Margaret Avison - Life

Life

Avison was born in Galt, Ontario, and grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Calgary, Alberta., the daughter of a Methodist minister. As a teenager she was hospitalized for anorexia.

She attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, getting her B.A. in 1940 (and returning to pick up her M.A. in 1965). She began publishing poetry in the college magazine, Acta Victoriana.

"Despite the fact that Avison dedicated her life to poetry, she 'never wanted to "be a poet."'" She "worked as a librarian, social worker, and teacher, writing her poetry in the evenings." "Until her retirement at 68, she was a 'wage-earner,' never applying for a Canada Council grant and quitting several jobs whenever they threatened to evolve into a time-sucking 'career.'"

She "has taught at Scarborough College, and did social work at the Presbyterian Church Mission in Toronto." She "also wrote a textbook, History of Ontario, for junior high school students, published in 1951."

"In addition to her own poetry, Avison translated poems and short stories from Hungarian to English."

Avison's poem "Gatineau" appeared in Canadian Poetry Magazine in 1939. In 1943, anthologist A.J.M. Smith included her poetry in his Book of Canadian Poetry. (In her autobiography, she mentions a "chaste skinny dip" with Smith.)

In 1956 Avison received a Guggenheim Fellowship, "which she used to travel to Chicago. There she completed her first poetry anthology, Winter Sun." between 1956 and 1957.

It was not until three years later that her first book of poems, Winter Sun, was published. Winter Sun won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1960.

Avison converted to Christianity (from agnosticism) in 1963. She wrote about that experience in her second book of poetry, The Dumbfounding (1966). Her friend, English professor Joseph Zezulka, said of her Christian faith: "It was a private religious conviction, adding: "She was kindliness itself. She had so much tolerance and charity for her fellow beings, and I think that's the important thing about her Christianity."

Avison was writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario in 1972-73. From 1973 to 1978 she worked in the archives division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 1978 she joined Toronto's Mustard Seed Mission, and worked there until her retirement in 1986.

Avison became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1984.

Her fourth collection of poems, No Time, came out in 1990, and won her a second Governor General's Award.

In 2003 Avison's Concrete and Wild Carrot won the Griffin Poetry Prize. "Lauding Avison as 'a national treasure,' Griffin Poetry Prize judges praised the 'sublimity' and 'humility' of her poetry -- which they described as 'some of the most humane, sweet and profound poetry of our time.'"

Margaret Avison died in Toronto on July 31, 2007, age 89, from undisclosed causes.