Margaret Avison (born April 23, 1918) is a Canadian poet. April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...

Avison was born in Galt, Ontario. She went to Victoria College and the University of Toronto. Aside from her poetry, she also worked as a librarian, editor, social worker, and speaker. Map of the Region of Waterloo with Cambridge in red. ... Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Other Canadian provinces and territories Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant-Governor James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) Area 1,076,395 km² (4th) • Land 917,741 km² • Water 158,654 km² (14. ... Victoria University (Vic for short) is a federated school of the University of Toronto, consisting of Victoria College and Emmanuel College. ... Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto (U of T), in Toronto, Ontario, is the largest university in Canada. ...

Her first collection of poems was called The Winter Sun, which won the Governor General's Award. Her later collection, No Time, also won the Governor General's Award. In 2003 her work Concrete and Wild Carrot won the lucrative Griffin Poetry Prize. Since their creation in 1937, the Governor Generals Literary Awards have become one of Canadas most prestigious prizes, awarded in both French and English in seven categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Drama, Childrens Literature-Text, Childrens Literature-Illustration, and Translation. ... 2003 (MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canadas youngest and most lucrative poetry award. ...

Avison could be considered a spiritual or metaphysical poet. She converted to the Christian faith in the 1960s. The 1960s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ...

In 1984 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Order of Canada is Canadas highest civilian honour, with membership awarded to those who exemplify the Orders Latin motto Desiderantes meliorem patriam, which means, They desire a better country. ...

Publications

Poetry

• Concrete and Wild Carrot. Brick Books, 2002. (winner of the 2003 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)
• No Time. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot P, 1989; Brick Books, 1998.
• Not Yet but Still. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot P, 1997; Brick Books, 1998.
• Selected Poems. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1991.
• Winter Sun/ The Dumbfounding: poems, 1940-66. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982.
• sunblue. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press, 1978.
• The Cosmic Chef Glee & Perloo Memorial Society under the direction of Captain Poetry presents an evening of concrete (poems by Margaret Avison [and others] edited by B.P. Nichol.); courtesy Oberon Cement Works. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1970.
• The Dumbfounding. New York: Norton, 1966.
• Winter Sun. London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1960.

The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canadas youngest and most lucrative poetry award. ... Perloo, also called pilau, perlau, plaw, pilaw, pilaf, or pilaff. ...

Prose

• A kind of perseverance. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press, 1994
• A Doctor's Memoirs (from papers and conversations with Dr. A.I. Wolinsky) Macmillan, 1960
• Acta Sanctorum (translation in collaboration with Ilona Duczynska & Peter Owen, 1966)
• History of Ontario [for Grade VII] [illustrations by Selwyn Dewdney]. Toronto : W.J. Gage,1951.
• The research compendium; review and abstracts of graduate research, 1942-1962. [Toronto] University of Toronto Press [c1964]

Critical Materials

Book Length

• Kent, David, ed. Lighting Up The Terrain: The Poetry of Margaret Avison. Toronto: ECW Press, 1987.
• Margaret Avison and Her Works. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989.
• Mazoff, Chaim D.Waiting for the Son: Images of Release and Restoration in Margaret Avison's Poetry. Dunvegan, Ont.: Cormorant Books, 1989.

Articles

• Anderson, Mia. "Conversation with the Star Messenger: An Enquiry into Margaret Avison's Winter Sun." Studies in Canadian Literature/Etudes en Litterature Canadienne (SCL), 6.1 (1981): 82-132.
• Bowen, Deborah. "Phoenix from the Ashes: Lorna Crozier and Margaret Avison in Contemporary Mourning." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 40 (1997): 46-57.
• Calverley, Margaret. "'Service Is Joy': Margaret Avison's Sonnet Sequence in Winter Sun."Essays on Canadian Writing. 50 (1993): 210-30.
• "The Avison Collection at the University of Manitoba: Poems 1929-89." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 28 (1991): 54-84.
• Cohn-Sfetcu, Ofelia. "To Live in Abundance of Life: Time in Canadian Literature." Canadian Literature. 76 (1978): 25-36.
• Guptara, Prabhu S. "A Dark Reservoir of Gladness: Margaret Avison's Third Volume of Verse."The Literary Criterion. 16.1 (1981): 42-45.
• Jones, Lawrence M. "A Core of Brilliance: Margaret Avison's Achievement." Canadian Literature. 38 (1968): 50-57.
• Kent, David A. "Wholehearted Poetry; Halfhearted Criticism." Essays on Canadian Writing. 44 (1991): 67-78.
• Mazoff, David. "Through the Son: An Explication of Margaret Avison's 'Person.'" Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 22: (1988): 40-48.
• Moisan, Clement. "Rina Lasnier et Margaret Avison." Liberte. 108 (1976): 21-33.
• New, William H. "The Mind's (I's) (Ice): The Poetry of Margaret Avison." Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal. 16 (1970): 185-202.
• Quinsey, K. M. "The Dissolving Jail-Break in Avison." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 25 (1989): 21-37.
• Redekop, Ernest H. "Sun/Son Light/Light: Avison's Elemental Sunblue." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 7 (1980): 21-37.
• Somerville, Christine. "The Shadow of Death: Margaret Avison's 'Just Left or The Night Margaret Laurence Died.'" New, W. H. (ed.). Inside the Poem: Essays and Poems in Honour of Donald Stephens. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1992: 55-59.
• Sullivan, R. "The Territory of Conscience: The Poetry of Margaret Avison." Literary Half-Yearly." 32.1 (1991): 43-55.
• Zezulka, J. M. "Refusing the Sweet Surrender: Margaret Avison's 'Dispersed Titles'" Canadian Poetry 1 (1977): 44-53.
• Zichy, Francis. "'Each in His Prison/Thinking of the Key': Images of Confinement and Liberation in Margaret Avison." Studies in Canadian Literature. 3 (1978): 232-43.

Source for list of publications: "100 Canadian Poets" and Margaret Avison's home page

External links

• Griffin Poetry Prize biography, including audio clip