry is Baddie One Shoe — a series of performance poems that a recent article from Mount Royal University described as “an ode to all the tough, bold and brash women out there who are unafraid of consequences and unwilling to accept the status quo.” Meisner also wrote the non-fiction book Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family and the children’s book, My Mommy, My Mama, My Brother & Me.

She is professor in the Department of English, Languages and Cultures at Mount Royal and penned a number of stage plays, including Boom Baby and Speed Dating for Sperm Donors.