Di Brandt was born in Winkler, Manitoba in 1952 and grew up in Reinland, a conservative Mennonite village in Southern Manitoba. She has earned degrees from the University of Manitoba and the University of Toronto.
She has taught creative writing and English at the University of Winnipeg and is a former poetry editor of the journals Prairie Fire, Contemporary Verse 2, and HERizons.
Brandt was awarded the Gerald H. Lampert award for Questions I Asked My Mother in 1987 and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award for Agnes in the Sky in 1991. She has also been nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.
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