Poet and children’s author, Assistant Professor Dave Hickey is also the Coordinator of UPEI's Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture (ACLC) program.
In 2014, Hickey’s Ph.D. dissertation was awarded the Karl F. Klinck Prize for outstanding work in the field of Canadian Literature at Western University, and in 2019, he was the recipient of the UPEI Faculty Association Hessian Merit Award for Excellence in Teaching. His first book of poetry, In the Lights of a Midnight Plow, was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award, and Safe Vehicles for a Dying Planet was shortlisted for the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Hickey is also a past recipient of the Milton Acorn Prize and the Ralph Gustafson Prize.
This is the first stanza of “Night Crossing to Prince Edward Island,” included in Dave Hickey’s 2011 book of poetry Open Air Bindery:
Night Crossing to Prince Edward Island
The car settling onto the bridge,
the water hidden behind
guard rails as if only
the blindfold could cross,
the pavement running
high over broken
ice: I haven’t been here until
now, the passage
foreign each time,
exiting Veterans Highway,
half-expecting
an hour’s rest while the boat
empties, and the beams
of travelers grip
the tail lights ahead,
a company moving
predictably as
blue edges a map of land.
Dave Hickey’s poetry publications:
- In the Lights of a Midnight Plow (Biblioasis, 2006)
- Open Air Bindery (Biblioasis, 2011)
- Safe Vehicles for a Dying Planet (Baseline Press, 2021)