Life
Arthur Bourinot was born in Ottawa, Ontario, the son of Lady Isabelle and Sir John George Bourinot. He was educated at Ottawa Collegiate Institute, and University College, Toronto. Graduating in 1915, he found a position as a civil servant in Canada's Department of Indian Affairs, but almost immediately took a leave of absence to serve in World War I. He served overseas in the Canadian Army and Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force). He was a prisoner of war in 1917 and 1918.
After the war, Bourinot received his legal training from Osgoode Hall Law School. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1920. He practiced law in Ottawa until retiring in 1959.
Bourinot began publishing poetry as an undergraduate, and brought out his first book, the slim 24-poem Laurentian Lyrics and Other Poems in December, 1915. The Encyclopedia of Literature has called him "a deft versifier enthralled with the beauty of nature, the major subject of both his poems and his paintings." Confederation Poet Duncan Campbell Scott was his close friend and mentor.
Bourinot's verse was at first traditional with little experimentation, but by Under the Sun (1939) was showing "a new versatility in its terse rhythms and free verse, and in its frank poems about the Depression and the coming war." Under the Sun won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama in 1939.
Bourinot edited the Canadian Poetry Magazine from 1948 to 1954 and from 1966 to 1968. He was editor of Canadian Author and Bookman from 1953 to 1954, and an associate editor from 1957 to 1960. During that period he began to edit and privately publish volumes of the correspondence of Scott, Lampman, and Edward William Thomson.
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