Anne Wilkinson (poet)

Anne Wilkinson
Born Anne Gibbons
(1910-09-21)September 21, 1910
Toronto, Ontario
Died May 10, 1961(1961-05-10) (aged 50)
Toronto, Ontario
Occupation Poet
Language English
Nationality Canada Canadian
Genre Poetry

Anne Cochran Wilkinson (September 21, 1910 – May 10, 1961) was a Canadian poet.[1] She was part of the modernist movement in Canadian poetry in the 1940s and 1950s, one of only a few prominent women poets of the time, along with Dorothy Livesay and P. K. Page.

Early life

Wilkinson was born Anne Gibbons in Toronto. She grew up in London, Ontario[2] and, after her father's early death in 1919, in Toronto, California, and at the country estate of her maternal grandfather, Sir Edmund Boyd Osler, at Roches Point on Lake Simcoe[3].

Career

Wilkinson published two books of poetry, Counterpoint to Sleep (1951) and The Hangman Ties the Holly (1955).[4] A founding editor and patron of the literary quarterly The Tamarack Review, she also wrote a family history, Lions in the Way (1956), about her maternal family, the Oslers, and a modern fairy tale for children, Swann and Daphne (1960), before her early death from cancer in 1961. Her work was anthologized in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, appeared in several prominent Canadian literary journals of the day, including Northern Review and The Tamarack Review, was broadcast on CBC Radio's Anthology and recorded on the album Six Toronto Poets, alongside the works of W.W.E. Ross, Raymond Souster, Margaret Avison, James Reaney and Jay Macpherson.

After her death, her close friend A. J. M. Smith published The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir in 1968.[5] Her writing was also put to music by Oskar Morawetz and, in the early 1990s, re-examined by editor, Joan Coldwell.

Wilkinson's work has enjoyed something of a revival since the publication in 2003 of Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961, edited by Dean Irvine, with appearances and discussion in anthologies such as Modern Canadian Poets[6] and Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women's Poetry[7].

Bibliography

Poetry

  • Counterpoint to Sleep. Montreal: First Statement Press, 1951.
  • The Hangman Ties the Holly. Toronto: Macmillan, 1955.

Prose

  • Lions in the Way: A Discursive History of the Oslers. Toronto: Macmillan, 1956.
  • Swann and Daphne, a children's story. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1960.

Posthumous books and other works

  • The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, ed. A.J.M. Smith. Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
  • Elegy: Voice and Piano, music Oskar Morawetz, words Anne Wilkinson. Aneneas Music, 1989.
  • The Poetry of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, ed. Joan Coldwell. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1990.
  • The Tightrope Walker: Autobiographical Writings of Anne Wilkinson, ed. Joan Coldwell. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
  • Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961, ed. Dean Irvine. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2003.
  • The Essential Anne Wilkinson - poems, ed. Ingrid Ruthig. Erin: The Porcupine's Quill, 2014.[8][9]

References and further reading

  1. ↑ NA NA. Commonwealth Literature. Springer; 3 January 2016. ISBN 978-1-349-86101-9. p. 271–.
  2. ↑ "Anne Wilkinson" at The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "Biography of Anne Wilkinson" at canwwrfrom1950.org: Canadian Women Writers from 1950
  4. ↑ Northrop Frye. The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination. House of Anansi Press Incorporated; 13 September 1995. ISBN 978-0-88784-878-0. p. 47–.
  5. ↑ Making Canada New: Editing, Modernism, and New Media. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division; 17 March 2017. ISBN 978-1-4875-1136-4. p. 120–.
  6. ↑ Evan Jones & Todd Swift, editors. Modern Canadian Poets. Carcanet Press; 2010. ISBN 978-1-85754-938-6. p. 33–.
  7. ↑ Di Brandt & Barbara Godard, editors. Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women’s Poetry. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press; 8 September 2011. ISBN 978-1-55458-690-5. p. 125–.
  8. ↑ "Review: A Little and a Lot". Canadian Literature, November 12, 2015
  9. ↑ "Review: The Essential Anne Wilkinson, edited by Ingrid Ruthig". Bullcalf Review, February, 2016
  • Smith, A.J.M. "A Reading of Anne Wilkinson". Introduction to The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, ed. A.J.M. Smith. Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
  • Lecker, Robert. "Better Quick Than Dead: Anne Wilkinson's Poetry". Studies in Canadian Literature Volume 3, Number 1, 1978.
  • Coldwell, Joan. "Anne Wilkinson." The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, ed. William Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983.
  • Armitage, Christopher. Anne Wilkinson and Her Works. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989.
  • Irvine, Dean. Introduction to Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2003.
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