Gage hb, jr. high history text, 1951; illustrations by Selwyn Dewdney
Signed title page and letter to Greg Gatenby, Harbourfront Reading Series, 1991
(left) dj, University of Toronto Press, 1960; owned/signed by Elizabeth Brewster; (right) softcover US ed. Norton, 1966)
(Flatsigned softcover; Oxford U Press, 1991)
(left) Flatsigned softcover, Brick Books, 2002, cover photo: after a photo by Paul Best, Alan Siu: layout design; (right) Porcupine’s Quill, 2003–1 of an excellent three-book series; a highly recommended overview and principal collection of Avison’s work)
(left: softcover McClelland & Stewart, 2006, cover design: KT, cover image: Jila Nikpay; middle: softcover McClelland & Stewart, 2009, cover image: Anthea Baxter-Page, Cover design: Sean Tai; right: softcover Porcupine’s Quill, 2009; cover is after a painting by William Gill entitled “Winter Twister”, 2006, from Susan Sherk collection)
(left: John Reeves photo, 1991; right: John Reeves photo, 1972)
(Folkways Records, 1958; Smithsonian Folkways Archival, 2007–originally on vinyl LP, now on DVD; Avison reads 4 poems)
Margaret Avison (1918-2007) was born in Galt, ON and spent her childhood in Regina. She earned a BA from U of T in 1940, then an MA there in 1965; she later taught at U of T in 1967-68. She was Writer-in-Residence at U of W ON in 1973-74. Avison had numerous day jobs all through her adult life and was a librarian, a social worker, a teacher and secretary of the Mustard Seed Mission in Toronto, the latter from 1978 to 1986. Her book Concrete and Wild Carrot won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2003. She also won two Governor-General’s Awards in 1960 (for Winter Sun) and 1970 (for No Time).
Avison has been arguably called our country’s greatest-ever woman poet, though some readers might vote instead for Miriam Waddington, P.K. Page, or Margaret Atwood. When I came to include a featured Canadian poet in my Inside Poetry textbook, I chose Atwood, who was more widely and popularly known. I have, at other times, felt Page or Waddington to be the top poet in this category. But since the publication of Avison’s three books of collected poems and several late publications, I have been more inclined to believe her the most varied and prolific of the poets mentioned here. Who do you think is/was the best?